Discuss your projectSigned proposals become staffed projects without re-keying, budget burn is visible on every engagement, and clients approve deliverables in a portal. Time and expenses reach invoicing through the PSA or ERP your firm already runs.
Illustration of a client portal built by Baybloom for a consulting and engineering firm: a change request against the statement of work, project milestones, and deliverables waiting for client approval.
Managing principals, COOs, and operations directors at consulting, advisory, engineering, architecture, and other project-based firms. The PSA or ERP records time, expenses, and invoices; the work around it, from proposal and statement of work to staffing, delivery, and client approval, runs on spreadsheets and email. We build that workflow and connect it to the systems of record.
The workflow
The steps we see most often in this kind of operation.
What we build
Assemble proposals and statements of work from approved scopes, rates, and terms, and create the project and budget in the PSA when the client signs.
See people, skills, availability, and bookings across projects in one view, so staffing decisions reflect the PSA instead of a separate spreadsheet.
Track milestones, budget burn, risks, and open change requests on each engagement, giving principals early warning before a project overruns.
Give clients one place to review deliverables, approve milestones, raise change requests, and see project status, with access limited to their engagements.
Check time and expenses against the budget and statement of work before invoicing, and send approved items to the PSA or ERP for billing.
Report pipeline, backlog, utilization, and project margin by practice and office from connected records, so leadership sees the firm in one place.
Your first release
How the work runs
We start with the people doing the work and the systems around it, then write down the first release: what it includes, what it leaves for later, the integration decisions, and the acceptance criteria. Nothing is built until that scope is agreed.
We build in releases you can review as the work takes shape, using realistic data. Every release carries tests, a security review, and documentation. Integrations are tested against real records, with exceptions visible.
Your team receives the documentation, the runbooks, and the training to run the system, and we stay on for continued engineering when you want it.
Scope and price
Every project is priced from a written scope. These are the factors that move it most.
Some PSA and ERP products offer full APIs and others scheduled exports, which determines how much project, time, and billing data syncs automatically.
Each service line may price, staff, and deliver work differently, so covering several at once widens discovery and configuration.
Internal views are contained, while client portals add secure sign-in, per-client permissions, and design for people outside the firm.
Firms combined through acquisition often run separate systems and rate structures, which adds mapping and reconciliation before a single view is reliable.
Regional engineering and consulting firm
Engineering and consulting firms often re-type won proposals into the PSA, plan staffing in a spreadsheet, and discover budget overruns at invoicing. A first release turns each signed statement of work into the project and budget in Deltek or Kantata and shows budget burn against milestones on every engagement. Clients review and approve deliverables in a portal, and each approval is recorded on the project, so the invoice carries the sign-off. A later phase checks time and expenses against the budget before billing goes out.
Deeper in this industry
Questions
What leaders in this industry ask us first.
The PSA or ERP stays the record of time, expenses, and invoices. We build the proposal, staffing, delivery, and client approval workflow around it and connect to it, so finance keeps its existing process.
It can report utilization by person, practice, and office, and margin by project, using time and cost data from the PSA and ERP. Definitions such as billable targets and cost rates are agreed with finance before the first report is built.
Clients see the deliverables for their projects, comment on them, and approve or request changes. Each approval and change request is recorded on the project with the date and the approver, so invoicing and scope discussions start from the same record.
Projects, people, and clients from each system can be read into one delivery and resourcing view while each system keeps its records. If the firm consolidates systems later, the workflow is reconnected to the remaining system rather than rebuilt.
Law firms have a separate page, software for law firms, covering intake, conflict checks, docketing, and document management. Accounting and tax firms are covered on the accounting and tax firms page. This page is for consulting, advisory, engineering, architecture, and other project-based firms.
Roles and client-level permissions are defined with the firm and tested in every release, so each client sees only its projects and staff see the engagements they work on. Data handling and where the system runs are agreed in writing.
The software is designed so project managers update fewer places, not more. Status comes from the PSA, approvals come from the portal, and reminders arrive by email, while principals mostly use the delivery and utilization views they already check each morning.