INDUSTRY
Consulting and professional services
Consultants split across several engagements need utilisation that stands up in front of a client — and rate data that never leaves finance.
Realisation is where the margin goes
Professional services firms have tracked realisation — the share of worked hours that actually reaches an invoice — for decades, because the gap between utilisation and revenue is where the money quietly disappears. Hours get trimmed at billing review when they overran an estimate, or when the entry is too vague to defend line by line.
The second problem is confidentiality. In a firm where different people bill at very different rates, a time system that exposes rates across the team creates a management problem that has nothing to do with time.
How engagement time is recorded
- 01
Sessions attach to engagement and client
Time is attributed as it is spent, which is the property that makes it defensible at billing review.
- 02
A manager approves it
The closed session lands in a review queue with its full context — who, which project, how long, which day. Approving takes a click, and the decision is recorded against the session permanently.
- 03
Utilisation is client-ready
Because capacity accounts for leave and holidays, utilisation reflects genuinely available time rather than a notional denominator.
- 04
Rate and cost data stay restricted
Compensation and rate information is limited to finance and owners, with access logged — the team sees hours, not each other's economics.
What changes
- Clean, client-ready utilisation per consultant and per engagement.
- Contemporaneous records that survive invoice review, raising realisation without a rate conversation.
- Rate data locked to finance and owners, with an access trail.
- Multi-engagement days recorded accurately instead of apportioned by memory.
Where we would not oversell it
This is not a practice-management or PSA suite: no proposals, no resource-planning board, no invoicing. If you need those in one system, Workclave is a component rather than a replacement — it owns the hour record and hands it off cleanly.
Consulting & professional services — common questions
What is a healthy realisation rate?
Benchmarks put it at 85–95%. Below 80%, roughly one day in five of client work is going unbilled — usually a scoping and record-quality problem rather than a pricing one.
Can consultants log time against several engagements in a day?
Yes, and that is the expected pattern. Each block is its own session with its own engagement, which is what keeps per-client effort honest.
Who can see billing rates?
Finance and owners. Utilisation and hours can be shared with delivery leads without exposing rate or compensation data.
Comparing consulting & professional services tools?
A 20-person team pays ₹3,980/mo on Workclave. Side by side with:
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