Track hours, bill retainers, send invoices, and see what you actually keep — without learning accounting software.
Here's what a typical workflow looks like for consultants.
New leads arrive via your inquiry form or direct outreach. Capture the opportunity and move them into your pipeline.
Create a proposal with deliverables, timeline, and pricing. Smart estimates draw from your history so you price with confidence.
Start timers for client work, meetings, and travel. Standard and overtime rates apply automatically based on your rate configuration.
Invoice from tracked time with minimum billable hours enforced per rate type. No more underbilling short sessions.
See revenue, labor cost, overhead, and true margin per client. Know which engagements actually make you money.
Proposals, contracts, time tracking, invoicing, expenses, and tax prep — all in one place.
Standard, overtime, and rush rates. Track client work, meetings, and travel separately with automatic rate application.
Build proposals informed by your engagement history. See average hours and margins from similar past projects.
Set up recurring billing for retainer clients. Track hours against allotments and invoice overages automatically.
Set minimums per rate type. Short calls and quick reviews get billed at your minimum — no more leaving money on the table.
Assign shared expenses (software, office, subscriptions) to specific clients or distribute proportionally across engagements.
Revenue minus labor minus overhead equals the number that matters. See true margin per client at a glance.
Log drives to client sites and meetings. IRS standard rate applied automatically for accurate expense tracking.
Schedule C categories, quarterly estimates, and export packages for your accountant. QuickBooks and CSV formats.
Collect deposits upfront, bill milestones, or invoice monthly. Automated reminders keep cash flow predictable.
Explore a demo account pre-loaded with realistic consultantsdata — proposals, invoices, expenses, and profitability reports.
Explore the demoThe most effective method is a one-click timer that assigns hours to a client and project, combined with a quick-log option for batch entry after meetings. Your tracker should distinguish between rate types (standard, overtime, rush) and apply the correct rate automatically. Clearmargin handles all of this and enforces minimum billable hours per rate type so short sessions are never under-billed.
Consultants need invoicing that pulls directly from tracked time, supports retainer billing with overage tracking, and handles milestone-based payment schedules. Generic invoicing tools require manual data entry and cannot enforce minimum billing rules. Clearmargin generates invoices from your time records with rate types, minimums, and retainer allotments built in.
Per-client profitability requires three numbers: revenue (what you invoiced), labor cost (your time valued at your internal cost rate), and overhead (allocated shared expenses like software and office costs). Most consultants only track revenue. Clearmargin calculates all three and shows true margin per client, so you know which engagements actually make you money.
QuickBooks is accounting software designed for bookkeepers — chart of accounts, journal entries, double-entry bookkeeping. Most independent consultants do not need any of that. What they need is time tracking, invoicing, expense categorization, and tax exports. Clearmargin provides all of these without requiring accounting knowledge, and exports to QuickBooks format if your accountant still wants it.