Profit in a services firm is decided early, and in more than one place.
Profit is set by how a deal is priced, how a project is staffed, when someone is hired or let go, and which offerings you invest in or drop. In a small firm the founder makes most of those calls, and the outlook lives in their head and a spreadsheet. As the firm grows they are made by different people, each working from their own view of what is coming. Profitdrive is built for IT services and professional services firms that want a clear view of profit at either stage. Below is how we think about it, and what Profitdrive can and cannot do about it. Profitdrive is designed from operating experience inside services firms at scale.
The pieces sit with different functions.
To know what revenue and profit will look like over the coming months, you need several things at once, and they belong to different people.
Sales holds the funnel: a value, an indicative margin, and a view on which deals are real. As a deal progresses someone builds a pricing model and a first delivery plan, usually in a spreadsheet. It is hard to keep current on staff cost, working days and margin targets, and it has no view of who is actually available.
Delivery holds the project plans: how the sold deals are being delivered, what will probably extend, the change requests in discussion, and who is on each project for the coming months. Fixed price and fixed fee work makes this harder, because revenue is not aligned to effort and depends on the project manager's view of how delivery is going.
HR holds what people cost: salaries, on-costs, grades, the pay rise that is planned, and the status of the open roles being recruited.
Finance holds the overheads, the budget and the targets, and is asked to turn all of the above into one outlook.
So it gets built by hand, usually by finance, monthly or when the CEO or board asks. The pipeline is exported, the practice leads are asked about utilisation and delivery issues, salaries and overhead go on top, and a week later there is a spreadsheet P&L forecast. It is hard to trace back to its assumptions, and it is out of date the moment it arrives. Keeping it current takes that week again every month. A week of finance time a month goes into it, and the board still asks where the number came from.
Between rebuilds the decisions do not wait. You hire against work that does not land and carry the salaries for two quarters. You turn down work you could have taken, because on paper your people were committed. Or you let someone good go because the actuals surprised you and the outlook looked worse than it was. Or the reverse. Either way, you do not have a firm handle on how profit is evolving, or on what it means for cash.
How old is the version your team is working from today?
Large firms cover this with a support organisation: a finance team, a resource management office, sales operations, and a lot of time spent coordinating between them. Profitdrive exists to let small and mid-size firms avoid that effort, by taking a different approach.
Bring the pieces together once, and let one outlook come out of them.
Profitdrive takes the elements that normally sit with each function and connects them in one place.
Sales
The funnel and the deal model. Each opportunity carries a priced and staffed delivery shape, not just a value and a percentage.
Delivery
The project plan and the resourcing. When the deal is won the deal model becomes the project plan, with the same roles, people and days. Extensions and change requests are planned the same way.
People
Staff cost by grade, dated, so a rise counts from the month it applies. Open roles carry a cost while they are unfilled.
Time
Because the plan already knows who is on what, a timecard arrives prefilled. For most people, most weeks, it is a confirmation, a small adjustment to the hours, or a leave entry, done on a phone. Confirmed time becomes the invoice lines and the delivered cost.
Finance
SG&A, the budget, and the targets the firm holds to, such as contribution margin for own staff, contractors and other revenue, and blended cost per grade. And a connection to your accounting system, so actuals, receivables and payables can be compared with the outlook, and actuals and outlook combine into one view of the financial year.
From those, the forward P&L follows, month by month. Everyone looks at the same version, because it is built from the same data. When a deal slips, a project extends or a grade changes, the outlook moves that day. Nobody rebuilds anything.
Today a 40-plus person IT services firm already runs on Profitdrive, timecards included.
Not one number. Three views of the same months, and the drivers underneath.
We believe a financial outlook is not one lens. It is a clear picture of which scenarios are possible, and of what your team can do to move them. The useful question is what the coming months look like on what you already know, and what changes as the less certain work arrives. So the outlook is built in three cumulative views.
Contracted
The work that is signed, staffed as planned, with the people cost that goes with it. This is the floor.
With extensions and change requests
The continuations delivery expects, and the change requests in discussion, added on top.
With pipeline
The opportunities that have been priced and staffed in the deal model, added at full value, so you can see what winning them would do to revenue, to margin, and to who would be short or on the bench.
Every figure in the outlook can be opened. Behind a month's revenue sits the project, behind the project the deal it came from, behind the cost the person and the rate that applied that month. Nothing is a plug and nothing is a formula somebody has to explain.
And the outlook keeps its history. Compare this month's view with last week, last month or any date you choose, and see what moved and why: a deal won or slipped, an extension confirmed, a start date pushed, a hire brought forward. That is what lets sales, delivery and finance work on the same priorities. The argument stops being about what the future might hold and becomes about how the team can shape it: what is needed to close an extension, which deal to prioritise, and whether to hire ahead of it or hold. Then act on it, together.
From the deal model to the actual result, without a spreadsheet in between.
An outlook is only useful if you can see how it turns out. Confirmed timecards produce the invoice lines, which go to your accounting system. Actual revenue, cost, receivables and payables come back from it into the same view. That closes the loop: the margin promised in the deal model, the margin planned in the project, and the margin actually invoiced and collected sit side by side, and any difference traces back to the assumption that moved. No Excel interface is required.
Xero is the first accounting system connected. The approach does not depend on which one you run.
It is not your accounting system, and it does not make decisions.
It is not your accounting system, and it does not replace it. Your ledger still keeps the books. It is not a CRM: it does not offer the marketing and sales automation those systems are built for. Profitdrive supports funnel management, and every deal that reaches proposal stage should be reflected in it. And it does not make decisions. Someone still has to set the targets and take the call when the outlook says the work is not coming. Profitdrive makes sure that call is made on one current view rather than five.
Do you and your leadership team have a good handle on what revenue and profit look like over the next few months?
If not, what would change in the way you work if you did? Want to see more? The demo runs on a firm where that answer is visible, and you are welcome to look around it.