Accelerator · Delivery operations
Kanban brings a services team’s time, projects, client support and renewals into one place, and connects the work delivered to the invoices raised for it. Built on Ascent’s experience of running client engagements, it is tailored to each client’s way of delivering work rather than asking the team to adapt to the software.
In most services businesses, margins do not disappear in one place. They leak through the gaps between how work is done, how time is recorded and how it is billed. Time sits in spreadsheets, support requests live in individual inboxes, and renewals depend on someone remembering the date.
Quick fixes and client calls are rarely logged, so the true cost of an engagement is never known.
A client’s request lands in one person’s inbox, and the rest of the team cannot see it or pick it up.
Teams find out an engagement has run over its hours after the fact, not while there is time to act.
Subscription and support contracts lapse, or are billed late, because renewal dates live in someone’s calendar.
Invoices are raised by re-keying details, and nobody on the delivery side knows what has been paid.
Each client engagement is set up as a project with its client, scope, period and budgeted hours. Monthly and annual engagements carry their history forward, so each billing period has its own clear record while the team keeps working under one familiar project. Additional hours can be added when a client extends the scope, and engagements close automatically once their period ends.
Team members log time against the engagements they are assigned to, with a short note on what was done. The team always sees how many hours have been used and how many remain, and leaders see which engagements are running close to budget before they run over.
Client support requests arrive by email and land in a shared queue, not a personal inbox. Every reply, from the client or the team, sits on a single thread with its attachments. Replies go out from Kanban, copies reach the right people, and when a client writes back the request reopens automatically. Requests can be snoozed until the right moment to act, and duplicate requests can be merged into one.
When the team replies to a request, the time spent is recorded against the client’s engagement in the same step, with a note of the work done. For clients billed on actual effort, closed requests are ready for invoicing; for clients on a prepaid plan, the time draws down their balance. Effort that would otherwise go unrecorded becomes either billable or visible.
Renewal dates are tracked for every engagement, and renewals can be raised automatically each month or year. Kanban creates the proforma invoice or tax invoice in Zoho Books for the right billing entity, applies the correct GST treatment and emails it to the client. When a proforma is converted to a tax invoice and paid, the status flows back to Kanban, so the delivery team can see what has been paid without chasing the accounts team.
A projects report shows budgeted and remaining hours across active engagements, alongside cost, revenue and margin for each. A payments report shows, for every engagement, the proforma, the tax invoice, the amount and whether it has been paid. For any engagement, a clean timesheet can be downloaded to share with the client, showing the dates, people, hours and work done.
On a phone, Kanban works like an app, with simple tabs for Home, Tickets, Log time and My entries. Team members sign in with a one-time code sent to their email, with no password to remember, and stay signed in through the working day.
Every implementation follows Ascent’s approach.
How your team scopes, delivers and bills client work.
Where time, effort and revenue are being lost.
Configure engagements, billing models and workflows around your process, and connect your existing systems.
Stay with your team through adoption.
You start from a proven platform and end with a system that reflects how your business actually delivers.
Time is recorded as the work happens, against the right client.
Client requests are shared, threaded and never lost in an inbox.
Hours used and remaining are visible while there is still time to act.
Recurring engagements renew and bill on schedule, without reminders.
Leaders see what each engagement costs to deliver and what it earns.
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Engage with a senior advisor to discuss your priorities. We begin by understanding your context, then offer an objective perspective on where value can be created and how Ascent can support you.
We develop an understanding of your context, priorities and constraints.
We share an objective view of where the greatest value lies.
A scoped approach, aligned to your strategic objectives.
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