A services firm sells people's time, and profitability is decided by how much of that time is billable and how accurately it reaches an invoice. Both are usually known too late to change.
This post covers what professional services ERP needs to do. It is the thinking behind our services industry page.
Time that costs and bills
Hours booked against tasks carrying a cost rate and a billing rate, so project margin moves as the work does. When timesheets arrive late, billing is late and utilisation is a guess.
Work in progress as a real balance
Unbilled work in progress is a ledger position, not a spreadsheet estimate produced for the board pack. When WIP is estimated, scope creep is discovered at the billing conversation rather than while there is room to act.
Milestone and retainer billing
Fixed price, time and materials, retainer and milestone models handled natively, including partial recognition. A firm that can only bill at the end is financing its clients.
Early warning on overrun
Alpine watching burn against budget and milestone completion, saying something while there is still room to act — rather than a post-mortem two months after the decisions were made.
Utilisation as a lever, not a retrospective
Utilisation reported weekly and acted on, not monthly and observed. When utilisation is quarterly, the quarter is over before anyone responds to it.
How AlpineERP fits
AlpineERP covers the services depth above, and we configure it against how your business actually runs before you go live. See the services industry page for the capabilities in full, or how an implementation runs.