AccAnalysisAccAnalysis
Professional Services

Know the margin on an engagement while you can still change it

Projects, timesheets and billing wired straight into the ledger, so delivery, revenue and utilisation are one set of numbers. Every invoice line traces back to an approved timesheet entry.

ProjectsTimesheetsAuto-invoice
What's already built
  • Modules configured
  • Automations running
  • AI agents
  • Reports and documents

Already running before we meet your data.

You probably need this if…

  • You find out an engagement lost money at the end of it.
  • Timesheets arrive late, and the bill goes out later.
  • Utilisation is calculated in a spreadsheet that only one person understands.
  • Work-in-progress and revenue recognition are a month-end argument.
  • Scope creep is visible to the delivery team long before it's visible to finance.
  • Subcontractor cost lands somewhere other than the engagement that used it.
Inside the blueprint

What's already built

Modules configured

Projects with phases, work packages and budgets; timesheets with approval chains; expenses with policy limits and rebilling rules; sales with fixed-fee, time-and-materials and retainer contract types; invoicing with milestone, progress and time billing; resource planning; CRM; and accounting with WIP and revenue recognition.

Automations running

Approved time converting to draft invoice lines, held time surfaced with a reason rather than silently dropped, expense rebilling per policy, WIP accrual and release on invoice, revenue recognition on approval, budget-versus-actual alerts at thresholds you set, utilisation calculated on a single agreed definition, and subcontractor cost attributed to the engagement.

AI agents

A scope-drift detector that compares logged effort against the work-package plan and flags divergence early; an estimate assistant that prices new work from the actual effort profile of comparable delivered engagements.

Reports and documents

Engagement margin with WIP and realisation, utilisation by person and grade, pipeline against capacity, backlog and revenue forecast, invoice with drill-down to timesheet, and a WIP report that agrees with the ledger.

The screens

The system, before we touch it

1The screens

The portfolio, with margin per engagement

Built from approved timesheet lines rather than estimated. Contracted, delivered and unbilled WIP side by side; status called plainly — on plan, scope creep, at risk. Underneath, utilisation by person against target, split into billable, internal and unassigned, with the people below target named rather than averaged away.

The portfolio, with margin per engagement — Built from approved timesheet lines rather than estimated. Contracted, delivered and unbilled WIP side by side; status called plainly — on plan, scope creep, at risk. Underneath, utilisation by person against target, split into billable, internal and unassigned, with the people below target named rather than averaged away.
2The screens

One week becoming one invoice

The timesheet grid with billable and held entries, the reason each held entry is held and who has to resolve it, expenses with their rebilling treatment, and the draft invoice on the right — every line expandable back to the entries and the approver behind it.

One week becoming one invoice — The timesheet grid with billable and held entries, the reason each held entry is held and who has to resolve it, expenses with their rebilling treatment, and the draft invoice on the right — every line expandable back to the entries and the approver behind it.

Illustrative data. Your instance is configured to your entities, currency and chart of accounts.

Your 20%

What we tailor

Your engagement types and rate cards, approval hierarchy and thresholds, your utilisation definition (the number that causes the most arguments — we make you define it once), expense policy, revenue recognition basis, invoice layout, and the grade structure your pricing depends on.

What we won't do

Back-date a utilisation methodology to make a past quarter look better. One definition, applied consistently, from a stated start date.

Time to live

Weeks to live, in phases

PhaseWeeksWhat happens
1Fit review
1–2

Engagement types, rate cards, utilisation definition, recognition basis

2Foundation
2

Entities, accounts, WIP structure, environments

3Delivery layer
2–3

Projects, work packages, timesheets, approvals

4Billing layer
2–3

Contract types, invoicing rules, expense rebilling, recognition

5Pilot
2

One practice or one office through a full billing cycle

6Roll-out
ongoing

Practice by practice

Typical first practice live in 8–10 weeks.

Connects to

Connects to

Calendar and emailE-signatureHR and payrollExpense capture and receipt OCRCRM and proposal toolsBank feedsYour BI tool
Measurement

What it moves

  • Days from period end to invoice
  • Realisation rate
  • Utilisation by grade
  • Engagement margin variance against plan
  • Unbilled WIP age
  • Proportion of time logged within 48 hours

We baseline each of these in the fit review so the change is provable rather than asserted.

What you keep

Yours at the end of the engagement

  • The production system
  • Rate cards and contract templates
  • The utilisation and recognition definitions documented
  • Custom code in your repository
  • Approval configuration
  • The reporting layer
Track record

Relevant experience

Custom business platform for an advertising and communications group across two legal entities, covering HR, finance, traffic and resource management (Pakistan).

Three-year IT-controls audit support for that group, covering access control, evidence and audit readiness.

Metabase and Power BI reporting layers built over live Odoo accounting and operations data.

FAQ

Common questions

Our people won't fill in timesheets.

They will if it takes under two minutes a day and the categories match how they actually think about their work. That's a configuration problem more than a discipline problem, and it's where the pilot spends its time.

Can we run fixed-fee and time-and-materials in the same engagement?

Yes — mixed contracts with different billing rules per work package are part of the blueprint. Recognition follows the rule on the package, not the header.

What about multi-currency and cross-border delivery?

Configured in the blueprint. People bill in their entity's currency, engagements report in the contract currency, and the group consolidates. Intercompany recharge is automatic, with the transfer-pricing basis documented.

How does this compare to a dedicated PSA tool?

A dedicated PSA is often better at resourcing. It is almost always worse at the ledger, and it means a second system and a reconciliation. If you're big enough to need both, we integrate rather than argue.

Keep reading

Related solutions

How it gets delivered

Bring us one closed engagement. We'll rebuild its margin from your own timesheet data and show you where the number you reported and the number that happened differ.