Professional Services

Find the profit your professional services business is leaking.

Professional firms sell time, so the leaks are write-downs, hours that never get billed, fixed-fee projects that run over, and software subscriptions that pile up. The diagnostic shows how much each is costing your firm.

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Built for accounting, consulting, legal, marketing and other professional firms

The four leaks we see most in professional services

The professional services diagnostic adds these industry questions to the core assessment, prices each one against your numbers, and ranks them by what they're worth to fix.

Pricing & Margin

Write-downs & unbilled time

We ask: What share of recorded time is written down or never billed?

A first fix: Report realization rate (billed ÷ worked) by engagement and staff.

Labor & Productivity

Low utilization

We ask: What is billable utilization for your billable staff?

A first fix: Set utilization targets by role and review weekly.

Pricing & Margin

Fixed-fee overruns

We ask: Are fixed-fee engagements tracked against budgeted hours?

A first fix: Track budget-to-actual hours on every fixed-fee engagement.

Purchasing & Supply

Unused software & subscriptions

We ask: When did you last audit software and subscription spend?

A first fix: Audit all subscriptions and cancel unused seats.

Finance + operations

Two sides of the same problem.

Professional firms sell time, and the leaks hide in write-offs and unbilled hours. Blue Water works on both sides: a fractional CFO who keeps your numbers honest, and an operations team that fixes what those numbers reveal.

Finance · Fractional CFO

What your CFO watches in professional services

Utilization and realizationHours worked, hours billed and hours actually collected, by person and client.
Client profitabilityWhich clients and engagements make money once every hour is counted.
Partner pay and cash planningDistributions set from real profit, with taxes reserved ahead of time.

Operations · Friction & systems

What operations fixes

The four leaks above are where the numbers usually point. Once the monthly review shows which one is costing you most, we fix it at the source: a clear procedure your team follows, a cleaner workflow, and the software you already use connected so nothing gets re-keyed or lost.

Then we track the result in your next month's numbers, so you can see what the fix was worth.

How the two sides work together

The diagnostic scores both sides. You'll see your financial control and operations scores, and which to fix first.

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Plus the six areas every business is scored on

Every diagnostic scores the same six areas, so you can see where professional services problems sit next to everyday ones.

Cash Flow & CollectionsHow fast you bill and collect, and how much cash is tied up waiting.
Pricing & MarginWhether your prices and job costs keep up with what the work really takes.
Labor & ProductivityOvertime, idle time and the hours that never turn into revenue.
Purchasing & SupplyWhat you buy, what you waste and what walks out the door.
Sales & Lead FlowHow many inquiries turn into paying work, and how many slip away.
Financial ControlWhether your books are current, reconciled and actually used to run the business.

The professional services benchmarks we compare you to

If you leave a figure blank, the diagnostic estimates it from these typical values for professional services. Your results show which numbers came from you and which are estimates. In a paid audit, we replace every estimate with your real books.

Gross margin: 50%
Payroll share of revenue: 55%
Materials / supplies share: 5%
Days to get paid (target): 40

Planning assumptions used by our model, not guarantees. See the earnings disclaimer.

Free Friction Diagnostic

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Separate scores for financial control and operations
Your estimated annual profit leak, area by area
A recommended next step (finance, operations or both) based on your answers
A 30-day action plan you can start on today

Your answers go only to Blue Water. We never sell them.

Friction Diagnostic