Industry solution

Consulting, Accounting & Agencies

From signed engagement to paid invoice, without the hours leaking out

Engagements, staffing, time, delivery and billing for consultancies, accounting practices and agencies, working as one connected system.

Products
8
Challenges
6
Concepts
15
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Three professionals reviewing engagement plans and billing charts around a desk in an office at dusk
ProServiceWorld(opens ProServiceWorld in a new tab)TimeCampus(opens TimeCampus in a new tab)CrewFoundry(opens CrewFoundry in a new tab)PlanMagnet(opens PlanMagnet in a new tab)FluidGrids(opens FluidGrids in a new tab)BigConsole(opens BigConsole in a new tab)Botlit(opens Botlit in a new tab)ArtistryBase(opens ArtistryBase in a new tab)

The problem

Why running a firm that sells expertise is hard today

Firms that sell expertise lose margin at the seams between their tools: hours never recorded, sold work with no team, fixed fees that overrun unnoticed, pre-bills left sitting and retainers eaten by extra revision rounds.

Consultancies, accounting practices and agencies sell the same thing: the time and judgment of skilled people. Revenue depends on a chain that runs from a signed engagement letter to a staffed team, delivered work, recorded hours, a reviewed pre-bill, an invoice and finally cash. In most firms each link lives in a different place: a CRM, a staffing spreadsheet, a time tracker, a practice or billing system, shared drives and a great deal of email. Every hand-off between them is a place where hours, scope and money quietly go missing.

The pressures are familiar. Clients push back on hourly bills and ask for fixed fees, which moves overrun risk onto the firm. Talent is the scarce input, so a long bench costs money while the same senior people get booked onto everything and burn out. Accounting and tax teams face compressed busy seasons, independence rules and clients who send documents late. Agencies run retainers where extra revision rounds and ad hoc requests turn into unpaid work one favor at a time. And partners often argue about utilization, realization and WIP from different spreadsheets.

The fix is not another point tool. It is letting the work flow: time captured where it happens and attached to the right engagement, staffing tied to what was sold, burn visible while there is still time to act, and partners asking questions of live numbers. This page shows how several Burdenoff products are designed to work together on one workspace to do that.

Who this is for

  • Managing partner

    Realization, lock-up and whether each practice actually earns the margin its rate card and fee quotes promise.

  • Chief operating officer

    One view of engagements, staffing, time and billing instead of reconciling five tools and a spreadsheet every month-end.

  • Resource manager

    Staffing sold work on time, keeping the bench short and not booking the same senior people onto every new engagement.

  • Engagement manager

    Delivering to plan inside the fee, spotting scope creep early and getting change orders signed while there is still time.

  • Finance and billing lead

    Clean time submitted on time, fast pre-bill review, fewer write-downs and invoices that get paid without a chase.

  • Agency account director

    Retainer hours against allowance, revision rounds counted, and over-servicing raised with the client before the month closes.

A day in the life

The story behind the solution

Month-end at Quillmere: one week, six leaks

It is the last week of September at Quillmere Partners. The consulting practice is closing its quarter, the tax team is three weeks from the extension deadline, and the agency arm is wrapping a fall campaign for its largest retainer client. Adaeze Okafor, the COO, owns the numbers the partners will debate on Friday: utilization, realization, WIP and cash. This is how her week goes, and how it could go with the firm's work running on connected tools.

  1. Monday, 8:40 a.m.

    The timesheet chase

    Last week's timesheets were due at 9:00. Thirty-eight people have not submitted. Those who have rebuilt Thursday from memory, and it shows: a senior manager's two-hour call with a client about a tax restructuring sits under an internal code, and half the narratives just say "analysis". Adaeze sends the same chaser email she sent last Monday, and billing waits for the stragglers before pre-bills can start.

    How this is solved: Billable hours that never reach an invoice

  2. Monday, 2:15 p.m.

    A deal closes before anyone checks the team

    A partner closes a supply-chain diagnostic for a food manufacturer, starting in two weeks. The resource manager opens the staffing spreadsheet: the only two senior consultants with food-sector experience are already booked beyond full time. Meanwhile three analysts have had no assignment since their last engagement wrapped up, and nobody noticed. The start date was promised to the client over lunch.

    How this is solved: Sold work, an idle bench and overbooked seniors

  3. Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.

    The ERP selection that kept growing

    At the steering committee for a fixed-fee ERP selection, the client's CFO thanks the team for the fourth vendor demo and the "quick look" at data migration, both agreed in hallway conversations. Walking out, the engagement manager adds up the hours for the first time since kickoff. The cost to date is already close to what the whole engagement was budgeted to cost, with two phases still to deliver, and there is no change order.

    How this is solved: Fixed-fee engagements quietly running over

  4. Wednesday, 4:30 p.m.

    Pre-bills in partners' inboxes

    Pre-bills went to partners on the twentieth. A third are still unreviewed. One partner has held $132,500 of work in progress for 96 days on an engagement the client is disputing, and several invoices are past ninety days with no one assigned to chase them. The managing partner asks a simple question, what is our lock-up by practice, and finance says they will need two days of exports to answer it.

    How this is solved: Month-end WIP, stalled pre-bills and cash in lock-up

  5. Thursday, 9:10 a.m.

    A new client, and a pile of missing documents

    The tax practice agrees to take on a family-owned business and its owners. The conflict check is an email to every partner asking whether anyone knows the family or their lender. Down the hall, preparers spend the morning writing reminder emails: the Delaneys' 2025 individual return has been stuck for twelve days waiting on two K-1s from their orchard partnership, and nobody is sure who last followed up.

    How this is solved: Conflict checks and document chasing in extension season

  6. Friday, 3:00 p.m.

    The fourth round of the fall video

    The agency's account director opens the fall campaign video for its largest retainer client and finds it in its fourth round of changes. The scope of work includes two. The team has logged 142 hours against a 120-hour monthly retainer, much of it on revisions and extra reporting requested on calls. Nobody raised it, and the invoice is about to go out at the standard retainer fee.

    How this is solved: Agency retainers eaten by extra revision rounds

None of these are dramatic failures. They are the ordinary seams of a firm that sells expertise, and each one costs margin, cash or goodwill. With engagements, staffing, time, delivery, billing and reporting on one workspace, Adaeze's Friday meeting could start from numbers everyone already trusts, with the leaks caught on Monday instead of discovered at month-end.

Challenges and how they are solved

6 problems, several products, one connected answer

Each challenge shows the problem as it happens, how the products are designed to hand work to each other, and the concepts that illustrate it. Share any challenge on its own.

Challenge 1 of 6

Billable hours that never reach an invoice

TimeCampus(opens TimeCampus in a new tab)ProServiceWorld(opens ProServiceWorld in a new tab)

The problem

At 7:50 on Monday a senior consultant opens last week's timesheet with an hour to go before it is due. Her calendar shows Thursday's client workshop and two internal meetings. It does not show the forty-minute call a client's CFO made from an airport lounge, the three email threads answering follow-up questions, or the evening spent redrafting a board paper. She records six and a half hours for an eleven-hour day, writes "analysis" as the narrative and moves on. Across the firm, dozens of people make the same small trade-offs every week, and billing never sees the hours that were not written down.

What it costs

Hours that are never recorded can never be billed, late time delays every invoice behind it, and vague narratives invite client pushback and write-downs.

How the products work together

ProServiceWorld is designed to share each person's open engagements and billable and non-billable codes with TimeCampus, so suggestions map to real engagements. TimeCampus is designed to assemble each person's day from calendar, email, documents and meetings and to suggest the engagement each block belongs to; the consultant accepts or corrects it, with no timer to remember and no screenshots or keystroke logging. Confirmed billable blocks, each with a draft narrative, are designed to hand off to ProServiceWorld as time entries against the right engagement or matter, where they move through submission and approval, so approved time is ready for the pre-bill run before anyone has to send a reminder.

The outcome it is designed for

Time is recorded close to when the work happened, narratives are specific enough to defend, and approved hours are ready before billing starts.

The concepts behind it

Challenge 2 of 6

Sold work, an idle bench and overbooked seniors

PlanMagnet(opens PlanMagnet in a new tab)CrewFoundry(opens CrewFoundry in a new tab)ProServiceWorld(opens ProServiceWorld in a new tab)

The problem

The staffing spreadsheet is a week out of date by the time anyone opens it. When a new diagnostic is sold for a start in two weeks, the partner who sold it asks for "the usual team": the two senior consultants who ran the last food-sector project. Both are committed to other engagements and have been working weekends to keep up. The sheet does not show that an analyst rolled off an engagement ten days ago with nothing booked next, because the roll-off was agreed in a hallway. Staffing becomes a round of phone calls and favors, and the client's start date is already promised.

What it costs

Bench time is pure cost, overbooked seniors burn out and leave, and a sold engagement that starts late or thinly staffed sours the relationship at its first milestone.

How the products work together

When an engagement is accepted in ProServiceWorld, its phases, milestones and start date are designed to seed a workplan in PlanMagnet that expresses demand as roles per week. PlanMagnet's CrewFoundry integration weighs that demand against real capacity and skills, so gaps show before the start date is confirmed. Each gap is designed to become a staffing request in CrewFoundry, which is designed to rank people on the shared skills graph and availability and to fill from the bench first. CrewFoundry's scheduled Workforce Watch is designed to raise bench time and over-allocation as proposals a resource manager accepts or dismisses. Confirmed assignments are designed to flow back into the PlanMagnet plan.

The outcome it is designed for

Start dates are promised against real capacity, the bench is staffed first, and senior people stop being the default answer to every new engagement.

The concepts behind it

Challenge 3 of 6

Fixed-fee engagements quietly running over

ProServiceWorld(opens ProServiceWorld in a new tab)PlanMagnet(opens PlanMagnet in a new tab)TimeCampus(opens TimeCampus in a new tab)

The problem

A fixed-fee advisory engagement is priced on an estimate of hours by phase. Twelve weeks in, tracking lives in a spreadsheet the engagement manager updates when there is time, which in practice means the night before a steering committee. Meanwhile the client has asked, informally and in good faith, for an extra vendor demo and a "quick look" at data migration, and the team agreed because the relationship matters. Each request is small and none is written down as a scope change. By the time anyone adds it up, cost is approaching the budget with two phases left, and a change order raised now feels to the client like an ambush.

What it costs

Fixed fees put overrun risk on the firm. Scope absorbed without a change order becomes margin written off, and a late surprise damages trust more than an early conversation would.

How the products work together

Hours captured in TimeCampus and approved in ProServiceWorld are designed to accumulate against the engagement's fixed fee, so ProServiceWorld can show cost to date, estimate at completion and forecast margin every week, with time on out-of-scope requests logged separately as evidence. When scope grows, PlanMagnet is designed to re-plan the remaining phases, flag the milestones now at risk with a stated reason and pass the revised milestone date back to ProServiceWorld. There the engagement manager is designed to gather the out-of-scope entries into a change order carrying the added scope, the fee and that revised date, and to send it for client approval before the next invoice, so the added work continues on a signed change order rather than a hallway agreement.

The outcome it is designed for

Scope changes become a priced conversation with the client while there is still time, not a write-off discovered at the final invoice.

The concepts behind it

ProServiceWorld

Fixed-Fee Engagement Burn and Change Orders

Shows burn against the fixed fee, estimate at completion and forecast margin, lists out-of-scope work as it is logged, and drafts the change order for client approval.

Works with TimeCampus, PlanMagnet

Concept pagefor Fixed-Fee Engagement Burn and Change Orders on the ProServiceWorld website (opens in a new tab)

Challenge 4 of 6

Month-end WIP, stalled pre-bills and cash in lock-up

ProServiceWorld(opens ProServiceWorld in a new tab)FluidGrids(opens FluidGrids in a new tab)CrewFoundry(opens CrewFoundry in a new tab)BigConsole(opens BigConsole in a new tab)Botlit(opens Botlit in a new tab)

The problem

At the quarterly partner meeting, the managing partner puts up a slide on lock-up and three partners dispute it before the second bullet. Consulting's WIP comes from the billing system, utilization from a staffing spreadsheet that counts available hours differently, and the agency's retainer overruns appear in neither. Meanwhile this month's pre-bills sit unreviewed in partner inboxes, some engagements carry work in progress that is months old, and a handful of invoices past ninety days have no named owner for collection. Everyone agrees cash is tied up; nobody agrees how much, or where.

What it costs

Every day work sits unbilled or unpaid is cash the firm is funding; late pre-bill review drives write-downs, and partners argue from different spreadsheets.

How the products work together

ProServiceWorld is designed to assemble pre-bills from approved time, milestones and fee schedules and track each invoice from draft to paid; its own analytics are intended to cover collections and billed versus unbilled work. A FluidGrids workflow is designed to read those billing, WIP and collection records each morning, along with available hours from CrewFoundry, remind partners with pre-bills outstanding and clients with overdue invoices, and end in a datasink that feeds BigConsole. BigConsole is designed to join what no single product holds into a practice console of WIP by age, realization, utilization and lock-up, with drill-down to each engagement. A partner can ask a Botlit agent which engagements hold WIP older than sixty days; Botlit is designed to query the console, answer with the figures it read and, when asked, trigger the FluidGrids collections reminder.

The outcome it is designed for

Pre-bills are reviewed on time, aged WIP and overdue invoices have an owner, and partners discuss the same numbers without a two-day reconciliation.

The concepts behind it

BigConsole

Practice WIP, Realization and Lock-Up Console

Is designed to give partners unbilled WIP by age, realization and utilization against CrewFoundry capacity by practice, and lock-up days, with the engagements behind every figure.

Works with ProServiceWorld, CrewFoundry, FluidGrids

Concept pagefor Practice WIP, Realization and Lock-Up Console on the BigConsole website (opens in a new tab)

Challenge 5 of 6

Conflict checks and document chasing in extension season

ProServiceWorld(opens ProServiceWorld in a new tab)FluidGrids(opens FluidGrids in a new tab)Botlit(opens Botlit in a new tab)

The problem

In the weeks before the October 15 extension deadline, a tax manager's review queue is only as full as clients allow it to be. Returns sit incomplete while preparers chase missing K-1s, corrected brokerage statements and estimated-payment records, each chase written by hand and tracked in one person's inbox, so no one can say which returns are blocked or who followed up last. The practice is still taking on new clients, and the conflict check for a family business and its owners is an email to every partner, with the replies filed nowhere in particular.

What it costs

An unchecked conflict is a professional-conduct risk, and every return waiting on documents squeezes the preparers and reviewers who must still meet the deadline.

How the products work together

ProServiceWorld is designed to run the conflict check against existing clients, matters and counterparties before the engagement is accepted, and to record the result, any waiver and the acceptance decision. It is then designed to send the engagement's request list (the PBC list for audits) to the client and track each item as requested, received or overdue, linked to a secure upload room. Each outstanding item, with its due date and owner, is designed to pass to a FluidGrids scheduled workflow that sends reminders every few days. When the client uploads the item, ProServiceWorld marks it received and the workflow stops; after a set number of days it escalates to the engagement manager. A Botlit assistant on the client channel is designed to read the same list to answer "what do you still need from me?"

The outcome it is designed for

New clients are accepted with a documented conflict check, and preparers spend extension season preparing returns instead of writing reminder emails.

The concepts behind it

Challenge 6 of 6

Agency retainers eaten by extra revision rounds

TimeCampus(opens TimeCampus in a new tab)ArtistryBase(opens ArtistryBase in a new tab)ProServiceWorld(opens ProServiceWorld in a new tab)

The problem

A retainer client's scope of work allows two rounds of revisions per deliverable and 120 hours a month. In practice, rounds are counted by whoever remembers. A brand manager emails "a few small tweaks" after round two is signed off, a producer opens the file and makes them, and the change never registers as a third round. Extra reporting is added after a monthly call because it seemed quick. Each request is reasonable on its own; together they carry the team well past its allowance, and the account director learns it only when the month's hours are totaled for billing.

What it costs

Over-servicing converts margin into goodwill the client never sees, and without evidence it is hard to raise extra rounds or renegotiate scope at renewal.

How the products work together

ProServiceWorld is designed to hold the retainer's terms, the monthly hours and the review rounds included per deliverable, and share the included rounds with ArtistryBase. ArtistryBase records every review round on a deliverable and is designed to count rounds at the moment a change is requested: when a request would open a round beyond the scope of work, it flags the round and prompts the account director before work starts, to proceed as billable, proceed as goodwill or talk to the client first. TimeCampus is designed to total confirmed hours per client against the allowance by workstream, so burn is visible mid-month, and to draft an out-of-scope summary of the confirmed extra rounds and hours for ProServiceWorld, which applies the client's rate on the pre-bill.

The outcome it is designed for

Extra rounds are counted when they are requested and priced before the month closes, and every write-off becomes a decision rather than an accident.

The concepts behind it

TimeCampus

Agency Retainer Burn and Over-Servicing

Shows hours used against the monthly retainer by workstream, lists the extra rounds flagged in ArtistryBase with the hours they took, and hands an out-of-scope summary to ProServiceWorld.

Works with ArtistryBase, ProServiceWorld

Concept pagefor Agency Retainer Burn and Over-Servicing on the TimeCampus website (opens in a new tab)

How it fits together

How an engagement moves from signature to cash

Follow one consulting engagement through the firm. Each step shows one product doing one job and how it is designed to hand the result to the next, so the engagement letter, the plan, the team, the hours, the invoice and the partner's view stay one continuous record.

  1. To PlanMagnet: Scope, phases, milestones and the proposed start date are designed to seed the delivery workplan.

  2. To CrewFoundry: Role gaps go to resourcing as staffing requests with skills, hours and dates.

  3. To TimeCampus: Confirmed assignments are designed to tell TimeCampus which ProServiceWorld engagements each person can record time against.

  4. To ProServiceWorld: Confirmed billable blocks are designed to arrive as time entries with narratives, ready for approval.

  5. To FluidGrids: Billing, WIP and collection records are designed to feed the firm's scheduled workflows.

  6. To BigConsole: Daily WIP, realization and utilization datasets land in BigConsole data sinks.

  7. To Botlit: The console's figures are available to a partner's Botlit assistant.

Step 1 of 8: Accept the engagement

Products in this solution

What each product brings

  • ProServiceWorld

    System of record for engagements, time and billing

    Built for professional-services firms: clients, engagements, conflict checks, time entries, pre-bills and invoices are designed to live in one governed record, so every other product has one engagement to attach to.

    Visit ProServiceWorldAll concepts

  • TimeCampus

    Automatic, privacy-first time capture

    Assembles each person's day from the tools they already use and suggests the client engagement, so billable time is recorded without timers or surveillance, and is designed to show retainer burn per client.

    Visit TimeCampusAll concepts

  • CrewFoundry

    Staffing, skills and bench management

    Brings one skills graph across employees and contractors, and is designed to match people to open engagement roles, supply available hours for utilization and flag bench time and over-allocation as proposals a resource manager reviews.

    Visit CrewFoundryAll concepts

  • PlanMagnet

    Engagement workplans against real capacity

    Turns a sold engagement into phases, milestones and role demand, weighs the plan against CrewFoundry capacity and skills, and flags at-risk milestones with a stated reason.

    Visit PlanMagnetAll concepts

  • FluidGrids

    Reminders, chasers and data feeds

    Runs the scheduled work nobody wants to do by hand, such as timesheet, document and collection reminders, and feeds governed datasets into BigConsole through its datasink nodes.

    Visit FluidGridsAll concepts

  • BigConsole

    Partner console for WIP, realization and lock-up

    Is designed to give partners and finance one governed console of WIP, realization, utilization and lock-up, joining ProServiceWorld billing and CrewFoundry capacity from the data FluidGrids delivers, with drill-down to the engagements behind each number.

    Visit BigConsoleAll concepts

  • Botlit

    Governed assistant for partners and clients

    Botlit agents can query dashboards and trigger workflows, so a partner can ask about aged WIP in plain language, and a client assistant is designed to answer document questions, under workspace policies.

    Visit BotlitAll concepts

  • ArtistryBase

    Creative review rounds and client sign-off

    For agencies, it records every review round, anchored note and approval on a deliverable, and is designed to flag a round beyond the scope of work when it is requested, so extra rounds can be billed or discussed.

    Visit ArtistryBaseAll concepts

One platform underneath: Burdenoff Workspaces

Burdenoff Workspaces is the shared foundation: one sign-on across every product, role-based access that keeps each engagement's time, documents and rates visible only to the right people, one audit trail of approvals and changes, and one bill for the firm.

Concept gallery

Every concept in this solution

15 concepts from 8 products. Each one links to its own page on the product's website, and every view has a link you can share.

Pitch kit

The Professional Services solution in one minute

Consultancies, accounting practices and agencies all sell expert time, and lose margin at the same seams: hours never recorded, sold work with no team, fixed fees that overrun, pre-bills that sit and retainers eaten by extra rounds. Burdenoff brings together ProServiceWorld for engagements and billing, TimeCampus for automatic time capture, CrewFoundry and PlanMagnet for staffing and delivery, and FluidGrids, BigConsole and Botlit for automation and partner reporting, all on one workspace.

  • Time captured where the work happens, suggested against the right engagement, then approved and billed in one record
  • Sold engagements seed a workplan checked against real capacity, with bench and over-allocation flagged before start dates are promised
  • Fixed-fee burn, estimate at completion and out-of-scope work visible mid-engagement, with change orders drafted from the evidence
  • One partner console for WIP, realization, utilization and lock-up across products, refreshed daily and answerable in plain language
  • Conflict checks, client request lists and agency revision rounds tracked, with extra rounds counted when requested and reminders on a schedule
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Questions

Frequently asked

Is this available today?

These products are pre-launch, and this page describes a solution concept: how the products are designed to work together for a professional-services firm. Some hand-offs are part of the products' design today, such as FluidGrids datasinks feeding BigConsole, Botlit agents querying dashboards and triggering workflows, and PlanMagnet reading CrewFoundry capacity. Others describe how the products are intended to connect. Talk to us about early access and what fits your firm.

Does TimeCampus monitor our people?

No. TimeCampus is built privacy-first: it assembles a person's own timeline from the tools they work in, without screenshots or keystroke logging, and each person confirms what becomes billable time. Team and firm views are aggregate, designed for capacity planning and retainer tracking rather than watching individuals.

We are an accounting and tax practice, not a consultancy. Does this fit?

Yes. ProServiceWorld is designed to model engagements and matters for accounting, tax and audit work, with conflict checks, independence and acceptance gates, and client request lists planned as part of that design. The same time capture, staffing and partner reporting are intended to apply whether the engagement is an audit, a tax return or an advisory project.

How is this different for an agency on retainers?

Agencies lean on retainer tracking and creative reviews: TimeCampus is designed to show hours used against each client's monthly allowance, ArtistryBase records review rounds and sign-offs and is designed to flag a round beyond the scope of work when it is requested, and ProServiceWorld is designed to put agreed out-of-scope work on the invoice draft. Consultancies lean more on fixed-fee burn, staffing and change orders. Both share the same time capture and partner console.

Do we have to replace our general ledger or payroll system?

Not necessarily. ProServiceWorld is designed to handle engagement billing and invoices, and FluidGrids is designed to connect with systems a firm already runs, such as a ledger or payroll provider, so records can move between them. Which systems to keep and which to connect is a decision to make with your finance team.

Can our clients see their own engagements?

ProServiceWorld's client portal is designed to give each client a governed view of their own engagements, deliverables, document requests and invoices, and TimeCampus can share tracked hours on a project through a link you control. The firm decides what each client sees through workspace roles.

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Where these products also work together

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This is a solution concept: it shows how Burdenoff products are designed to work together in this industry. The images are illustrations of the concepts, not screenshots of the actual products, and every name and figure in them is sample data.