Industries — Professional services
Built for billable time and retainer revenue.
Time tracked against the right client, withholding on service invoices handled correctly, and retainer revenue recognised honestly.
Overview
A professional services firm — architects, consultants, agencies, law and accounting practices themselves — sells time and judgement, not stock, which breaks a lot of standard bookkeeping assumptions built around inventory and cost of goods. Revenue often comes in as a mix of one-off project invoices and monthly retainers, and getting either one wrong on the books makes your actual profitability per client impossible to see clearly.
EZ CRM tracks quotes and deliverables against each client and project, so an accepted quote carries its actual scope forward into the engagement instead of being re-typed as a fresh invoice. Retainer revenue is recognised across the period it covers, not dumped entirely into the month it was invoiced, so a large retainer signed in one month doesn't distort that month's numbers and understate the next few.
On the compliance side, service invoices to corporate clients typically carry a withholding tax obligation on the client's end, which affects what you actually receive against what you invoiced — we reconcile that difference every month rather than let it sit as an unexplained gap in your bank reconciliation. Provincial sales tax registration for services is also its own process, separate from a goods business, and we confirm which authority and which rules apply to your specific services.
The specific pain, and how we answer it
- Revenue from a mix of project invoices and monthly retainers makes real profitability per client hard to see.
- Retainer revenue is recognised across the period it covers, so one large invoice doesn't distort a single month's numbers.
- A client pays less than the invoice total because they've withheld tax on their end, and it looks like an unexplained shortfall.
- Withholding deducted by corporate clients is reconciled every month, so the gap between invoiced and received is explained, not a mystery.
- A quote becomes an engagement, and the scope gets re-typed from scratch as a new invoice.
- EZ CRM carries a quote's actual scope forward into the engagement and the invoice, without retyping it.
- It's unclear which provincial authority a services business should actually be registered with.
- We confirm which provincial revenue authority and rules apply to your specific services, rather than assume goods-business rules apply.
What we’d set up
Talk to someone who knows professional services
Tell us how your business actually runs — we'll tell you exactly what we'd configure.