Project businesses usually find out how a job went after it finished. Quoting, resourcing, time capture and billing live in different places, so utilization, WIP and margin are reconstructed monthly. Bringing them together makes profitability a live number instead of a post-mortem.
Almost always in the gaps between systems rather than in delivery itself.
Costs sit in one place, revenue in another and time in a third. By the time they are reconciled, the opportunity to correct course has gone.
Availability, skills and commitments are tracked manually, so people are double-booked, bench time goes unnoticed and delivery risk appears late.
Capture is painful, so it happens weekly at best. Billing waits, WIP grows, and conversations with clients start with corrections.
Change requests are agreed verbally and absorbed. Contract value never moves, and the gap between quoted and delivered effort is discovered at close.
Utilization and margin are the two numbers that determine whether a project business is healthy. If both are backward-looking, management is guesswork — however good the delivery teams are. If both are backward-looking, management is guesswork
Baselined against your current utilization, billing cycle and margin reporting lag.
Cost, revenue and committed effort visible per project while it is running, so intervention happens during delivery rather than at close.
Typical improvement in billable utilization once scheduling, bench visibility and skills matching sit in one place.
Typical reduction in days from work delivered to invoice raised once time capture, approval and billing rules are connected.
Target on-time submission once capture is quick, mobile and integrated with the tools people already work in.
Change requests captured against contract value, so the difference between quoted and delivered effort is visible and billable.
Cost and bill rates maintained by role, grade and client agreement, so margin calculations reflect reality rather than an average.
How to read these: the figures above are typical ranges we plan and measure against, not guarantees. In your first engagement we agree the baseline, the target and the measurement method in writing, then report against them.
From quoting through to revenue recognition, or targeted work on the piece that is costing you most.
Estimating, scheduling and resourcing connected, so the plan that was quoted is the plan that gets staffed.
Time, expense and change captured at the point of work, with approval workflow that does not depend on chasing.
WIP, billing rules and revenue recognition configured correctly, so invoicing is fast and accounting is defensible.
Scoped individually. Many clients start with time capture and billing because the cash impact is immediate.
Estimating templates, role-based rate cards and quote-to-project conversion, so the commercial assumptions carry through into delivery.
Skills, availability, commitments and requests managed centrally with utilization and bench reporting for delivery leadership.
Fast, mobile capture with approval workflow, integrated into the tools people already use, because compliance is a design problem.
Time and materials, fixed fee, milestone and retainer billing rules configured with proper handling of holds, write-offs and multi-currency.
Accrual, WIP and revenue recognition rules configured to your accounting policy, with the evidence trail auditors will ask for.
Live reporting by project, client, service line, grade and consultant, with drill-through to the underlying transactions.
Where margin is only known at close: rapid diagnosis of where cost and revenue data diverge, and a staged plan to bring them together.
Construction job costing and retention, professional services engagement models, agency retainers, and grant-funded project accounting for nonprofits.
Start where the money leaks, then extend across the quote-to-cash cycle.
Map the full cycle from quote to cash, including where data is re-entered and where visibility is lost.
Agree the operating model: rate structures, approval authority, billing rules and the definition of utilization you will manage to.
Configuration design covering scheduling, capture, billing and recognition, validated against real historic projects.
Build and pilot with one service line or region, then extend once the numbers reconcile to finance's satisfaction.
Review utilization and margin reporting in use, tune rate cards and workflows, and extend to remaining teams.
Timesheet compliance is a design outcome, not a discipline problem. If capture takes more than a minute a day and does not work on a phone, no policy will fix it. We design for the reality of how consultants work.
This is a domain where generic implementation experience is not enough.
Utilization targets, bench management, scope creep and awkward client billing arrangements are familiar territory, not edge cases discovered mid-project.
WIP, accruals and recognition rules are configured with your accounting policy and auditor expectations in mind from the start.
We prove the model with one service line and reconcile it to finance before extending, so credibility is established before scale.
Utilization and margin reporting is designed with the delivery leads who will be held to it, which is why it gets looked at.
Illustrative engagements, written in the structure we use for real case studies.
Quoting, scheduling, time capture and billing were connected so project leads could see cost against contract value weekly.
Site time, subcontractor cost and materials were captured against jobs in near real time, changing how commercial risk was managed.
Demo content: the organizations and measurements above are illustrative placeholders written to show the structure of a real story. Replace them with verified client results and approved references before publishing.
Material for leaders of project-based businesses.
Why margin visibility depends on the handoffs between systems, and the sequence that closes the gaps fastest.
Read moreCompliance is a design problem. What capture has to look like before consultants complete it without chasing.
Read moreRate cards, approval authority, billing rules, recognition policy and reporting definitions to agree before configuration starts.
Read moreA short review of your quote-to-cash cycle usually shows where data diverges and how quickly live margin reporting could be achieved.
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