Consultancies: from diagnostic to report, hour by hour

For a consultancy to know whether an engagement leaves a margin, the CRM has to hold all of it: the proposal the client accepted, the project with its phases, each consultant's hours on the task where the work happened, and the final report. Then you can compare the hours used with the project budget halfway through the diagnostic, while there is still time to correct course. In AgentticCRM all of that sits in the client record, and the invoice comes from what was agreed or from the hours logged.

Picture a five-person consultancy that sold a fixed-price process diagnostic: six weeks, interviews with each department, a report and a presentation to management. In the third week the client still hasn't sent the sales data, the interviews had to be repeated because the operations manager changed, and the report is on its fourth version attached to an email. Nobody knows how many hours the engagement has taken until the partner asks each consultant to rebuild their week in a spreadsheet, and by then there is no budget left for the analysis.

Where a consulting engagement loses its margin

On a fixed-price engagement, every extra hour comes out of the consultancy's margin. The leaks look much the same from one firm to the next:

• The scope ended up in an email and nobody remembers what the proposal included.
• The work waits on the client (data, access, an approval) and nobody keeps track of how long it has been waiting.
• Hours are written down from memory in a separate spreadsheet and looked at only at the end.
• The report travels as attached versions and someone edits the wrong one.

A CRM for consultancies helps when all of those pieces live in the same engagement and someone can review them before it ends.

The proposal puts the scope in writing

The engagement starts in Proposals. Each line takes a description with paragraphs and lists, and that is where you write what the diagnostic includes and what it doesn't: how many interviews, how many review rounds on the report, whether the presentation to management is included or billed separately. Catalog services say whether they are billed once, by the hour or on a recurring basis, and one proposal can combine all three.

The client accepts it in their portal, and the acceptance is kept with their name, the date and the version they approved. From then on nobody rewrites it. If halfway through the engagement you're asked for five more interviews, you have the document that shows what was agreed, and the extension goes in a new proposal. When a proposal gets no answer, proposals with no reply covers when to write again.

Phases that follow your consultancy's method

In Projects, the engagement is split into the phases of your method, for example Diagnostic, Interviews, Analysis and Final report. Each phase has planned dates, actual dates and a person in charge, and each task has an owner, a priority and a date. If the scope is already in a document, you upload it when you create the project and AgentticCRM proposes a plan with phases, tasks and subtasks. You review it on screen, and the project is created when you click Create project.

You can give the project a budget and an hourly rate, and your team sees the logged time next to those figures. In the same project you mark whether the engagement is on track, at risk or off track. Projects at risk show up on the main dashboard, so the partner sees them without having to ask.

Every hour, on the task where it was worked

Time is logged on the task, with the timer or by hand. An interview that already happened is entered with its minutes and a note on what was discussed; the data analysis is timed while it happens. Each entry keeps who, how many minutes and which day, and adds to the task and project totals. Each person has only one timer running, so the same hours are never counted twice.

The Friday review gets shorter. The partner opens the project and sees how many hours it has taken against the budget, and on each task, who logged them. If the interviews have already eaten the hours planned for the analysis, she sees it in the third week, while there is still time to talk it over with the client. The details are in Tasks and time, and billable hours in agencies covers how to decide which hours get billed.

Tasks that depend on the client

Many engagements stall waiting on the client: the sales data, access to a system, the interview schedule. That task is assigned to the person on the client's side who has to deliver it. They get a notice in their portal and an email with a link to confirm it, even without an account, and when they respond the task closes. A phase with a blocked task shows as blocked even if everything else is done, so nobody mistakes "almost ready" for "ready".

The interviews don't need email chains either. You publish your booking page and each person on the client's side picks their time without creating an account.

Writing and delivering the final report

The report is written in Documents, where several people edit at once and see where each one is typing. Documents saves versions on its own, every 30 minutes while someone edits, and restoring an older one doesn't erase the latest writing. When it's ready, you download it as PDF or Word, or create a public read-only link the client opens without an account. If the link reaches the wrong person, you regenerate or revoke it.

Models, spreadsheets and the analysis stay in your team's tools, because AgentticCRM doesn't come with a consulting method. Those files are stored in the project, next to the engagement they belong to.

Invoicing the engagement

If the engagement is fixed price, the accepted proposal becomes an invoice with the same lines, taxes and discount. If it's billed by the hour, AgentticCRM prepares a draft from the project with the hours not yet invoiced, at their rate, and hours already billed don't come back in. Engagement expenses, such as a trip to the client's plant, are linked to the project and, if you tick Billable to the client, are added as invoice lines. The page for consultancies sums up the whole path, from the first meeting to payment.

Frequently asked questions

Does the client see the hours my team logs?

No. In their portal they see the progress of the project and its phases, the tasks you assigned them and whatever you marked as visible. Logged time, the budget and the rate stay with your team.

Can I bring in the engagements I already run in another tool?

Yes. You can import projects with their phases, tasks, statuses, dates and the people who did the work, even if they are no longer on the team.

How do I know whether a client leaves me a margin over the year?

In the client record, the Profitability section shows what was invoiced, collected and outstanding, the expenses and the net for that client. If you also log the hours on each engagement, you know how much work sat behind those figures.