ERP for professional services firm. Time captured, work accepted, invoice raised: realisation you can see.
A firm sells hours it has not worked yet. Kinnow follows each engagement from proposal to cash, so time captured, work accepted and the bill raised sit on one record, and realization (how much of your standard rate you actually bill) is a number you can read. The United States edition opens from early 2027.
From early 2027How does Kinnow help a professional services firm? Each engagement carries its own timesheets, deliverables, milestones, invoices and support cost. Approved time and completed milestones become invoices without billing the same work twice, and you can see unbilled work in progress and realization for each engagement. Nothing is billed, filed or paid until a person says so. Nothing is filed, paid or posted without a person.
Your firm, in one paragraph.
You sell expertise by the hour, the milestone or the retainer: advisory, legal, architecture, consulting, design. Your income is your people, so margin depends on who is billable and who is on the bench. Timesheets arrive late, work in progress is a guess, and the bill goes out a month after the work. Engagement letters and renewals live in email, and a client's support calls after go-live are rarely charged to the engagement they came from.
Three things keep the managing partner awake: unbilled work that never becomes a bill, an engagement that lost money and nobody saw it until the final invoice, and a talented consultant sitting idle while another is stretched past 100%.
How your month runs on Kinnow
The ready-made routine is called Engagement to realization: opportunity, scope, proposal, terms, staffing, delivery, time and expense, deliverable accepted, bill against work in progress, collected, closed.
| Step | Who | What Kinnow does | Where a person signs off |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Opportunity to proposal | Partner | Your sales pipeline in Sell carries the opportunity from first scope discussion to proposal, and an agent can draft the proposal text. | Winning the engagement needs a senior sign-off. |
| 2. Open and staff | Engagement lead | You open the engagement in Build with its rate card by role, and assign people to it. | Contracts above a value you set go to the practice head. |
| 3. Master agreement | Partner | You draft the agreement, the client signs it, and Pact tracks it through to renewal. | Signing and early termination need sign-off. |
| 4. Capture time and expense | Consultant | Timesheets are filed against the engagement. A reminder agent lists missing and stale timesheets and approvals that have waited too long. | The engagement lead approves or sends back, with the reason. |
| 5. Accept deliverables | Engagement lead | A deliverable goes to the client for acceptance and can be sent back. Accepted work is your proof for billing. | Client acceptance is recorded. |
| 6. Bill from evidence | Accounts | Approved, unbilled hours are invoiced at the rate frozen on each timesheet, one line per timesheet; a completed milestone is invoiced once at its value. A write-down needs a reason. The same time cannot be invoiced twice. | An invoice above your limit needs approval. |
| 7. Collect | Accounts | The client sees the invoice and can dispute it in the customer portal. Collections drafts reminders based on how many days overdue the invoice is. | A person approves each reminder. |
| 8. Review WIP and realization | Managing partner | For each engagement: approved time not yet billed, completed milestones not yet billed, the amount invoiced, and realization (invoiced against your standard rates). | The partner decides on write-offs and re-pricing. |
| 9. Close the month | Accounts head | The month-end close routine runs twelve checks, and seven must pass. Sales tax, where your fees or goods are taxable, is added up by state for a person to review. | People close the books and approve the returns. |
Ask us to run one engagement from timesheet to invoice on your own rate card.
Who is busy, who is free, and what you really earn
Rate card by role
Charge-out rate, cost rate and standard week for each role. The cost rate is locked in on each timesheet, so editing the rate card never changes a margin you have already reported.
Utilization over capacity
Billable hours as a share of the week's capacity, never of hours worked. Each person lands in a band: bench, under-utilized, healthy, stretched or over. If nobody recorded a person's capacity, the view says so instead of showing 0%.
Capacity forecast
Who is assigned where, week by week, shows who is free next month. So the answer to "can we take another engagement this quarter" comes from the plan.
Margin after support
The engagement's profit and loss counts the support tickets the client raised after delivery. If anything is missing, the margin reads unknown, never healthy.
What the ready-made setup covers
Two ready-made setups apply together. The one for professional services (we call it an industry pack) brings seven limits, four sign-off routes, twelve starter questions for Ask Kinnow and nine reports, among them the engagement list, milestone status, support-promise (SLA) status, headcount and project cost. The United States setup adds sales-tax sign-off, payroll sign-off and the sales tax records. The figures are plain numbers, so we go through each starting figure with you in dollars before you begin.
| Limit | Effect | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement (contract) value | Practice head approves | A large retainer ties up named partners |
| Client request outside an SLA plan | Blocked | It would never show up in your response-time reports |
| Retainer or milestone invoice | Approval | Large bills are checked before they reach the client |
| Sales-tax return, net payable | Approval by a person other than the preparer | Filing is irreversible |
| Manual journal | Approval | Changes the books without a source document |
| Office or equipment lease, base rent | Warning | A fixed commitment that deserves a second look |
| Client credit limit | Warning | Giving credit is a decision, not data entry |
These are starting figures; set them to whatever your firm would want reviewed.
Kinnow uses your words from day one: engagement, client, WIP, realization.
Walk through who signs off, and in what order, with your own partners.
Agents for a professional services firm
Engagement Margin Watch
Compares revenue, delivery cost and support cost as work progresses, and flags an engagement that is slipping before the final bill. Shows unknown, not healthy, when it cannot work one out.
Timesheet chaser
Lists missing, unfiled and stale timesheets and approvals that have waited too long. It only flags them; it sends no reminder.
Scope drift watch
Compares hours logged with the agreed effort and drafts a change order when the hours run over. It sends and creates nothing.
Project Risk
Scores the risk of schedule slips and overspending from the milestones on every engagement.
Collections
Drafts overdue reminders and steps them up according to how many days a payment is actually late. A person approves each reminder before it goes out.
Account / KnowCash-flow Forecaster
Builds a rolling cash forecast for the next 30, 60 and 90 days from post-dated cheques, bills due and how customers have paid in the past, with a range around each figure to show how sure it is.
VaultAsk Kinnow
Answers questions from your documents and from the records of the applications you use, and only shows what the person asking is allowed to see.
Each agent is tested with each client before it touches their books, and everything it produces waits for a person.
Tax and compliance for a US services firm
The first release has basic support, not a full US tax calendar. Alerts go out 15, 7 and 1 day before each recorded filing, and every date is one you or your tax adviser confirm.
| Filing | When it falls | What Kinnow prepares |
|---|---|---|
| State sales tax, where your fees or goods are taxable | Per state, as recorded for each registration (where no due day is set, Kinnow assumes the 20th of the following month) | State-by-state totals of taxable sales and tax collected, for a person to type into each state return. No input credit: tax on purchases is a cost |
| State sales-tax permit, annual report, foreign qualification | Each state's own schedule | Tracked registrations; a due date appears only once you enter the state's schedule. Kinnow does not decide nexus (whether you have enough sales or presence in a state to need a permit) |
| Payroll | Monthly run | Federal income tax withholding and FICA (Social Security, Medicare and the Additional Medicare surcharge) worked out in a payroll run that a second person approves. State income tax is not included and each payslip says so |
| Payroll deposits, quarterly payroll returns, W-2, 1099 | Not tracked | Not built in the first release |
What the owner sees
| Ask Kinnow | Answer comes from |
|---|---|
| Which engagements have slipped? | Project milestone status |
| Show me every live engagement | The engagement list |
| Which client queries are breaching? | Support-promise (SLA) status |
| Show me headcount by practice | Headcount report |
| Who is on the bench next month? | Capacity plan and allocations |
| Which follow-ups are due this week? | CRM follow-ups due |
Each answer shows its source and cost before it runs. Veil, our privacy layer, hides bank, tax and ID numbers and swaps names for stand-in codes before an AI call. It covers Ask Kinnow and most agents today; the rest are being added.
See realization by engagement on a copy of your own timesheets.
Questions
Do you bill on time and materials or fixed fee?
Both. Time and materials come from approved timesheets at the rate frozen on each one. Fixed fee follows completed milestones, each invoiced once. Both sit in one set of books.
Who can see a client's documents?
A file someone uploads starts private to them and is shared only by choice: with named people, a company or the whole organization. Viewing and downloading are separate permissions, and agents fetch only what the person asking may open.
Will Kinnow tell me which engagements lose money?
Yes, when it can price them. It compares billed revenue with delivery cost from timesheets and support cost from tickets, and shows how it got there. If one of those cannot be read, the engagement shows unknown rather than healthy.
Can we bill for approved time only?
Yes. Only approved, unbilled hours are invoiced, and a timesheet that is sent back with a reason is corrected and resubmitted before it counts.
Does Kinnow charge sales tax on our fees?
Whether a state taxes professional services varies by state. The first release has a short starter list of tax-exempt item codes, including professional services, and we confirm state rules with you and your tax adviser at set-up. Kinnow does not decide nexus.
Can the client see and dispute an invoice?
Yes. In the customer portal they sign in with a code, see their invoices and what is still owed, and raise a dispute on any invoice.
How long does set-up take, and when does the US edition open?
About two weeks to first results for one firm. The United States edition is available from early 2027.
Show me Kinnow for professional services firm.
Answer three questions. Get the applications, the agents and a two-week plan for your business.