Cash Flow for Consultants: Phase Every Revenue Contract

If you are a consultancy using UniPhi as your ERP – managing fees, timesheets, invoicing and financials – the rule for cash flow is: phase all revenue contracts.

Why the contract?

For a consultant, the revenue contract (the fee agreement with your client) is the unit that drives the business:

• It is what you invoice against and what flows through to your accounting system.

• Work in progress, earned value and fee burn are all measured against it.

• Revenue forecasts for resourcing and business planning are built from what each contract is expected to earn, month by month.

If a revenue contract is not phased, it is effectively missing from your revenue forecast.

How to view phasing by contract

In the Phasing tab, set Depth to Contracts. Each contract appears with its schedule of rates lines, a phasing method, and the Phased Total and Variance columns.

The example below shows why this matters. At contract depth, the contracts have little or no phasing against them, so almost all of their value sits in the Variance column – it is simply not in the forecast.

Quick checklist

• Every revenue contract should have a phasing method and start/end dates as soon as it is set up.

• Use Monthly for even fee draw-down, S-curve or Manual where fees follow project stages.

• Re-phase when a variation is approved or the programme moves.

• Check Variance is zero across all contracts before running monthly revenue reports.

Clients can choose not to phase every contract, but the revenue forecast will only ever be as complete as the contracts that are phased.