For consulting firms

A managing partner’s monday morning

Utilization, on the same day it shifts.

Approved hours land on the dashboard the moment a manager taps approve. Per-firm utilization on the trends page, per-consultant utilization on the leaderboard, budget burn on every project card — the numbers you used to see at Q-end are now Monday-morning readings.

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Firm utilization · this week

+4pt vs last week

Productive hours / scheduled · 18 consultants

71%

target 75%

Productive

486h

Idle

74h

Billable

422h

Q-end is now Q-live

No more ‘what did we miss?’ meeting

Numbers a partner reads first

Four readings. One source of truth.

Every consulting firm tracks the same four numbers. The difference is whether they read Monday-morning or Q-end. With Fruitful these update the moment a manager approves an entry.

Live in Trends

71%

Utilization

Built-in KPI · productive hours vs scheduled.

+4pt w/w

Time-project report

486h

Billable hours

Billable approved hours · per period, per project.

+22h w/w

Leaderboard

Under target

Consultants below your utilization line.

-1 w/w

Project detail

92%

Project burn

Approved hours vs project budget hours.

+2pt w/w

All four numbers ship in the dashboard today — on the trends page, the leaderboard, the time-project report, and the project detail card.

The billing cascade

Five steps from a clock-in to money in the bank.

Every step loses a little. Each stage in the cascade below ships on the dashboard today — tracked entries, approval queue, billable flag, sent invoice, payment ledger. Where you lose hours between any two stages is visible in the CSV export.

Tracked

618h 100%

Auto + manual entries land in the queue.

Approved

601h 97%

Manager taps approve · audit row written.

Billable

486h 79%

Each entry marked billable or not.

Invoiced

486h 79%

Sent to clients via portal · branded PDF.

Paid

441h 71%

Payment ledger records the close.

Biggest gap: tracked → billable. 115 hours tracked but flagged non-billable — either by the project’s billing type, or marked non-billable at approval. The CSV export shows the billable status on every entry, so next quarter’s scoping starts with facts.

The bench, before it costs

Eight consultants, eight readings.

A small table of per-consultant utilization, four weeks back. Partners catch the dip before week three instead of finding it at quarter-end.

Per-consultant utilization · last 4 weeks

target 75%

Consultant	Role	This wk
Priya Mehta	Senior	84%
Marcus Wong	Senior	78%
Anita Desai	Manager	73%
Ravi Krishnan	Senior	69%
Sara Lim	Analyst	48%
Devon Park	Analyst	51%
Iris Tan	Manager	72%
Owen Smith	Partner	89%

2 consultants on the bench · Sara, Devon flag · staffing meeting Thu

A retainer, walked through

Acme Strategy retainer. Month one to renewal call.

160 hours/month at USD 285/hr. Three consultants. Two scenes: mid-month check-in, then the conversation that earns the renewal.

1 Day 15 · mid-month

Partner checks the retainer card before the client does.

93 hours approved at the half-way mark on a 160-hour retainer. On pace, slightly under. Partner pings the senior to push the strategy workshop scoping this week instead of next so the second half doesn’t crunch.

Same colour rule across tile, report, export · no spreadsheet

Acme Strategy retainer

Hourly · USD 285/hr · 160h / mo

On pace

Approved

93h

Billable

USD 26,505

Remaining

67h

Retainer burn 93h / 160h · day 15 / 30

0h 50% pace at day 15 160h

2 Day 28 · the renewal call

The renewal becomes a five-minute conversation.

Client opens the portal during the call. Sees the hours behind each deliverable, the running totals, what carried into next month. Renewal signed in the same meeting. No follow-up email asking for a summary deck.

Client sees the same audit-log row your finance team sees

Acme Holdings · portal view

Strategy retainer · month 04

Closed

Hours used

158h / 160h

Burn

99%

Remaining

Hours by deliverable

Market entry analysis	52h	USD 14,820
Strategy workshop	38h	USD 10,830
Capability scoping	44h	USD 12,540
Renewal prep	24h	USD 6,840

Acme renewed for month 05. Signed during the call · audit row #2417.

The Monday-morning answer

Ask once. Read the answer in seconds.

Partners type one question into the AI chat. The answer comes paired with the source table — every figure traceable to the row it came from. No Excel slicer, no analyst memo.

Fruitful AI

scoped to your firm

1 credit

What was firm utilization last week, and who is most under target?

Firm utilization last week was 71% — below the 75% target by four points. Two consultants pulled the average down: Sara Lim at 48% and Devon Park at 51%, both ending recent engagements without a new one queued.

Consultant	Util %	Δ vs target
Sara Lim	48%	-27pt
Devon Park	51%	-24pt
Iris Tan	72%	-3pt

Numbers from your approved time entries

Same numbers a CSV export would give you. The chat just types the question.

Plan shape

Consulting firms land on Pro with AI reports. White-label for the client-facing portal.

Pro unlocks projects + client portal + multi-currency invoicing. AI reports add the natural-language layer partners use for Monday readings. White-label puts your firm name on the portal a client opens during a renewal call.

See pricing ROI calculator

In the bundle

Time tracking · web + desktop
Projects with per-project rates
Approval queue + audit log
Multi-currency invoicing
AI reports · natural-language
Client portal with disputes

Realisation used to be a quarter-end shock. Now it is a Monday read. We caught a 7-point drift in week two and pulled it back before month-end.

Owen Smith

Managing partner · Northpath Strategy

The renewal call became a five-minute portal walk-through. Client signed in the meeting. No follow-up deck needed.

Iris Tan

Engagement manager · Northpath Strategy

Partners ask first

Six questions before a partner signs off.

Do you compute utilization for us out of the box?

Yes. Firm-level utilization is a built-in KPI on the Trends page; per-employee utilization is on the Leaderboard with a delta vs the previous period. Utilization is defined as productive hours / scheduled hours. If your firm prefers a different definition (for example billable approved / scheduled), it is one CSV export or one AI chat question away from your existing slicer.

Can we track different hourly rates per consultant on the same project?

Today the hourly rate is set per project. Per-consultant rate overrides on the same project are on the roadmap, not yet shipped. If your engagements need this on day one, tell us on the demo — we will be straight about timeline.

How does multi-currency work for international engagements?

Each client carries its own billing currency. The invoice goes out in the client’s currency, the exchange rate is locked at issue, and your firm’s revenue reports stay in your home currency. A rate move three months later does not silently rewrite the invoice.

Can clients see hours behind their retainer?

Yes, when you turn on the client portal for that client. They see only their projects, only their hours, only their invoices — never another client’s data, never your firm-wide utilization numbers.

Does the AI chat see all our data?

A managing partner sees the whole firm; a manager sees their direct reports only. The same visibility rules the rest of the dashboard uses. The AI gets a pre-filtered, aggregated context per question — never raw rows.

Can we white-label the portal so it reads as our firm?

Yes — choose a subdomain, upload a logo + favicon, pick a primary colour, set a support email. Every page a client opens (and every invoice PDF) carries your firm’s brand. Custom apex domains (yourfirm.com) are on the roadmap.

Watch one quarter unfold in real time. Realisation, on the day it changes.

14 days, full access, no card. The Monday read becomes the Monday read — not the Q-end surprise.

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