Professional services

A professional firm sells its people’s time and expertise. A customer asks for work, the firm opens a project for it, the team records its time and expenses against it, and the work is invoiced to the customer‘s account: by the hour, by a fixed fee in stages, or by a monthly retainer. Customers pay on account, often late, so following up matters.

How Kila works for a professional firm

• The main screen is clients and projects. Practice › Projects lists each project with its budget, the time and expenses on it, and what is billed and what is not. An accounting firm calls it Engagements; a property manager, Properties.
• Your day revolves around the project and the hours on it. Everyone on the team records their time from My day; nothing worked is lost, because it stays Unbilled until it is invoiced.
• The words Kila uses: client for customer, invoice for sale and receipt, team member for staff. On the projects screens, a project is an engagement at an accounting firm, and a property, for a landlord, at a property manager.

Kila treats these kinds of business as professional firms:

• Consulting
• Accounting firm
• Legal practice
• Creative or marketing agency
• IT services
• General professional services
• Property management

Law firms run on their own pages for matters, the court diary and client money.

A month in the firm

1. Open the work. A manager opens a project for the client, with its billing, budget and lead, and puts the team on it: Open a project for a client, Set a project’s budget and rates and Put the team on a project.
2. Record the time and costs. Each person runs the timer on My day or fills in the week, and records what they spend: Record your time and Record an expense on a project.
3. Watch the budgets and the team. Kila marks a project near or over its budget, and shows each person’s billable hours against their week: Check your team’s utilisation.
4. Bill. Invoice the unbilled time, expenses and milestones that are due, or run the month-end billing with a partner’s approval. Retainers bill themselves each month: Invoice unbilled time and expenses, Run the month-end billing, Bill a fixed fee by milestones and Set up a retainer with included hours.
5. Collect. Remind clients whose invoices are overdue, and collect the certificates for the tax they withheld: Remind a client about overdue invoices and Record a withholding tax certificate.

The owner’s home page shows the firm at a glance. At Mizani Associates, an accounting firm: Returns to file, Client requests outstanding, Billing this month, Lock-up and realisation, Deadlines, Registry, Unbilled time and expenses, Invoices due and overdue; cash received, Withholding certificates to collect, Engagements over budget, Fees billed by fee earner this month, Team utilisation and Retainers billing this month.

Zoom

A month at a property manager

A property manager’s projects are the properties it looks after, each for its landlord. The rent bills each month on each tenant’s account; the Property desk follows it up with the maintenance and the landlords’ statements:

1. Add a property and its units, then Let a unit to a tenant.
2. Follow up rent and arrears.
3. Handle a maintenance request.
4. Pay the landlord, and End a tenancy when a tenant leaves.

Zoom

Who does what

Role	What Kila says it is for
Owner	Full access to the business, including billing.
Engagement partner	Opens engagements, sees every engagement, signs off returns, approves draft bills, invoices and clears client identification.
Engagement manager	Runs the engagements: the team, tasks and deadlines, reviews returns before they are filed, drafts the month’s bills and watches utilisation.
Associate	Works on the engagements on their team: prepares and files returns, ticks off tasks, chases client records and logs their time.
Bookkeeping and payroll accountant	Keeps retainer clients’ books and payrolls: requests the month’s records, prepares PAYE and the levies, and logs time against each retainer.
Trainee accountant	Fieldwork and returns under a senior: their tasks and their own time. No fees or invoices.
Practice administrator or receptionist	Receives clients and documents: keeps the registry and the files, records new clients and their identification, and sends client requests.
Credit controller	Keeps customers within their credit: decides sales held over the limit, holds and lifts accounts, collects, keeps the cheque register, sends statements and credits market returns. At Mizani Associates the role is Billing and credit control.
Project lead	Runs projects and retainers: the team, the budget and scope, retainer hours, and the month’s bills.
Consultant	Works on the projects on their team: tasks, client requests and their own time and expenses.
Property manager	Runs the properties: units, tenancies, rent and deposits, maintenance, landlord statements and payouts.
Caretaker	Reports and closes maintenance requests on the properties from a phone. Sees units and requests, never rents or money.

Kila gives each firm the roles for its kind: an accounting firm the engagement roles, a consultancy, agency or IT firm Project lead and Consultant, and a property manager Property manager and Caretaker. The owner gives each person their roles under Administration › Users and roles.

Tasks for professional firms

Besides the projects, a firm’s menu has a Practice section with its own pages. At an accounting firm: My day, Returns, Engagements, Records requests, Time, Deadlines, Billing, Registry, New client, Client identification and Practice reports. At a property manager: Property desk, Properties, Deadlines, My day, Time and Practice reports.

• My day (Practice › My day): the timer, your hours against the day’s target, your tasks and your projects.
• Time (Practice › Time): your week as a grid, and for managers the team’s week.
• Billing (Practice › Billing): the month-end billing run and the tax withheld by clients.
• Practice reports (Practice › Practice reports): “The partners’ numbers: lock-up, realisation, utilisation and profitability.”

Set up a professional firm

Every professional firm, except a law firm, starts with Business details and KRA PIN, Services and rates, Team members and rates and Clients. Then the first piece of work, which differs by kind of firm:

For accounting firms

1. Business details and KRA PIN
2. Services and rates
3. Team members and rates
4. Clients
5. First engagement and its deadlines
6. Clients’ returns on the returns board

For property managers

1. Business details and KRA PIN
2. Services and rates
3. Team members and rates
4. Clients
5. First property (for its landlord)
6. Units and rents
7. First tenancy

For consultancies, agencies and IT firms

1. Business details and KRA PIN
2. Services and rates
3. Team members and rates
4. Clients
5. First project or retainer

Tip

The owner finds the list under Administration › Setup until every step is done.

Reports that matter here

Practice › Practice reports has the partners’ numbers:

Report	What it shows
Lock-up	Work in progress plus debtors, in days of fees, month by month.
Realisation	Billed of the standard value, by client, engagement, partner or person, with what was written down and off.
Utilisation	Billable hours against hours available, by person and month, against the target.
Profitability	Each engagement’s billed fees against the cost of the time.

Common questions

Why does Kila say engagement, not project? An accounting firm’s words: Kila calls a project an engagement there, and a property a property manager’s. The owner can change the words under Settings on the projects page.

Where is time that has not been invoiced yet? On the Unbilled tab of the projects page, by client, and on the Unbilled time and expenses card on the home page.

Can the firm approve every bill before it goes out? Yes. The owner turns on “A partner approves each bill before it is invoiced (not the person who drafted it)”: see Run the month-end billing.

Try it in the demo

These demo businesses run as professional firms, with made-up data. Each link fills in the person’s email: add the demo password the Kila team gave you.

• Mizani AssociatesAccounting firmSign in as Grace Wanjala (owner) (opens in a new tab)
• Jirani Property ManagersProperty managementSign in as Josephine Mwende (owner) (opens in a new tab)