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An engagement is the standing agreement with one client: which entities you serve, which services you provide, how each is scheduled and priced, and who is responsible.

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What an engagement holds

  • The client and the entities in scope.
  • Services. One per service per entity, such as monthly bookkeeping for Smith Holdings or the 1040 for John Smith. Each starts from a service template and has its own schedule and its own price.
  • Who is responsible. A partner, and a manager for each kind of service it covers. These are kept on the client, so every engagement for that client shows the same people.
  • A term. Evergreen (keeps going until cancelled), Annual (a year at a time, the default), or One-time (a single piece of work that doesn’t renew).
  • Billing arrangements. How each service gets billed. See Pricing.

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Create an engagement

Only admins can do this. Go to Engagements and click Add engagement. The page has four steps, and one is open at a time. A finished step folds into a one-line summary; click Change to open it again.
1

Client

Each card is one entity, with its client’s name under it. Search by client or entity. Clicking a client’s only entity finishes the step. For a client with more entities, click each one you want, then Continue. Clicking another client’s entity switches clients and clears the services and billing you’ve set up.
2

Engagement details

Name, year, term, partner, and notes. The name fills in from the client and year until you type your own.The partner starts as the one the entities already have. Whoever you pick becomes the partner on each entity, so tasks set to go to the partner reach them. Unassigned leaves the entities’ partner as it is.
3

Services

Click Add service and pick a service template. It’s added right away to each entity under Apply to: that doesn’t have it yet. Custom service, at the bottom of the list, adds a service with no template. Click Adjust on a service to change its schedule, due dates, or budgeted hours.Under Managers, pick one manager for each kind of service the engagement has, such as a Tax Manager and a CAS Manager. Each starts as the client’s current manager, and whoever you pick becomes the client’s manager for those services. Unassigned leaves it as it is.A one-time service starts on the day you add it (January 1 for an engagement in a later year), and its fee bills in the month its work ends: that day, or the end date you set under Adjust.
4

Billing

Every service needs a price. See The billing step.
The Services step of engagement creation, with two services added and a Managers section holding a Tax Manager and a CAS Manager. Create engagement turns on once the details are complete and every service has a price. The new engagement is a Draft. If you started from a deal in the Pipeline, the client is already picked, and a client with one entity skips the first step.

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The billing step

The Billing step of engagement creation, with a fixed fee and an hourly service priced on their rows and the preview panel beside them. Invoices go to names the client’s billing group and how often it invoices. If an entity has no billing group, nothing for it is invoiced. Click Create billing group to make one without leaving the page.

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Price each service

For each service, choose Fixed fee or Hourly and type the fee on its row. It starts at the template’s price, or blank when the template has none. Hourly work bills at each person’s bill rate. The … button on a row opens billing options: a cap, billing ahead of the work, and a different budget.

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Bill on a schedule instead

Each service is billed with its own work. To bill one on its own schedule, click Bill on a schedule instead on its row, or Add payment plan, subscription, or retainer below the services. A service paid this way keeps its price, and its work is still tracked at it. A payment plan splits the fee of a yearly or one-time service, and a subscription on the same cycle charges the fee, so changing the fee changes the payments too. For a service billed more often, or hourly, you set the plan’s total yourself; it starts from a year of the fee, or from the hourly estimate.
A schedule starts this month or later. A charge dated in a month that’s already over would never be billed.

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What the client will be billed

The panel beside the services previews three months of invoices and about what a year comes to. It starts with the current month, or the engagement’s start if that’s later: billing doesn’t go back to months already over. A fixed fee lands on the invoice for the month its period ends, so a calendar-year fee bills in December.

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Turn it on

A draft does nothing. When it’s ready, an admin clicks Activate. Flows checks three things first:
  • At least one entity is in scope.
  • There is at least one service.
  • Every service has a billing arrangement.
When the engagement is activated:
  • Its billing arrangements go live.
  • The current period’s work is created right away for each service. See Projects.
  • If it came from a deal, the deal is marked Won.
  • If the client was a prospect, the client becomes Active.
Engagement letters aren’t built in Flows yet. An admin turns an engagement on by clicking Activate, not a client signature. Letters are tracked by hand on the Pipeline stage checklists. See What’s not in Flows yet.

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Engagement statuses

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The engagement page

An engagement's Services tab, listing one service per entity with its billing arrangement, cadence, and budgeted hours. Tabs: Overview, Services, Projects, Billing, Time, Settings. Admins also see Generate projects on an active engagement, which creates any work that is due now. The Settings tab shows the client’s partner and the manager for each kind of service. Changing one there changes it on the client. If the entities have different people in a seat, it shows Several, and a pick sets all of them. Click a service to open its own page, with tabs Overview, Tasks, Projects, Time, Billing.

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Change an engagement later