Every opportunity tracked. Every deal priced with margin confidence.

Profitdrive supports how you manage early-stage leads in a pipeline, and adds a Deal Model the moment a client asks for a concrete offer. Price, staffing, capacity, and margin are modelled together, on the firm's real data, against firm-wide targets, visible to everyone who needs to act on them.

The question this answers

How do you connect a sales pipeline to forward profit?

By pricing the deal on the same data the firm already runs on. An opportunity carries a Deal Model holding named or open roles, real day rates, resolved people cost and the firm's working-day calendar, so margin is calculated at the point of pricing and against firm-wide targets. When the deal is won, that commercial case becomes the project baseline and feeds the forward P&L, with no re-entry and no spreadsheet bridge between what was sold and what the firm reports.

Early in the funnel, the shape of the deal isn't yet defined. You're tracking interest, qualifying fit, scheduling follow-ups. A pipeline tool handles this well. But once the client asks for a concrete offer covering pricing, staffing, scope, and timing, the firm has to respond with a number it can defend. That number, in most services firms, comes from a spreadsheet.

What does not go in is the shape behind the number, and whether the shape is real. The day rate may be last quarter's. The Senior Consultant pencilled in for June may already be on another deal closing the same week. The working days assume 250 in the year when the actual figure is 220 once leave and holidays are netted out. The cost expectation for the unnamed roles is whatever the modeller decided this time. And there is often no firm-wide target visible at the point of pricing. Every deal is priced against whatever assumptions are convenient.

Early in the funnel, that opacity is fine. The deal is not real yet. But as the opportunity moves toward proposal and negotiation, those assumptions start to matter. By the time the deal is won, the first week of delivery is already staffed, usually with whoever was free, not who was sold, and margin starts drifting in week one because the assumptions were never tested while they could still change. When the project closes below target, the firm can identify that it lost margin, but not which assumption caused it.

Pricing you can defend. Profit you can trace.

Pipeline in Profitdrive is what makes pricing trustworthy, and traceable. It is not a sales database, and not a replacement for your pricing tool.

Pricing with confidence requires the assumptions underneath to be real. Staffing has to be transparent. Named people where possible, open roles where not. Those people have to actually be available. Costs have to be resolved from live salary, grade, and contractor data. Working days have to be calculated against working-day reality. Open roles need a cost expectation set by the firm, not invented per deal. And the deal has to be priced against the firm's CM targets, not against whatever assumptions are convenient.

The Deal Model carries all of that. Every assumption is visible at the moment it is made, and visible to everyone who matters across sales, delivery, resourcing, and finance. When the deal is won, those assumptions do not get re-entered into a new system as "the project budget." They are the project budget. The same role rows, the same people, the same open-role targets, the same working-day logic carry forward intact.

The earlier the firm can see the assumptions, the earlier it can react. Adjust pricing, flag a capacity conflict, hire ahead, or walk away. And once the deal is won, every variance from delivery has a name. Margin drift is no longer a mystery. It traces back to the specific row, the specific person, the specific day rate, the specific assumption that moved.

Surface

Function

01

Opportunities list

All deals at a glance, filtered by stage and track.

02

Kanban board

Visual stage management, value and margin on every card.

03

Deal Model

Role cost, delivery shape, commercial mode, margin against firm target, before signature.

04

Convert to Project

Deal assumptions become the project budget. No re-entry.

05

Pipeline Impact

How this deal moves the firm's monthly forward profit, traceable to source.

What the operator actually does, and what carries through.

Track every opportunity through its lifecycle.

Every opportunity starts as a short headline. Client, value, sales lead, stage, probability, close date. Enough to know it exists and where it sits in the funnel, not enough to model it financially yet. You add an opportunity when something is worth tracking, and from that moment it carries a place on the firm's pipeline.

The same opportunities show up in different views. A list, filtered by stage, client, sales lead, close month, or start month. A Kanban board grouped by any of those, so the funnel is visible as movement rather than rows. You manage the pipeline the way you already do: review what is active, move stages as new information arrives, update the headline when something changes. The point of this layer is that it stays light. Easy to keep current, so the firm actually keeps it current, so what you see on the board reflects what is actually happening.

The pipeline is not only what it looks like today. It is also what has changed since last week, last month, last quarter, or any specific date you choose. You can see which opportunities entered, which moved stage, which closed, which slipped, and which dropped out. The funnel becomes a moving picture rather than a snapshot, and the firm can see whether its own activity is producing the dynamics it needs, not just whether the current total looks right.

Most of this work happens before the deal is qualified. Early in the funnel, the headline is enough, because the shape of the deal is not yet defined. Qualification turns a lead into a deal the firm is genuinely pursuing, and the lightweight tracking keeps doing its job. The depth comes one stage later, when the client asks for a concrete offer. At that moment the headline stops being sufficient, and the opportunity needs a Deal Model. That is what the next section is about: what happens when a qualified opportunity becomes a deal that has to be priced.

The pipeline is the lightweight layer that lets the firm see what is in flight. The Deal Model is the layer that makes the pricing trustworthy when the deal gets there.

PIPELINE · KANBAN · LIVE LINK TO OUTLOOK

Lead7

Helix Therapeutics

$42k—

9d since update

Dunn Group

$28k—

4d since update

Qualification4

Northwind

$150k45%

2d since update

Linwood Robotics

$86k38%

11d since update

Proposal3

Atlas Logistics

$50k41%

5d since update

Brindle Bank

$220k47%

1d since update

Negotiation2

Pemberton Health

$64k52%

3d since update

Outlook · Q2 2026

Contracted$1.80M52% CM

+ Extensions$2.20M45% CM

+ Pipeline$2.50M42% CM

Kanban board → Outlook · Stage move updates Pipeline scenario in real time

Pipeline · Kanban · stage move updates Pipeline scenario in real time.

Price with confidence on transparent staffing, real availability, current cost, and firm-wide targets.

A table with one row per person on the deal. Each row carries a role, an allocation, a day rate, and a contribution margin, with the named individual's daily cost resolved from current salary or contract rate. For unnamed demand, you leave the role open and set rate and target CM%. Working days resolve against the firm's working-day calendar. A summary line at the bottom gives total revenue, blended CM%, and the variance against the firm's target.

You add a person row. Say a Senior Engineer at full allocation across the quarter. You set a day rate, and the delivery window anchors to the phase dates. If you have someone in mind, you add them; their cost resolves from live data and their availability is checked against existing commitments. If you don't, you leave the role open, and it joins the firm's open-role demand, visible to everyone who might fill it rather than buried in one deal's estimate.

Cost resolves immediately. A contractor's actual day rate, an employee's grade cost, an open role's target cost all flow into a blended CM% that recalculates as you change inputs. The firm's target sits alongside, and because targets are set by how the work is staffed, own staff, contractors, and other revenue each carry their own, every row is measured against the right one. Over- and under-pricing are visible the moment they happen. Before signature, the team is pricing on numbers they can defend, and the assumptions are visible to anyone in the firm who needs to see them.

Every assumption captured here becomes the project's reference once the deal converts. The same row, the same person, the same target. Variance against delivery does not need to be reconstructed. It is the difference between this row and what actually happened.

DEAL MODEL · MERIDIAN HEALTH · PLATFORM MODERNISATION

Headline

Deal Model

Deal Financials

Timeline & Actions

CancelSave

Meridian Health·Platform Modernisation·Jul 2026 – Sep 2026·Deal Value: $377,600·CM 38%

Phase 1 · Discovery

+Add Person▾

Phase 1 · Discovery01 Jul – 30 Sep 2026Time & Materials▾

RolePersonAlloc %RateRevenueCM%

Lead ArchitectElena Vasquez100$1,350$86,40044%

Engineering LeadMarcus Chen100$1,150$73,60040%

BA+Select Person…100$850$54,40015%

Senior EngineerDaniel Okafor100$1,000$64,00048%

Role nameSarah Bennett80$850$43,52031%

Project ManagerHannah Williams60$1,450$55,68042%

345.6 days·5.4 FTE·81% staffed

CM% Δ vs Target−3 pp(target 41%)

Revenue $377,600Blended CM 38%

Deal Model · Meridian Health Platform Modernisation · person rows with editable role, availability dots, and variance against firm CM target.Illustrative compressed view. The full Deal Model also surfaces per-row start, end, days, and cost rate, and cost omitted here for clarity.

Model mixed commercial modes without splitting the deal.

A deal can run as more than one phase, and each phase carries its own commercial mode. One phase fixed price, the next time and materials, a third on a fixed fee, each with its own roles, dates, cost, and revenue. The deal header rolls all of them into a single blended margin, so a mixed engagement stays one deal rather than being split into separate records that have to be reconciled by hand.

You structure the deal the way it will actually run. On a fixed price phase, you set the price the client has agreed and then resource the phase with real people at real rates. The system continuously reconciles the two: the fixed price against the revenue of every line, and the difference is the contingency. Positive contingency is headroom. Negative means the lines have been resourced beyond the price, and you can see it the moment it happens and act, by trimming rates or raising the price, before the deal is signed rather than after delivery has eroded it.

A fixed fee phase works the same way against a flat fee rather than a price, with the adjustment moving month to month as the working days in each month change the cost beneath a fee that stays flat. In both cases the commercial structure is computed, not maintained in a side spreadsheet that someone has to keep correct as the resourcing changes. The reconciliation lives next to the model, and it updates as you work.

This is what changes for the people using it. The team can model fixed price and fixed fee work correctly and see the contingency remaining as they go, instead of rebuilding the commercial maths by hand every time a person or a rate moves. Leaders can trust that a fixed price or fixed fee deal has been modelled properly without re-checking the structure themselves, which frees their attention for the question that actually needs judgement: whether the effort estimate underneath is right.

The same deal also opens as a month-by-month view. Revenue, delivery cost, contribution margin, and the deal's KPIs spread across every month of the engagement, with revenue broken out person by person and the contingency or fee adjustment carried through. You can add other revenue here too, software, hardware, expenses, so the deal reflects everything that will be billed, not only the people. It is the same deal seen as a financial shape over time rather than a staffing table, and it is part of the deal itself, not a separate report to assemble.

DEAL MODEL · MERIDIAN HEALTH · PLATFORM MODERNISATION

Headline

Deal Model

Deal Financials

Timeline & Actions

CancelSave

Meridian Health·Platform Modernisation·Jul 2026 – Aug 2027·Deal Value: $2,027,600·CM 39%

Total

Phase 1 · Discovery

Phase 2 · Development

Phase 1 · Discovery

T&M

Phase value$377,600

Phase CM38.0%

Phase 2 · Development

Fixed Price

Phase value$1,650,000

Phase CM39.1%

Blended deal

T&M + FP · weighted average

Revenue

$2,027,600

Cost

$1,236,800

Blended CM

39.0%

Meridian Health · two phases · Discovery T&M · Development Fixed Price · single blended margin.

Convert the commercial case into the project baseline.

An opportunity is Won. You click Convert to Project. A confirmation shows what will be promoted: Deal Model rows, phases, commercial modes, named people, open roles, the budget baseline. You confirm. The project appears in Projects with the entire structure intact.

You convert with one action. No re-entry, no re-confirmation of assumptions that were settled before the deal closed. If delivery later finds a constraint, such as a planned person on leave or a phase needing to slip, they adjust the project plan post-conversion. The baseline the deal was won on stays preserved as the reference point.

This is what makes variance reporting honest. Project margin dropped from 45% to 38%, and the row that caused it is visible. The senior priced at $780 was replaced by a contractor at $950. The open role sold at target was filled at $40 above. The phase ran an extra two weeks. Every drift has a row, a name, a number. Delivery does not start from a blank project record. It starts from the case the deal was won on, and stays measurable against it for the lifetime of the project.

CONVERT TO PROJECT · ATOMIC CONVERSION · DEAL → PROJECT

Northwind · ERP refreshConversion · 14 ms

Deal Model

Won

Deal Model · pre-conversion

Phases · 2FP + T&M

Roles · 4EM, Snr×2, Cons

Named people · 3Priya, Marcus, Hugo

Open roles · 1Snr Cons (Jun 8)

Revenue$150,000

Baseline CM45.1%

Convert
to Project

atomic
promotion

Project Plan

Active

Project Plan · post-conversion

Phases · 2FP + T&M ✓

Roles · 4inherited ✓

Named people · 3inherited ✓

Open roles · 1inherited ✓

Budget baseline$150,000

Baseline CM45.1%

PromotedRoles · people · phases · commercial mode · revenue · cost · margin baseline, all carried intact. Variance reporting now reads against the case the deal was won on.

Won opportunity → Project Plan · No re-entry · structure preserved · baseline seeded

Convert to Project · Won opportunity → Project Plan · structure preserved · baseline seeded · every assumption becomes a measurable reference.

This area does not stand alone.

Project delivery and margin

Convert to Project carries the Deal Model into delivery intact. The same roles, people, phases, and commercial modes become the project baseline. Project margin tracking reads directly against that baseline, so the team sees not just whether they are hitting the margin sold, but which assumption caused the drift.

See project profitability

People cost and capacity

When you add a named person to a Deal Model row, the system checks their capacity and availability, flagging if they are on leave or already allocated to other work in the same window, before the deal locks. Cost (salary, grade, on-costs) flows through deterministically. No spreadsheet gap between deal cost and what the firm actually pays.

See capacity and cost

Forward P&L

Pipeline is one of three components on the firm's monthly P&L. Contracted, + Extensions, + Pipeline. When a deal moves Negotiation → Won, it shifts from Pipeline to Contracted, and the Outlook redraws. This is the rhythm that lets leadership see not just where the firm is but where it is headed.

See the forward P&L

Management cockpit

Pipeline Impact is the commercial input to the Outlook. The Drivers panel surfaces which opportunities are moving margin most. The Funnel surface shows pipeline movement and quality signals separately.

See the cockpit

The discipline behind it

Pricing, staffing and scope are where margin is won or lost. Commercial Discipline is the principle this area puts into practice: margin made visible at the point of decision, rather than explained after the close.

Read Commercial Discipline

From confident pricing to traceable profit, one continuous thread.

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