By industry: Consulting and agencies
Operations automation for consulting firms and agencies.
Onboarding that runs on the signature, reporting that assembles itself, proposals built rather than rewritten, and the firm's knowledge answerable. Billable people do billable work.
- First workflow live
- Client onboarding on signature, usually inside the first sprint
- Usually owned by
- Founders and principals of consulting firms and agencies
- Built on
- HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive
- Judged on
- Onboarding time and Reporting hours
In short
Consulting and agency automation means client onboarding triggered by a signed proposal, reports assembled from the tools that hold the data, proposals generated from a price book and call notes for a principal to approve, and a knowledge assistant that answers from your own documents and cites them. SBD builds it on the tools you run, starting with a $500 audit credited to the build.
Who this is for
Who brings us in, in consulting and agencies.
- Founders and principals of consulting firms and agencies
- Operations or delivery leads
- Account managers who own client reporting
- Finance people invoicing billable time
Is this you?
If three of these sound like your week, this page is about your business.
- Onboarding is a checklist someone runs by hand
- Reporting eats the end of every month
- Proposals are rewritten from the last one
- The answer is in someone's head or an old Slack thread
- Billable people do unbillable admin
What it costs today
Where consulting and agencies loses the hours.
Onboarding is a checklist someone runs by hand
Contract, folders, channels, access, kickoff and intake forms, all done manually, so every new client costs hours before any work starts.
Reporting eats the last week of the month
People pull numbers from several tools and paste them into decks. It is copying, not analysis, and it is billed to nobody.
Proposals are rewritten from the last one
Scope, pricing and terms live in old documents, so each proposal is search and replace with real risk of a stale clause.
Time and billing drift apart
Timesheets are late, invoices wait for them, and write-offs are discovered at month end.
Knowledge leaves with people
Past work sits across drives and threads, so new joiners re-ask questions the firm answered years ago.
Senior people do admin
The most expensive people in the firm spend evenings on scheduling, chasing and formatting.
For consulting firms and agencies
Onboard, report and propose without the Sunday evening.
Bring your last client onboarding and your last month-end report. We will show you what runs on its own.
Show us your onboarding
By company size
Consulting and agencies at 10 people, and at 1,000.
- 1 to 10
The founder onboards every client, writes every report and every proposal, usually on Sunday.
- 11 to 50
A template folder, an onboarding checklist nobody follows the same way, and reporting that eats the last week of the month.
- 51 to 200
Several teams, several tools, and institutional knowledge that leaves when people do.
- 201 to 1,000
Practice areas with their own processes, a PMO, and proposals still rebuilt from the last one.
What we build
What we build for consulting and agencies teams.
- 01
Onboarding on the signature
A signed proposal creates the project, folders, channels and access, sends the welcome and intake form, and books the kickoff, with the client details carried through.
- 02
Client reporting that assembles itself
Data pulled from the tools that hold it, the report generated in your format on a schedule, with space for the consultant's commentary before it goes out.
- 03
Proposals from a price book
Scoping notes and a structured price book produce a current, consistent proposal and statement of work for a principal to approve.
- 04
Time to invoice
Billable time summarised by client and project at period end, exceptions flagged, invoices raised in your accounting system.
- 05
A knowledge assistant that cites
Answers from your past work, templates and policies, with the source document linked, and nothing sent outside your accounts.
The workflows
The consulting and agencies workflows, and what sets each one off.
- 01 Client onboarding on signature
When a proposal is signed
ThenProject, folder, channels, kickoff and welcome created with the client details
- 02 Automated client reporting
When month end or weekly
ThenData pulled from the tools, the report generated, reviewed, sent
- 03 Proposal and SOW builder
When a scoping call ends
ThenA proposal drafted from the price book and the call notes for a principal to approve
- 04 Time to invoice
When a period closes
ThenBillable time summarised and the invoice raised
- 05 Knowledge assistant
When a team member asks
ThenAn answer from your own documents, with the source cited
The numbers we move
How a consulting and agencies build is judged.
Every build has a number written into the blueprint. These are the ones consulting and agencies builds are measured by, and how we measure them.
| Metric | Before | After | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onboarding time | Days of back and forth | Same day, from the signed proposal | Time from signature to kickoff booked |
| Reporting hours | The last week of the month | Hours | Hours spent compiling client reports, per month |
| Proposal turnaround | Days | Same day for standard scopes | Time from scoping call to proposal sent |
| Knowledge found | Ask around | Searched and cited | Share of internal questions answered from the knowledge base |
Documents and records
The paperwork that generates itself.
Names and tax rules differ by country. We build for the ones you file under, whether that is VAT, sales tax or GST.
Systems we connect in consulting and agencies
What is usually already there, and what we add.
Anything with an API or a database we can read works the same way. Each tool links to its page in the integrations directory.
Proof
Proof from builds like this.
- Customer story
Multi-user production dashboard
Live data assembled into role-specific views instead of reports compiled by hand, the same pattern as automated client reporting.
Read the story - Customer story
Lightweight project management system
Per-person task sheets syncing to a live admin view for a creative studio, so project status was never reported by hand.
Read the story - Customer story
Lead enrichment and sales automation
Inbound enquiries qualified and written to the CRM with a first reply in minutes, the front end of every firm's new-client flow.
Read the story
The offer
The firm operations starter
Thirty days to onboarding, reporting and proposals that run without the founder.
- Week 1 to 2audit of onboarding, reporting, proposals and billing with hours on each
- Week 3blueprint, first build chosen by payback, usually onboarding or reporting
- Week 4 ononboarding on signature, automated reporting, proposal builder from the price book
- Accounts in your name, runbook, training for account managers, sixty days of hypercare
What this does not do
So the scope is clear before the call.
- The consulting itself. We take the operations around it.
- Replacing your project tool. We connect to it.
Terms, defined
Consulting and agencies terms, in plain English.
- Onboarding
- Everything between a signed proposal and a productive first week with the client.
- Price book
- The scopes and prices you sell most, kept in one place so proposals are assembled rather than written.
- Knowledge assistant
- An assistant that answers from your own documents and cites them.
Questions
What people ask about consulting and agencies automation.
Is this worth it for a small firm?
Often more so. A ten-person firm has no operations hire, so admin lands on billable people. The recovered hours are directly billable, which is why small firms usually see payback first.
Will AI-written reports be accurate?
The numbers are not written by AI. They are pulled from the systems that hold them. AI drafts summaries and formatting, a person reviews, and calculations stay with the source systems.
How do you handle client confidentiality?
Client data stays in your accounts and tools. Where an AI step is used, it goes through business APIs that do not train on your data, or a self-hosted model if your contracts require it. NDAs and a data processing agreement are standard.
We use a project tool already. Do we have to change?
No. We connect HubSpot, Salesforce, Notion, ClickUp, Asana, monday.com, Jira or whatever you run, and build the steps between them.
Can proposals follow our brand and legal terms?
Yes. Templates, clauses and pricing come from your price book and your approved language. The system assembles; a principal signs off.
Reading
- Strategy
Does an AI agent still need Zapier?
A widely shared post argues Zapier goes to zero because agents click buttons and call APIs themselves. We run both every day. Where the argument is right, where it is wrong, and what we use for each job.
- Strategy
We tried AI and nothing stuck
The sentence we hear on most first calls. It is almost never about the AI. The four reasons tools get abandoned in small companies, how to tell which one you have, and the one change that makes the next attempt stick.
Related
- Function
Back office
The admin layer that quietly consumes your team’s week, handled by systems instead.
- Industry
Service and e-commerce
One product record on every channel, stock that cannot oversell, orders that reach fulfilment without re-typing, and customers who hear first.
- Function
Finance and accounting
Close faster, chase less, and see the numbers without waiting for month end.
By industry: Manufacturing, Distribution and logistics, Service and e-commerce, Healthcare, Real estate, SaaS, Professional services
Consulting and agencies
Talk to us about the firm operations starter.
Bring the one consulting and agencies workflow your team still runs by hand. You leave the call with a yes or no on fit and the first thing we would build.
Book the call