An ERP consultant for professional services firms starts where the firm makes its money: billable time. Consulting, engineering, accounting and agency firms need projects, time, expenses and billing to land in the ledger without re-keying, and partners want margin by client and practice without waiting for month-end.
Project accounting connected to the books
- Time and expenses post against projects and clients as they are approved.
- Billing handles time and materials, fixed fee and milestone arrangements from the same records.
- Work in progress, revenue and margin report by project, practice, office and partner.
Multi-entity and multi-office firms
Firms that have grown through mergers often run several entities. Each becomes part of one ledger with shared dimensions, so consolidated statements and intercompany charges no longer depend on a spreadsheet.
Keep the tools your people like
Accounting sits at the core. Time entry, CRM and payroll stay in the tools your team already uses when they do the job well, and are connected rather than replaced.
Start with the honest question
The fixed-fee ERP advisory tests whether your current system can be fixed before recommending a new one. For the software side, see project accounting software.
Common questions
Can we keep our time-tracking tool?
If your team uses it well, usually yes. Approved time and expenses are sent to the ledger against the right project and client, so billing and margin reporting use the same numbers people entered.
How is revenue on fixed-fee projects handled?
Revenue is recognized under ASC 606 using the measure of progress your policy sets, such as milestones or percentage of completion, so revenue and work in progress come from project data rather than manual journal entries.
Do you work with firms that have several offices?
Yes. Each office becomes a location on one ledger, with its own reporting on utilization, billing and margin. Partners see their own office alongside the firm total, and firm-wide statements consolidate without a spreadsheet.
How we work
- Assess: a fixed-fee advisory, usually two to four weeks, built from your actual close and ending in a recommendation you can act on.
- Implement: chart of accounts, integrations and data migration, proved by a parallel close before go-live.
- Support: the principal consultants who built the system stay on after launch.
Related services: ERP Selection Consultant, ERP for Construction Companies, Cloud ERP Implementation Services and ERP for Financial Services Firms. Or see all our ERP consulting services.