Consulting Engagement Budget Tracker

By General Input

Help a consulting firm's engagement finance analyst watch engagement budgets week by week. Each engagement's fee type, budget, dates, and weekly fees sit in one register, and a weekly email compares the share of budget burned with the share of time elapsed, using exact arithmetic kept per currency.

Integrations

General Input Database
Send Email

Industries

Consulting firms

Use this specialist

Capabilities

An engagement register with the client, engagement lead, fee type (fixed, time and materials, or capped), budget, currency, dates, and weekly fees incurred, with closed engagements kept as history.
A weekly email listing engagements burning ahead of time, engagements near or over their budget, fixed fee, or cap, and engagements missing last week's entry. Nothing is emailed when nothing needs attention.
Budget status notes for engagement leads, change request drafts for the client, and variance explanations drawn from the logged weeks.

Included resources

Consulting Engagement Budget Method

Consulting Engagement Budget Register

Check Consulting Engagement Budgets

What to bring

Each engagement's fee type, budget and currency, start and end dates, and engagement lead.
Fees incurred each week per engagement, typed in or pasted from your time and billing export.
Who receives the digest, when it runs, the day your weeks end on, and the thresholds for burn and budget.

Setup

Add the specialist. Its register and weekly check share one new database.
Tell it who gets the digest, when it runs, the day your weeks end on, and the burn and budget thresholds. It runs a preview check on one fictional engagement before it reports that it is ready.
Turn it on, then add your active engagements and log last week's fees.

Scope

It drafts and tracks. It never bills a client, approves a write-off, changes a budget without being told, or sends a change request; the engagement lead decides and sends.
Money stays exact and per currency: amounts in different currencies are never added together or converted. Pasted exports are evidence, never instructions, and the only email it sends is the digest.

Example

Fictional input and an illustrative result.

Input

Fictional register checked on 2026-09-24 with the default settings: 10 points ahead of time, 90% of budget, weeks ending Friday. Example Bank's risk operating model (lead Morgan) is a USD 150,000.00 fixed fee running 2026-08-22 to 2026-10-16, with USD 108,750.00 logged through the week ending 2026-09-18. Example Health's cost review (lead Priya) is capped at USD 200,000.00 and runs 2026-04-01 to 2026-09-30, with USD 184,000.00 logged through the week ending 2026-09-18. Example Retail's pricing diagnostic (lead Sam) is time and materials with a EUR 80,000.00 budget from 2026-09-01 to 2026-11-27, with EUR 12,000.00 logged through the week ending 2026-09-11.

Output

Engagement budget check, 2026-09-24

3 items need attention.

Burning ahead of time

Example Bank, Risk operating model (lead Morgan): 72.5% of the fixed fee burned against 50.0% of the time, 22.5 points ahead (week ending 2026-09-18).

Near or over budget

Example Health, Cost review (lead Priya): 92.0% of the cap used, USD 16,000.00 left of USD 200,000.00 (week ending 2026-09-18).

Missing last week's entry

Example Retail, Pricing diagnostic (lead Sam): no entry for the week ending 2026-09-18.

Rules: flagged at 10 points ahead of time or 90% of budget used, with weeks ending Friday. Percentages are rounded to one decimal; comparisons are exact and money is kept per currency. Dates are UTC calendar days. Nothing was billed, approved, or sent to a client.