Practical guides on project profitability, billable utilisation, resource planning, and running a more commercially disciplined agency or consultancy.
Use this sales-to-delivery handover checklist to give project teams the scope, budget, assumptions and client context they need before kickoff.
Read articleA practical framework for measuring client profitability across projects, retainers and support work, and using the result to improve account decisions.
Learn how to compare planned and actual project hours, investigate variance, and run a useful weekly delivery review for professional services teams.
Stop small client requests from quietly consuming project margin. Use this practical scope creep and change control process for agency and consultancy projects.
A practical way for agencies and consultancies to forecast final cost and margin on fixed-price projects while there is still time to act.
Most project overruns aren't sudden, they're visible weeks earlier in the data nobody was looking at. Here's how RAG status and live budget alerts catch overruns while there's still time to act.
Most MSPs run delivery on a free time tracker plus a Smartsheet plan plus a spreadsheet for margin. Here's what MSP project management software should actually do, and why the standard stack falls short.
Invoicing off the back of tracked time sounds simple until the numbers don't match your budget, your Xero account and your client's expectations. Here's what agency billing software should actually connect.
Most PSA tools track time internally and leave client updates to a monthly email. Here's why a real client portal changes how consultancies retain accounts, and what to look for.
Capacity planning tools show you who's free next week. They rarely show you whether that person is actually the right one to staff, or what saying yes to a new project does to margin. Here's what to look for.
Resource planning is the discipline that separates high-performing professional services firms from those that constantly firefight. This guide covers what to look for in resource planning software and how to use it effectively.
Professional Services Automation software does not have to cost enterprise prices. This guide covers what small UK agencies actually need from PSA software, what to avoid, and how to evaluate the options.
A practical step-by-step guide for consultancies that want to measure real project margin — not just revenue. Covers cost definition, budget setting, live tracking, and the tools that make it manageable.
Billable utilisation (or utilization) rate is the most important metric in professional services. This guide explains what it is, why spreadsheets fail to track it, and what to look for in utilisation tracking software.
Discover how project profitability software helps UK agencies track live margin, spot budget overruns before they happen, and stop losing money on projects that look healthy from the outside.
Everything in these articles — project profitability, utilisation tracking, resource planning — is built into Hourglass. No spreadsheets required.
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