Everything Bitmap does, so the spreadsheet does not have to.
A consultancy needs to know what it sold, who is doing it, how long it is taking and what it can invoice. This is the list of what Bitmap does about each of those, and about the reports over them.
Clients, contracts and projects
The commercial shape of the work, recorded once, so every timesheet, plan and invoice after it knows what it belongs to.
Clients with a key and a finance contact
Each client has a short key that prefixes its projects, the people you deal with, a finance contact for invoices and, with Xero connected, a link to its Xero contact.
Contract types that say how the work is sold
Time and materials, fixed scope, a monthly retainer or a managed service. The type drives how budgets, schedules and health checks behave for that project.
Contracts with notice dates
Record the contract, its term and when notice is due. Bitmap tells the channel you choose when a notification date is coming up, so a renewal is a conversation and not a surprise.
Budgets in days or in money
A project carries one or more budgets. Each is a number of days at a rate, or a fixed sum, with a budgeted day rate that turns time into money and back.
Portfolio reviews
Walk the active projects as a set on a cadence, record the state of each and what was decided, and come back to it next time.
Technologies and certifications
Tag projects and people with the technologies they use and hold. Bitmap warns before a certification expires.
The whole book of work on one screen.
The projects overview is every active project with its client, its type, the budget used and remaining, and the date its allocated time runs out. Sort by what worries you. The project that is burning fast and the one nobody has booked time on both show up here first.
Health checks that say why.
Every active project is checked against its finances, against overage on its budgets, against timesheets logged after the project should have started, and, with Jira connected, against tickets that have no estimate. Each check gives a status and the reason for it, so the conversation starts from the cause rather than the colour.
Managers start the day on the operations screen.
Projects at risk, projects and contracts ending soon, under-scheduled projects, overdue timesheets and invoices that need raising, on one screen built for the Monday morning meeting. Each item links to the record behind it.
Planning and time
Who is doing the work, when, and what actually happened.
The resource planner
People against weeks, booked onto budgets in blocks. Move a block and the plan, the availability report and the forecast move with it.
Scenarios
Copy the plan, try the new project or the new hire in it, and activate the scenario when you are sure. Until then the real plan is untouched.
Virtual resources
Hold a seat for the person you have not hired yet. The plan and the forecast count them; the payroll does not.
Weekly timesheets, daily entries
A person logs hours against a budget per day and submits the week. The entry states, from planned through submitted to approved, are what every report reads.
Approvals
Each person has a named approver. Approvers see everything waiting for them in one place, approve or reject with a reason, and the person hears about it.
Leave in the same place
Holiday and sick leave are recorded against the person, with entitlements per year, so utilisation and availability are counted against the days somebody could actually work.
Approve a week in a minute.
Daily timesheets show an approver what each of their people submitted, against which budget, for which day. Approve the week in one action, or reject one entry with a note. The person is told in Slack or by email, whichever they chose.
Who is free, and when.
The availability report reads the planner and the leave records together: the free hours per person per week for the months ahead. It is the answer to "can we take this on?" and it is the chart the Google Slides add-on puts in the board pack.
Money and reporting
What can be invoiced, what has been, and what the business looks like as a result.
Payment schedules
The deposit, the milestones or the monthly amount, dated, per project. A reminder goes out before each one falls due.
Ready to Invoice
Due schedules gather here, grouped by client. Raise one draft per client with the lines and the reference already filled in.
Xero, or manual
With Xero connected Bitmap raises the draft invoice there and follows its approval, payment or voiding back through a webhook, with an hourly reconciliation for anything missed. Without it, you record the number and the dates by hand.
Financial accounts
Charge each payment schedule to a financial account, expose the chart of accounts codes you invoice against, and keep finance's view of the work aligned with delivery's.
KPIs
The board figures per month across the year: billable utilisation, hours logged and expected, leave, headcount and full-time equivalents, per person and per job role.
Deferred income and non-billable time
What has been invoiced but not delivered, per project and in total, at any date. And where the non-billable time went, so internal work is a decision rather than a leak.
And the people and settings behind it.
Staff, job roles and the rate card are the inputs every other number depends on, so they are records in Bitmap rather than a tab in a spreadsheet.
Every person with their job role, line manager, approver, start date and billable target.
The rate card: each role with the day rates that apply to it and the people who hold it.
Jira for estimates and work logs, Slack for notifications, Google Workspace, your HR system and your finance provider, each switched on per company.
Under the hood
Roles and permissions
A person holds roles; a role is a set of permissions; every screen and every API call asks for a permission. Project manager, approver, finance, people admin and platform admin come built in.
Notifications where your team already is
Company events post to the Slack channel you choose. Personal ones go to the person by Slack or email, as they prefer. Overdue timesheets are chased in a conversation with the person and their approver.
A JSON API with OAuth
Everything the screens do is an API behind the same login, with OAuth 2.0 scopes that mirror the permissions. Connect your own tools, or use ours: the Google Slides add-on puts live Bitmap charts in a deck.
It is a long list. Start with your problem.
Start a free trial and try the part that hurts most, or tell us what you run the business from today and we will show you the part that matters.