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Monthly reporting on schedule. Advisory time that does not disappear.

FigsFlow is practice management software for outsourced finance and management accounts teams. What's in the retainer is written down, the reporting cycle is visible across every client, and the advisory time that gets absorbed becomes something you can see.

Heading up the service line, start with what changes below. Delivering the accounts, jump to where this sits in the workflow.

Built inside working firms, not a lab·Every retainer tier, no minimum client count·Founding-customer programme open now
One retainer
Harrow Bridge Ltd · outsourced financeRetainer
  • ScopeIn the letter, not in an email
  • CycleReporting date set per client
  • AdvisoryLogged against the fee
  • RecoveryVisible before the quarter closes
  • BillingRaised on schedule

the extra call is scoped, not absorbed

The retainer is not the fee. It is the record of what is included, delivered, and still owed.
The product experience

One record, five things visible

This is the same retainer from the top of the page, opened up. Nothing here is a separate spreadsheet — click through the stages below to see what each one holds.

app.figsflow.com/retainers
SAMPLE DATA

Illustrative interface and sample data. The client and figures are fictional.

What changes

What changes when the retainer says what it covers

Three things shift once scope, cycle and recovery are visible together — and none of them are about new software, they are about what a retainer actually holds someone to.

Scope agreed in writing

The engagement letter lists the reporting pack and the calls included, so anything beyond it is a priced extra rather than goodwill.

One reporting calendar

Every client's cycle sits in one view, so the week ten packs are due does not depend on somebody's memory.

Recovery you can act on

Time against fee, per retainer, so an underwater engagement is caught mid-year rather than at renewal.

How an outsourced finance team moves across

Define the retainer tiers

What each one includes.

Map the reporting dates

Per client, once.

Reissue the letters

Scope stated plainly.

Review recovery quarterly

Adjust the tiers.

The problem

Four retainers. Four different ideas of what "included" means.

It's the last week of the month. Three reporting packs are due, and a client has just asked for "one more call" about a covenant test.

Taking the request seriously means checking four separate places before anyone knows whether it's in scope. The retainer terms sit in an email thread from eighteen months ago. The reporting date lives in whoever's calendar picked it up first. The advisory time is not logged anywhere, because logging time was never really anyone's job. And recovery is a spreadsheet nobody opens until the renewal is three weeks away.

Nobody decided to run it this way. It happens because the scope, the cycle, the time and the fee live in four different places, and the person holding it together is whoever answered the phone.

Four places. One inbox. And nothing catches it when scope quietly becomes goodwill.
One retainer, four placesTHE USUAL SETUP
An old engagement letterScope, somewhere in an email thread
NO RECORD
Picked up by whoever is freeThe reporting date, wherever it was noted
A personal calendarReporting dates, one client at a time
NOT SHARED
Not logged anywhereAdvisory time, given away in the moment
No time recordAdvisory calls and ad hoc work
UNTRACKED
Reviewed once, if at allRecovery, checked at renewal
A spreadsheet, sometimesFee against time, calculated too late
STALE
Every seam is a place where "included" quietly becomes "we always do this for them."
Where this is different

The scope, the cycle, the time and the fee — on one record

Delivering the work is one side. Standing behind the retainer — what's included, when it's due, what it's costing you — is the other. They're supposed to meet at the same record, and in most outsourced finance teams they meet inside an inbox and a spreadsheet instead. What that costs is invisible right up until the renewal it isn't.

Where it holdsGAP: NIL

One record. Scope, cycle, time and fee are stages of the same retainer, so nothing depends on the person who set it up still being the person running it.

Where it doesn'tGAP: HELD IN AN INBOX

Four places. The gap is where a call goes unlogged or a reporting date slips — and there's nobody else positioned to catch it.

What you're comparing against
The gap
A shared inbox and calendarThe usual starting point
Gap: everything except the dateFine for scheduling. It has no idea a retainer has a fee attached, so scope and recovery live somewhere else entirely.
A generic project management toolBought to track the work
Gap: the money sideGood at tasks and deadlines. It has no concept of a retainer fee or recovery rate, so profitability stays a separate exercise.
A time-tracking app bought for other workBought for billing, not retainers
Gap: the scope and the cycleLogs hours accurately. It doesn't know what a client's retainer includes, so "in scope" is still a judgement call each time.
FigsFlowBuilt by accountants — one retainer, one record
Gap: nilThe scope feeds the letter, the reporting date feeds the calendar, the advisory time feeds recovery, and the fee runs on schedule — one retainer, one record.
Where it sits in the flow

From the engagement letter to the reviewed retainer

Five stages, one retainer record. Nothing here is a hand-off between systems — each stage simply unlocks the next.

01
Retainer scoped

What's included is written into the letter, not just discussed.

YOU ARE HERE
02
Reporting cycle mapped

Dates set once, visible across every client.

YOU ARE HERE
03
Pack delivered, time logged

The monthly pack goes out; advisory time records against the retainer.

YOU ARE HERE
04
Recovery reviewed

Fee against time, checked before the quarter closes.

05
Retainer adjusted or billed

Fee runs on schedule, or the tier changes with evidence behind it.

What feeds it
  • Your retainer tiers — set once, applied to every proposal
  • Your approved letter wording — scope stated, not implied
  • The reporting calendar — set per client, visible across the team
What it feeds
  • The recurring invoice — scheduled, not remembered
  • The renewal conversation — backed by a recovery number, not a guess
  • The next retainer — priced from evidence, not memory
Works with your stack

Short list, honestly labelled

Most of what an outsourced finance team needs is already inside FigsFlow. The rest of this fold is what is not connected yet, because finding that out mid-retainer is worse than reading it here.

Live todayWhat it plugs into
Companies House

One search brings back the entity, officers and PSC data onto the client record.

HMRC deadlines

Filing dates are read against the record, not tracked in a separate calendar.

Microsoft 365

Sign in with the identity you already use; documents stay in your own tenant.

Spreadsheets, in and out

Your existing price list imports as a starting point, and everything exports back out.

Not yetAnd we'd rather say so
Management accounts reporting software

No two-way sync with the reporting or consolidation tool you build the pack in.

Not in this release
Time-tracking hardware or timers

Time against a retainer is logged on the record, not pulled from a separate timer app.

Not in this release
Automatic scope-creep detection

Whether a call is in scope is still a decision your team makes. Nothing here flags it for you automatically.

Deliberate, not a gap we're closing
Why the list is short. An integration that half works costs you more than one that doesn't exist, because you still check both systems yourself.

Questions outsourced finance teams ask first

Four that come up on almost every call.

How do we stop advisory time being absorbed into the retainer?

Ad hoc calls and requests are logged against the retainer as they happen, and anything beyond the agreed scope is flagged rather than quietly delivered. Recovery is visible before the invoice goes out, not worked out afterwards.

Can we run different retainer tiers?

Yes. Tiers are set up once — what each includes, at what fee — and a client's proposal and letter are built from whichever tier applies. Moving a client between tiers doesn't mean starting the engagement again.

Does it track time against the fee?

Time logged against a retainer is compared to the fee automatically, so an engagement running under recovery shows up during the quarter rather than at renewal.

How does it fit with our reporting software?

FigsFlow handles the retainer record — scope, cycle, advisory time, recovery and billing. It sits alongside whatever you already prepare management accounts in, rather than replacing it.

See it against one of your own retainers

A short walkthrough using a live engagement, its scope and its reporting cycle.

Book a demoProduct overview