Unbilled hours
Time is recorded late or in personal spreadsheets, so work that was delivered never reaches an invoice.
Industries · Professional Services
Professional services software that turns billable hours into invoices on time
When proposals, delivery and billing sit in different tools, hours go unbilled and margins are found out at year end. We implement Odoo or build custom systems so the engagement is tracked from first call to paid invoice.
What is professional services software?
Professional services software manages the full life of a client engagement for agencies, consultancies and accounting, legal or engineering firms: winning the work, scoping and pricing it, staffing it, recording time and expenses, and billing it. Often called professional services automation (PSA), it matters most when sales, delivery and finance share the same data, so every hour logged can be traced to a contract, a budget and an invoice line.
Operational problems we see most often
Margin seen too late
Fixed-fee projects overrun quietly; nobody compares hours spent with the budget until the engagement closes.
Who is free next week?
Partners book the same senior people onto several clients because capacity and skills aren't visible in one place.
Proposals disconnected from delivery
The scope sold in the proposal is retyped into a project plan, and change requests are agreed in email without being priced.
Slow billing cycles
Month-end invoicing means chasing timesheets, approving expenses and adjusting rates by hand, which delays cash.
What the system needs to cover
CRM & Pipeline
- Leads by source and service line
- Opportunity stages and probability
- Client contacts and history
- Follow-up activities and reminders
Proposals
- Quotation templates per service
- Fixed fee, retainer and hourly lines
- Rate cards by role or seniority
- E-signature and online acceptance
Projects
- Projects generated from the signed quote
- Tasks, milestones and deliverables
- Budget versus actual hours
- Client portal for updates and approvals
- Change requests as new billable items
Resource Planning
- Capacity by person and team
- Shift or week-level allocations
- Skills and role matching
- Leave and holidays in planning
Time & Expenses
- Timesheets per task and client
- Approval by project manager
- Expense claims with receipts
- Rebillable costs flagged for invoicing
Billing
- Invoices from approved time
- Milestone and retainer billing
- Work-in-progress and unbilled reports
- Payment follow-ups and statements
From first inquiry to paid invoice
Each stage passes its data forward, so the hours sold, worked and billed are the same hours.
- 01
Lead
An inquiry or referral is logged in CRM with the service line and the partner responsible.
- 02
Proposal
The scope is priced from rate cards or a fixed fee and sent as a quotation the client can accept online.
- 03
Project setup
Acceptance creates the project with its tasks, budget and billing rules, so nothing is retyped.
- 04
Staffing
Team members are allocated against available capacity and their planned hours appear on their schedule.
- 05
Delivery & time
Consultants log hours and expenses against tasks; managers watch budget burn as the work progresses.
- 06
Billing
Approved time, milestones or retainers become invoice lines, reviewed by the partner before sending.
- 07
Review
Hours, cost and revenue per project are compared, informing how the next proposal is priced.
Work the system can do for you
Timesheet reminders
People with missing or incomplete timesheets are reminded before the weekly cut-off, not at month end.
Budget alerts
Project managers are notified when hours reach a set share of the budget, before the overrun happens.
Recurring retainers
Monthly retainer invoices are generated on schedule, with overage hours added when the allowance is exceeded.
Quote-to-project handoff
A signed quotation creates the project, tasks and billing setup automatically from its lines.
What it connects to, and what it reports
Integrations
- Email and calendar
- E-signature tools
- Document storage and client portals
- Banking and payment gateways
- Video meeting platforms
- Marketing forms and website inquiries
Reports managers use
- Utilization and billable ratio per person and team
- Project margin: budget, actual cost and revenue
- Work in progress and unbilled time
- Pipeline value by service line and stage
- Revenue and profitability per client
- Aged receivables and days to collect
Access control, auditability and growth
Matter-level access
Client files, notes and documents are visible only to the team assigned to that engagement.
Rate confidentiality
Cost rates, salaries and margins stay with partners and finance; consultants see only their own time.
Audit trail
Changes to timesheets, rates and invoices are logged with user and time, so billing disputes can be checked.
One billing cycle with one team, then the whole firm
Map the engagement
Trace how a typical client moves from inquiry to invoice today, including the spreadsheets and email steps.
Define the rules
Agree service lines, billing models, rate cards and timesheet policy before configuration starts.
Configure & migrate
Set up CRM, projects, time and invoicing, and bring in open clients, projects and balances.
Pilot one team
Run one practice or department through a full billing cycle, then adjust before firm-wide rollout.
Report & refine
Utilization and margin reports are reviewed with partners and the setup is tuned to how decisions are made.
Solutions and technologies for this industry
Sources and further reading
Official documentation and guidance if you want to read more about this topic.
Professional Services software questions
What is PSA software?
PSA (professional services automation) software connects sales, project delivery, resource planning, time tracking and billing for firms that sell expertise by the hour, retainer or fixed fee. Its main purpose is to make utilization and project margin visible while work is still in progress.
Can Odoo work as professional services software?
Yes. Odoo's CRM, Sales, Project, Planning, Timesheets, Expenses and Invoicing apps cover most of a services firm's cycle, and a quotation can create a project with billing based on time, milestones or fixed price. Firm-specific rules, such as complex rate structures or matter numbering, can be added with customization. Note that Planning is an Odoo Enterprise app.
How does the system reduce unbilled time?
Timesheets are logged against client tasks, reminders chase missing entries, and approved time feeds invoices directly. An unbilled time report shows what has been worked but not yet invoiced, so nothing waits for someone to remember it.
Does it support fixed-fee and retainer billing as well as hourly?
Yes. Each engagement can be billed by hours, milestones, fixed fee or recurring retainer, and time is still recorded on fixed-fee work so you can see whether the price covered the effort.
Is it suitable for accounting and legal firms?
Yes, for engagement management, time recording and billing. Practice-specific needs such as matter or file numbering, conflict checks or document retention rules should be defined at the start, and some may require custom fields or modules.
Next step
See where your billable hours actually go
Tell us how your firm sells, staffs and bills its work today. We'll show how that cycle maps onto Odoo and where custom rules are needed.