Law firms · Consultancies · Agencies · WIP tracking · Partner distributions
Professional services accounting where the financials directly affect partner confidence and client retention.
Law firms, consultancies, and agencies have accounting characteristics that differ fundamentally from product businesses. revenue is time-based. work-in-progress must be tracked accurately. Pair WIP and utilization tracking with virtual CFO advisory, day-to-day bookkeeping, or a flexible engagement model sized to your professional services client base.
Firm types we serve
The professional services clients your CPA firm works with — and what each requires.
Legal
Law firms
Law firm accounting has IOLTA trust account requirements, client cost reimbursement tracking, and partner draw calculations that make it one of the most complex professional services accounting environments.
IOLTA client trust account management
Client cost and disbursement tracking
Partner draw and capital account management
Contingency fee revenue recognition
Advisory
Consulting & advisory firms
Consulting firms bill by the hour, the day, or the engagement — sometimes all three simultaneously. accurate WIP tracking and revenue recognition are the core accounting challenges.
WIP and unbilled revenue tracking
Project-level profitability reporting
Retainer vs T&M billing reconciliation
Consultant utilization and realisability
Creative
Marketing, PR & creative agencies
Agency accounting combines retainer billing, project billing, media pass-through costs, and staff utilization in a single financial picture. most general bookkeepers collapse these into categories that obscure agency profitability.
Retainer and project billing split tracking
Media and production cost pass-through
Staff cost allocation by client
Client-level gross margin reporting
Key metrics we track
The metrics that actually matter for professional services firm health.
Standard financial statements tell you what happened. these metrics tell you whether the business is running well.
Utilization
Billable utilization rate
Billable hours as a percentage of available hours. the primary efficiency metric for any time-based professional services firm. tracked per person and per team.
Realisability
Bill rate realisability
Fees billed vs fees available at standard rates. realisability below 80% typically indicates scope creep, write-downs, or billing errors that need addressing.
WIP
WIP days outstanding
Average days between work completion and billing. high WIP days indicate billing delays that create cash flow problems and collection risk.
DSO
Days sales outstanding
Average days to collect after billing. the combined WIP days + DSO figure tells you how long after completing work the firm actually gets paid — a direct measure of working capital health.
Other industries
Professional services clients deserve accountants who understand utilization, WIP, and realisability.
Book a call and describe your professional services client base. We'll confirm exactly what we handle and how the metrics are tracked.
Book a discovery callOr email us directly at accounting@nimblechapps.finance — no forms, no bots.
