Your inventory is people's time. Cost it like it matters.
In a services business the stock sits in chairs, and it perishes every evening at six. An hour nobody billed is not recoverable, and a project that quietly went over is usually discovered at the end, when nothing can be done about it.
For consultancies, agencies and engineering firms: timesheets, WIP, milestone billing and revenue recognition flowing through one practice-management spine, with project margin visible while the project is still running.
Know the project is sinking while you can still bail.
Billable utilization, project margin, and resource planning, visible in real time.
What makes Services hard
The things a generic ERP quietly gets wrong.
- Project margin known only after the final invoice
- Timesheets chased on a Friday and half-remembered
- Utilization reported as a percentage nobody can reconcile to the ledger
- WIP and revenue recognition maintained in a parallel spreadsheet
- Resource planning done in a shared calendar and someone's head
What we configure
Business Central, set up for services - not for a distribution template.
Timesheets and utilization
Time captured against the job, not against a memory of the week, with utilization that reconciles to the ledger because it comes from it.
Project margin in flight
Cost to date against value delivered, visible while there is still time to act, the number a delivery lead should see every Monday.
WIP and revenue recognition
Work in progress and recognised revenue calculated in the system, on your accounting policy, rather than rebuilt each month by hand.
Milestone and retainer billing
Milestones, retainers and time-and-materials all billed from the same project record, so nothing bills twice and nothing bills never.
Resource planning
Who is committed, to what, and when they come free, planned against real capacity rather than a colour-coded calendar.
Built in-house
Where Business Central stops short of a services floor, we already built the rest.
Proof
What it looks like in practice
- Project margin, not post-mortem
- In-flight
- Utilization reconciled to the ledger
- Live
- Spine for time, WIP and billing
- One
“We used to find out a project had lost money at the end of it. Now we find out in week three, which is the only time that information is worth anything.”
Common questions
Services, answered.
Is Business Central a good fit for a services firm?
Yes, with the project and jobs modules configured properly. The trap is treating it as a finance system with timesheets bolted on, the project record has to be the spine, with billing and revenue recognition hanging off it.
Can it handle retainers and milestone billing together?
Yes, alongside time-and-materials, on the same project. Mixed commercial models are the norm in services and the system should not force you to pick one.
How does revenue recognition work?
Calculated in the system against your stated accounting policy, percentage of completion, milestone, or straight-line on a retainer. It stops being a monthly spreadsheet exercise.
Start here
Bring us your services operation. We already speak the language.
A working session, not a sales call. You will leave with a straight answer on what Business Central can do for this operation, what it cannot, and what closing that gap actually costs.