Project work, not a deadline treadmill.
FigsFlow is practice management software for tax advisory and consultancy work. Every piece of work is scoped and priced on its own terms, the engagement letter follows the scope, and the fee is agreed before the research starts.
Winning the work, start with how a project is scoped and quoted. Delivering it, jump to the engagement and billing steps.
Built inside working practices, not a lab
- Projects11 live engagements
- ScopingFixed fee or stage-gated
- LettersWritten to the scope agreed
- BillingOn milestone · not on hope
- Follow-onQuoted, not assumed
the fee agreed before the research starts
The problem
Nobody decided to keep working for free. The scope just never had an edge to it.
A client asks a good question in the middle of a project — reasonable, related, and not quite what was originally scoped. Answering it properly takes an afternoon. Saying no over something that small feels petty, so it gets answered, and folded into the same engagement.
Three afternoons like that later, the project that was quoted at two weeks is closing in on four, the fee has not moved, and there is no single moment anyone can point to where it went wrong. Each small yes made sense on its own.
The engagement letter said one thing. The work that actually happened said another, one reasonable favour at a time.
Same fee. Twice the project.
Where the fee comes from
Scoped once — not renegotiated by accident, mid-project
A boundary is not a rule someone has to enforce in the moment. It is what happens automatically when the scoping questions, the quote and the letter all come from the same record.
Scoping questions
A consistent set of questions for the type of work, asked before a number is given.
Quote against a base
Priced from a base piece plus modifiers, not invented fresh each time.
Engagement letter
States what is delivered and what is not — the boundary a client can point back to.
Milestone billing
Invoiced on the stages agreed, not on hope that the project ends on time.
When the scope moves, that is a new quote against the same record — not a quiet extension of the last one.
Project work, not a deadline treadmill.
If every piece of work is different and the quote is written from scratch each time
The work is bespoke, the value is clear to you and not always to the client, and the scoping conversation happens over email. The question is how to price bespoke work consistently without turning it into a product.
What changes
What changes when bespoke work still starts from a structure
Three shifts a tax advisory or consultancy team notices in the first few projects — none of them make the work less bespoke, they just stop it drifting once it starts.
Bespoke, from a starting point
Common advisory pieces sit in the price list as a base, so a bespoke quote starts from a structure instead of a blank page.
Scope with an end to it
The engagement letter states what is delivered and what is not, so a project has a boundary rather than a slow fade.
Follow-on work quoted
The next piece is raised as its own engagement, so advisory relationships grow deliberately rather than by accretion.
How an advisory team sets this up
Build the base pieces
The work you repeat, priced once.
Agree the scoping questions
Asked every time, by whoever takes the call.
Quote, then engage
Fee agreed before the research starts.
Bill on milestone
Not at the very end of a long project.
Where this is different
What an advisory team is actually comparing
Nobody chooses between doing bespoke work well or badly. They choose between three things that each solve part of keeping a project inside its scope.
Works with what you have
Short list, honestly labelled
Advisory and consultancy teams do not want a platform to replace their research tools. They want scoping, the letter and the fee handled in one place, and everything else left alone.
The engagement letter is signed and timestamped without leaving the record.
Milestone invoices raised from the engagement post through, at the fee agreed.
Sign in with the identity the practice already administers.
No integration with tax research databases or document assembly software — those stay exactly where they are.
Milestones are billed on the stage reached, not on hours logged. Existing timesheets, if you keep them, stay separate.
Questions advisory teams ask first
Four that come up before a project starts.
Can we price bespoke work without a fixed price list?
Yes. A quote can be built from base pieces and modifiers where the work repeats, or as a free-form line for something genuinely one-off — either way it becomes part of the same engagement record.
How do we handle stage-gated or milestone fees?
Stages are set against the engagement when it is quoted, and each one is billed as the project reaches it — rather than the whole fee sitting on invoice until the project closes.
Does an advisory engagement need its own letter?
Generally yes for project work with its own scope and fee, distinct from a recurring compliance letter. Exact wording on scope, limitations and reliance should be confirmed with your firm's standard terms.
Can we see recovery on a project before it closes?
Milestone status and billed-to-date sit on the project record throughout, so a partner can see where recovery stands without waiting for the project to close out.
Scope one of your own projects on screen
A walkthrough using a real advisory piece, from scoping question to engagement letter.