Profitdrive at a glance.

Ten operational areas, plus Settings and Operations. Four properties run across them all. Pick where to go deeper.

Plus: SG&A, Accounts and the Xero connection, described further down, and Settings and Operations for tenant configuration and the activity history.

The whole system on one page.

The operational areas, the four properties that run across all of them, and the boundaries at the edges. Enough to see how the parts fit together before going deeper into any one of them.

The larger areas link to a narrative page showing what an engagement manager, a finance partner or a delivery lead actually sees and does there.

Four properties run across the system.

These are not separate features. They are properties of how Profitdrive is built, and you meet them in every operational area.

Open Roles carry a price tag, not a placeholder.

An unfilled staffing requirement on a Deal Model or Project Plan is not a gap in the row. It is a real entity with a planned cost, a date window and a financial consequence. While unfilled, it carries your firm's target cost for that grade and shows as drag on margin. When filled, the row converts in place and keeps its origin. Open Roles appear consistently across Deal Models, Project Plans, the People workbench and the Dashboard's Open Demand panel: the same entity, different views.

The deal becomes the project becomes the forward P&L.

When a deal is won, the Deal Model becomes the Project Plan. The same role rows, the same people, the same Open Role targets and the same working-day logic carry forward without re-entry, so delivery starts from the case the deal was priced on rather than a fresh budget. As the months arrive you compare the plan with what the outlook now shows.

Historical accuracy preserved, forward picture immediate.

Every person carries a cost period: a daily cost effective from a date. When a salary changes, a grade progresses or a contractor rate shifts, the change is entered with its effective date. From that date forward, every deal, project and forward P&L line uses the new cost. Historical projects keep their historical cost, so variance analysis stays accurate. No retroactive rewrites, no spreadsheet reconciliation.

Contracted, + Extensions, + Pipeline: the same three views, everywhere.

The forward view is built as three cumulative scenarios: Contracted (signed work), Contracted + Extensions (signed plus likely continuations), and Contracted + Extensions + Pipeline (the full forward view including the qualified funnel at full value). The same three scenarios appear on the Dashboard Outlook, in the Financials P&L Outlook, in the Utilisation lenses, and in Project Financials Summary. One operational reality, three views, consistent labelling.

The operational surface, end to end.

Profitdrive's operational surface is ten areas, with Settings and Operations supporting them. Each area is connected to the others through the properties above: change a person's cost in People, and the change propagates through every deal they appear in, every project they are assigned to, and every forward P&L scenario.

The first six follow the commercial lifecycle: Pipeline (pre-win modelling), Projects (post-win delivery), People (workforce supply and cost), Financials (firm-level forward P&L), Dashboard (management cockpit) and Utilisation (capacity against demand). The next four are the inputs and connections around them: Timecards, SG&A, Accounts and the Xero connection. Settings holds tenant policy; Operations holds data entry and administration.

01 / 10

Pipeline and Deal Modelling

Where pricing meets your firm's reality. The Deal Model is the operational hub for concrete-offer pricing: staffing modelled by grade and named people, cost resolved from live data, margin anchored to firm-wide targets, assumptions visible to everyone who needs to act on them. Fixed Price and Fixed Fee work is modelled natively, with the right revenue-recognition logic, and stays connected to the forward profit outlook.

Opportunity list

Tenant-scoped opportunities filterable by stage, customer, sales lead, and date range. Shows name, value, stage, probability, close date, and days since update.

Kanban board

Drag-and-drop stage management with visual grouping by stage, customer, sales lead, or close month. Stage cards show opportunity value and estimated margin.

Deal Model

Role-level cost and revenue planning per opportunity. Model staffing by grade and named people, dates, allocation %, commercial mode per phase, and contribution margin against firm-wide targets, before signature.

Open Roles

Unfilled staffing demand modelled financially without assigning a person. Carries the firm's grade-cost target. Tracked across Deal Model and Project Plan; surfaces as a real entity across the system.

Phase-level commercial modes

Time & Materials, Fixed Price and Fixed Fee are each modelled with their own revenue-recognition logic, and every mode stays connected to the forward profit outlook. A single deal can also run different modes per phase, with blended margin shown at opportunity level.

Convert to Project

Promotion of the Deal Model into the Project Plan on closure. Staffing, phases, revenue, cost and commercial modes carry forward without re-entry, so delivery starts from the case the deal was won on rather than a fresh budget.

Bookings view

Total contracted value (TCV) by month. Won opportunities appear as booked value; earlier-stage opportunities appear according to the pipeline scenario rules.

Pipeline Impact

Commercial consequence of all opportunities at each stage rolled into the monthly revenue and margin forecast. Feeds the three-scenario P&L Outlook (Contracted / + Extensions / + Pipeline) at full value.

See pipeline and deal pricing in depth

02 / 10

Projects and Delivery

Post-win delivery as the continuation of the commercial case, not the start of a new one. The Project Plan inherits the Deal Model structure, so the people, phases and modes you priced are what delivery plans with, and the project's forward numbers sit in the same outlook as everything else.

Project master data

Project identity, account, commercial posture (T&M, Fixed Price, Fixed Fee), start/end dates, linked opportunity, and status derived from dates.

Project Plan

Role-level staffing planning with person rows and open roles. Same structure as the Deal Model; carries Deal Model assumptions forward via Convert to Project. The main editing surface for project delivery planning.

Assignments

Named-person allocations to projects. Each assignment specifies person, allocation %, date window, rate, and optional phase. Validates against People cost and availability.

Project phases

Delivery structure with dates, commercial mode (inherited from Deal Model or independently edited post-conversion), and phase-level revenue and cost recognition.

Extensions and change requests

Incremental scope additions, treated as commercial objects. Draft extensions sit in the + Extensions scenario; signed extensions flip to Contracted and feed the firm's forward P&L. Inform margin variance analysis.

Internal projects

Non-billable productive work (training, tooling, admin). Distinct from billable projects and from leave. Receives named-person allocations and contributes to utilisation and Non-Billable Production Cost.

See project profitability in depth

03 / 10

People and Capacity

The workforce supply, cost and capacity layer. Foundation for every people-driven calculation in the Deal Model, Project Plan and forward P&L, and where Open Roles live as real, costed entities.

People directory

Tenant-scoped person records with employment dates, FTE, staff type (employee, contractor, SG&A), grade, team, location, and archive state.

Daily cost resolution

Hierarchical cost resolution: person override → grade cost → standard fallback. Contractors resolve via contract rate. Employees resolve via grade cost or person-level override.

Grade system

Tenant-defined grades with time-bounded standard cost and charge rate history. Grades assigned to people; effective dates support salary increases and grade progression.

Person cost overrides

Period-based cost overrides for salary changes, contractor rate adjustments, or ad-hoc adjustments. Time-bounded; historical accuracy preserved.

On-cost components

Pension, employer taxes, insurance, overhead as additive inputs to direct cost. Applied via location or tenant default settings.

Leave management

Paid and unpaid leave tracked by person and date. Paid leave reduces capacity but not cost; unpaid leave reduces both.

Utilisation (Weekly and Monthly lenses)

Capacity-vs-demand analysis showing billed assignment days against available working days across the three cumulative scenarios.

Open Roles workbench

Unfilled demand from Pipeline and Projects, surfaced for fulfilment. One-action fill: a named person assignment flows back to the source planning row without re-entry. Origin retained; replacement open roles created automatically on person end-date.

Timecard capture

Weekly time capture for delivery staff, switched on per firm. Accepted time lands as delivered days and delivered cost against the project; it does not write revenue or the outlook. Described in full under Timecards, area 07.

See capacity and people cost in depth

04 / 10

Financials and P&L

Firm-level forward P&L across the three cumulative scenarios. Revenue, delivery cost, contribution margin, non-billable production cost, SG&A and Operating Income, at monthly grain, with the scenario always visible and the ability to open a figure and see what sits behind it. Not an accounting system.

P&L Outlook

Revenue → Delivery Cost → Contribution → Non-Billable Production Cost (the bench, internal-project, and leave-related cost that does not attach to client delivery) → SG&A → Operating Income. Monthly columns; L1 rows with expandable L2 detail.

Three-scenario views

Contracted, Contracted + Extensions, Contracted + Extensions + Pipeline. Each scenario shows independent revenue, cost and profit at full value.

Scenario-aware KPI strip

Utilisation, FTE, billed units, and cost rates displayed for the selected scenario and month range.

Drill to source

Open a figure in the outlook and see what sits behind it: the scenario, the project, the assignment, the person and the cost in effect that month.

Imported Actuals

Bulk import of actual financial data via CSV for read-only comparison against the live forecast. Versioned for audit trail. Sits beside the Live Forecast, does not overwrite it.

Imported Budget

Budget plan data (monthly targets by category) for read-only comparison view. Active-plan-based; separate from live forecast.

SG&A as structured monthly input

Tenant-configurable operating expense categories (rent, software, HR, etc.) with monthly amounts that roll into the SG&A line. Maintained as a list of items in SG&A, area 08, with import and export.

See the forward P&L in depth

05 / 10

Dashboard and Management Cockpit

The executive cockpit. Daily and weekly decision posture, not a second analytical P&L. Outlook carries the financial and operational posture; Funnel carries pipeline movement and quality signals.

Outlook surface

Revenue and Operating Income across the three cumulative scenarios with comparison baseline (Budget, Forecast, or Last Year). Utilisation, Open Demand, and driver cards showing which extensions, opportunities, and ending projects are moving the forecast most.

Funnel surface

Pipeline waterfall (beginning stock → deals won, slipped, lost, value changes → ending stock). Movement drivers ranked by revenue impact. Quality and hygiene signals where data supports them.

Drivers drill detail

On-demand explanation for a selected extension, ending project, or pipeline opportunity. Shows margin case, staffing, open roles, and contribution.

Open Demand panel

Aggregate view of unfilled roles across Pipeline and Projects: count, FTE representation, revenue at risk, and cost at risk. Real-time people-constraint signal.

See the management cockpit in depth

06 / 10

Utilisation

Capacity-vs-demand visibility at the person and team level. Scenario-aware: utilisation reads not as a single blended number but as your firm's commitment under Contracted, + Extensions and + Pipeline.

Weekly utilisation matrix

Person-by-week view showing capacity, billed days across the three cumulative scenarios, and utilisation %. Person detail drill by month and project.

Monthly utilisation matrix

Person-by-month view with the same structure. Financial-grid style; supports team and location grouping; exports visible snapshot.

Filters, grouping and export

The toolbar narrows the view by period, scenario, staff type, utilisation band, team, location and grade. Person detail opens from either view. Export is from the Monthly view, as the visible snapshot; Weekly is on screen only.

See capacity and people cost in depth

07 / 10

Timecards

Optional weekly time capture from the people doing the work, switched on per firm. Because the plan already knows who is assigned where, a person's week opens with their assignments as rows: they enter hours, add leave, save and submit, on a phone if they like. Accepted time lands as delivered days and delivered cost against the project. It is a cost input only: time does not write revenue and it does not move the outlook. Today a 40-plus person IT services firm already runs on Profitdrive, Timecards included.

Weekly capture

A Monday to Friday grid per person, with a weekend toggle. Rows come from the person's assignments; any active project can be added, and internal projects arrive as non-billable. Leave is entered in the same grid. Save and submit are separate, so a half-done week is never mistaken for a finished one.

Manager view

Coverage shows who has not started, who has saved and who has submitted. Exceptions shows planned against delivered by person and project, as information rather than a gate. Month completeness lists what is still open before a month is accepted; a shortfall can be waived with a recorded reason, or left open and acknowledged at acceptance.

Review step, optional

By default a submitted week is the record and nobody approves time. If your firm wants a review step, switch it on: submitted weeks queue for a manager to confirm or reopen with a reason. There is no approver chain.

Import

Weeks captured elsewhere can be brought in from a spreadsheet.

What accepted time becomes

Delivered days and delivered cost on the project, at the person's cost in effect that month. Cost only. Revenue stays with the plan and with your accounting system; nothing here writes the outlook.

See Timecards in depth

08 / 10

SG&A

Your overheads as a maintained list rather than a number typed into a forecast. Each item carries a category, a supplier, a monthly amount and the months it runs, and the total for each month rolls into the SG&A line of the forward P&L in every scenario.

Items

The active cost items for the selected month, with search, category and supplier filters, grouping and a visible month total. Create, edit and archive; delete only what has already been archived.

Summary

Month columns around the selected month, grouped by category or supplier, so you can see how the overhead run-rate spreads across the coming window.

Import and export

Upload a CSV, map the columns, check the validation and the dry run, then commit. Export the visible items list as CSV.

09 / 10

Accounts

A lightweight register of the accounts you work with and the contacts at each. Opportunities and projects link to an account here, so the same client is the same client in Pipeline, in Projects and in the outlook. It is not a CRM: no account hierarchy, no segmentation, no account ownership, no account-level financials, and none of the marketing and sales automation a CRM is built for.

Accounts

One record per account, whether you sell to it or buy from it. Archive and unarchive is the lifecycle, rather than delete.

Contacts

The people at each account, kept as a simple contact list. A contact can be attached to an account or stand on its own.

Notes and activity

Simple notes and an activity log against an account. No workflow.

Links to Pipeline, Projects and Xero

An opportunity names its account; when it converts, the project carries the same account. Matching an account to its Xero contact happens in the Xero connection and is never guessed.

10 / 10

Xero connection

Connect your Xero organisation and bring your accounting actuals into a controlled workflow: sync on demand, map your chart of accounts to the P&L lines once, then have your finance lead accept each month. Xero does not write the outlook, and a connected Xero is a staging step rather than a result: nothing counts as an actual until a month is accepted. The connection is read-only. Xero is the first accounting system connected; the approach does not depend on which one you run.

Connect and sync

Connect from Settings, then sync on demand. Each sync brings your Xero data into a staging area where your finance lead maps and accepts it, and shows counts of what arrived and what still needs matching. Nothing in the forecast changes because a sync ran.

Map and accept

Map Xero accounts to the P&L lines once. Accounts with a balance and no mapping are shown, never bucketed silently. On the Financials Accounting tab your finance lead loads the month for inspection, then accepts it. Acceptance is explicit and forward-only.

Match contacts

Xero contacts that do not yet match an account or supplier in Profitdrive are listed by dollar impact for you to link. Profitdrive never guesses a match.

Invoice lines out

For a chosen month, from the Timecards manage screen, Profitdrive proposes invoice lines from accepted time on time-and-materials work and from fixed monthly fees, with the exclusions shown. Your controller reviews, unselects what should not go, and downloads a Xero-compatible CSV. Import, approve and issue happen in Xero. This is an export path, not billing: Profitdrive does not issue invoices and does not write to Xero.

Compare, coming

Showing accepted Xero months in Financials beside the outlook for the same months is in verification and not available today. Until then, actuals imported by CSV are the comparison path, and they sit beside the outlook without replacing it.

Plus

Settings and Configuration

Tenant-wide operational policy and defaults consumed by every downstream area. The configuration layer that defines your firm's working assumptions: working calendar, cost basis, margin targets, on-cost structure.

Core tenant settings

Financial year start, currency, rate unit, working hours per day, default locale, timezone, cost basis, margin targets (component-weighted), open-role margin policy, and annual leave accrual.

Tenant calendar and structural defaults

Tenant working calendar with public-holiday overrides, grade standard cost/rate history, location-level on-cost history (overrides tenant default), and margin target history with effective dates.

Plus

Operations

Data entry, administration, and integration surfaces. Bulk import for migration; user management for the team; activity timeline for context.

CSV import (Opportunities, People, Allocations, SG&A)

Bulk import for opportunities, people (identity and cost), project allocations (staffing), and SG&A costs. Self-healing import that maps missing prerequisites before commit.

User invitation and membership management

Invite-based onboarding. Who can see cost and financials, and who can administer the tenant, is set per person in Settings. Permissions are tenant-scoped.

Activity Timeline and Notes

Unified activity history across opportunities, projects, and people. Notes, lightweight actions, and change history. Not a task-management workflow system.

On the roadmap:

HubSpot and QuickBooks connectors are planned and not available today. Xero is connected now; see the Xero connection, area 10. CSV import is live for opportunities, people, allocations, SG&A, projects, actuals and budgets.

What Profitdrive deliberately is not.

Profitdrive is the commercial decision layer between pipeline, delivery, people and firm P&L. It is not trying to be the accounting system, the billing engine, the CRM, the recruiting platform or the project management workflow tool. These boundaries are deliberate.

Domain

What Profitdrive does

What it does not do

Accounting

Live firm-level forward P&L, with figures you can open to the project, the deal and the person behind them.

Profitdrive is not a compliance-reporting or statutory audit system. General ledger, tax, statutory reporting and revenue-recognition standards stay with your accounting system. Profitdrive connects to it; it does not replace it.

Billing and invoicing

Models revenue across cumulative scenarios and per phase / commercial mode.

Does not issue invoices or manage collections. Accepted time and fixed fees can be exported as Xero-compatible invoice lines for your controller to review; the invoice is approved and issued in Xero.

Cash flow

Forecasts profit at the delivery / month level.

Does not forecast cash. Cash and treasury stay with your accounting system or your bank.

Recruiting and talent

Models people cost, capacity, grade structure, and Open Roles as financial entities.

Does not manage hiring pipelines, candidate progression, competency assessment, or development plans.

Task management

Tracks assignments, phases, extensions, and activity at the operational planning level.

Not a task-tracking workflow system. Jira / Asana / Linear cover that surface.

Approval workflows

Surfaces the financial consequence of every commercial decision at the point it is made.

Does not automate approval chains, escalations, or sign-off routing. Discipline emerges from visibility, not enforcement.

Sales and CRM

Holds the funnel, with a priced and staffed Deal Model on each opportunity, and a lightweight register of accounts and contacts.

Not a CRM. No account hierarchy, ownership or segmentation, and none of the marketing and sales automation a CRM is built for. Every deal that reaches proposal stage should be reflected in Profitdrive; the CRM keeps the rest.

Now go deeper.

This is the whole system at a glance. To see how each area behaves operationally, what an engagement manager, a finance partner or a delivery lead actually sees and does, read the narrative for that area.

Pipeline narrative

The commercial layer of your pipeline. Deal Model, Open Roles, Convert to Project.

Projects narrative

Commercial intent to delivery reality. The Project Plan inherits the deal, and the plan is compared with the outlook as the months arrive.

People narrative

People cost, capacity, and open demand. The operational layer behind firm profit.

Financials narrative

Firm profit visibility across scenarios. The forward P&L on one set of numbers.

Dashboard narrative

The management cockpit at a glance. Outlook and Funnel on the same calendar.

Timecards narrative

Weekly time from the people doing the work, without a second system. Delivered cost against the plan, not revenue.