ERP for Professional Services

When utilisation reports are green and project margin isn't,

Coherence across people, projects, and clients is the work.

We deliver the operating layer that makes services firms scale — contractor portals, project profitability, client transparency.

IT · CAD engineering · Relocation services Three sub-verticals delivered Contractor portals included
Start a technical conversation See the proof grid
People, projects, clients — three tiers Three horizontal tiers: People (internal + contractors), Projects, Clients (with portal access). Vertical connectors annotate time → project margin, project → client view, contractor → restricted access. PEOPLE internal · contractors · scoped access PROJECTS time · margin · status · deliverables CLIENTS portal · transparency · renewal time → margin project → client view

Three tiers, kept coherent.

For Your Role

What This Page Gives You

Managing Partner / COO

Project margin matches project effort

Time, expense, contractor cost, and revenue reconciled at the project level. No quarter-end "where did the margin go" forensic.

Practice Lead

One picture of every active engagement

Project status, blockers, billable progress, client interactions in one place. No status-by-email-thread.

CFO

Realisation and utilisation from the same source

Finance and delivery agree on what's billable and what's been recovered. Realisation gap is visible, not buried.

Head of Delivery

Contractors as part of the team

Contractor portal, task assignment, restricted access, timesheet — same operating discipline as internal staff.

Operating Reality

What Makes a Services Firm Operating Layer Hard

  1. 01

    Time is data, not just a number

    Every timesheet entry feeds project margin, billable-vs-non-billable, utilisation, realisation, and forecast. The system either treats time as the entity it is, or every report is approximate.

  2. 02

    Contractors deserve first-class workflow

    External engineers and contract consultants need portal access, scoped task visibility, timesheet entry, and restricted attachment/comment privileges. BowfinCAD is the named delivery for this pattern.

  3. 03

    Projects span people, expenses, change orders, approvals

    The system that tracks all four together produces real margin numbers; the system that tracks them separately produces three numbers nobody trusts.

  4. 04

    Client portals are competitive surface area

    What the client sees of the engagement is what they remember when renewal comes up.

  5. 05

    The firm inherits client regulatory exposure

    IT firms serving healthcare clients can find themselves inside HIPAA-aligned operating expectations. Engineering firms serving regulated industries can inherit those compliance footprints. The operating layer is designed with that asymmetry in mind; the specifics are scoped per engagement.

Domain Knowledge

What We Know About Services-Firm Operations

Workflows we've delivered

  • Contractor / external-engineer portal with task list, timesheet, restricted stage access (BowfinCAD)
  • Targeted Odoo customisations for IT/cybersecurity managed-services firms (M6iT)
  • Relocation/immigration services with appointment booking, HubSpot CRM, custom theme (MovingTo)
  • Project profitability rollup (time + expense + contractor + revenue)
  • Client portal with engagement-specific views
  • Utilisation, realisation, and forecast reporting
  • Service-line / practice-area cost accounting

Compliance & integrations

  • HubSpot CRM integration for services lead-to-client lifecycle
  • Twilio / SMS for client communications
  • Multi-currency project accounting for cross-border services
  • Country-specific tax for services (GST, VAT, US sales tax)
  • Custom themes and branded email for client-facing surface

KPIs we've instrumented

  • Utilisation (target vs actual)
  • Realisation (billable vs collected)
  • Project margin per engagement
  • Time-to-invoice
  • Contractor cost ratio
  • Client renewal rate
  • Practice-area profitability
Named Clients

Services Firm Clients We've Delivered For

M6iT Consulting

NYC-based managed IT + cybersecurity firm

Targeted Odoo customisations (sales workflow + weekly-email automation) for an IT/cybersecurity firm whose service offering spans Apple and Microsoft platforms — engagement scope per the client.

BowfinCAD

CAD engineering services (contractor model)

External contractor portal — task list, timesheet, restricted stages, scoped attachment and comment access. Engineering services delivery with contractor management baked in.

MovingTo

Relocation / immigration services

Full Odoo implementation: HubSpot CRM connector, appointment booking, custom theme, email rebrand. Lead → client → engagement lifecycle for a services business.

Featured Case Studies

Case Studies in This Industry

Detailed write-ups of delivered work in this industry.

See all case studies across every industry, or talk to us about engagements in this space.

What We Build for Services Firms

Solutions That Show Up in Services Engagements

ERP Systems

Odoo as the operating layer: time, expense, project, contractor, billing, client lifecycle.

Open ERP Systems →

Custom Applications

Contractor portals, client portals, engagement-specific dashboards, custom workflows that ship faster than waiting for SaaS PSA tools to add the feature.

Open Custom Applications →

Integrations & Data

HubSpot CRM, Salesforce, Slack, Twilio, accounting hand-off. The integration spine for services firms.

Open Integrations & Data →

Cloud & DevOps

Managed hosting through Deploy Monkey, audit-safe logging, access control. Especially relevant when client regulatory exposure inherits into the firm.

Open Cloud & DevOps →
How We Typically Engage

Engagement Shapes for Services Firms

Implementation

New services-firm operating layer rollout. 12 to 24 weeks delivery + 6 to 12 weeks stabilisation. Time, expense, contractor, and project margin go first.

Open Implementation →

Custom Applications

When the firm's competitive surface is the portal or the workflow (BowfinCAD's contractor portal is the proof point). Built bespoke, integrated.

Open Custom Applications →

Long-Term Support

Once live, optimisation cadence: practice-area additions, contractor model refinements, client-portal updates.

Open Long-Term Support →
Fit Assessment

When We're the Right Partner

Ready if

A services-firm engagement is the right move when you operate a services firm with 10+ practitioners (internal or contractor), project profitability is a quarterly forensic instead of a real-time view, and leadership wants the operating layer to be competitive surface area, not just back-office.

Too early if

It's too early when you're a solo or small-team services firm where a SaaS PSA tool fits, you want generic PSA software (off-the-shelf will be cheaper), or there's no internal owner for project-margin discipline.

Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you replace PSA tools like Kantata or OpenAir?

We consolidate PSA-like workflows into Odoo when that's the right fit — typically when the firm wants time, project, contractor, billing, and portal living in one operating system rather than stitched across SaaS tools. When a SaaS PSA is working fine for the core, we deliver the bespoke pieces (contractor portal, client portal, custom workflow) that the PSA doesn't cover.

Do you handle contractor / external-engineer workflow?

Yes. BowfinCAD is the named delivery — external contractor portal with task list, timesheet, restricted stage access, scoped attachment and comment privileges. Contractors operate as first-class delivery capacity, not a parallel system.

How do you handle project profitability reporting?

Time + expense + contractor cost + revenue reconciled at the project level. Practice-area and service-line rollups available. The firm reports project margin from the same source finance closes.

Do you work with IT / cybersecurity managed-services firms?

Yes. M6iT Consulting is the named delivery — NYC-based IT/cybersecurity firm with managed services across Apple and Microsoft platforms. Engagement scope is set per client; we don't claim a one-size IT-services template.

What about regulated client industries (healthcare, finance, aerospace)?

The services firm inherits its clients' regulatory exposure. We design the operating layer with the controls those exposures expect (audit logging, access control, encryption, role-based separation). Where the engagement requires HIPAA-aligned hosting and a Business Associate Agreement, that's scoped per engagement. Certification belongs to the operating entity; the controls are designed in.

Related industries

Start with a Technical Conversation

Request Consultation

No "we do PSA too" pitch. Services-firm-first.