In a fixed fee agency, agreeing a price without understanding the work is a gamble. You might hit deadlines and keep clients happy, but that doesn't mean revenue will match expectations...or that projects will actually be profitable.

Revenue predictability starts long before delivery, in the way projects are scoped and planned. If you sell a fixed fee without knowing the hours by task and role, you're betting on hope, not operational reality.

Start with a pricing sheet

Every project should begin with a pricing sheet. Not just a total fee, but a breakdown of:

• The tasks required

• Hours per task

• Who will do each task

• The rate applied to each role

Value pricing has its place; after all, the market determines what you can charge. But delivery time is operational truth. If you don't understand that truth before you sell, you don't understand your margin.

Turn pricing into a project plan

Once the work is won, that pricing sheet shouldn't disappear. It should become the project plan: the same tasks, hours, and roles, sequenced and assigned properly. Templates can help make the process repeatable and reduce friction, but they don't replace the discipline of estimating, planning, and managing the work.

When that chain holds, planned revenue recognition becomes grounded in data. You gain visibility into potential margin before delivery begins, and capacity decisions are based on fact instead of hope.

Break the chain, and the problems appear quickly: month-end surprises in revenue and capacity, lack of profit at a project level, constant re-jigging of internal resources, and finance reconciling gaps that shouldn't exist.

The hidden value in planning

Creating the pricing sheet takes time, but that's usually internal (part of understanding the work and protecting margin).

Building and managing the project plan also takes time, and unlike pricing, that effort can and should be reflected in the project fee. Even with templates to guide the process, someone still needs to think through the tasks, hours, and assignments, and keep everything up to date.

This isn't just overhead. It's commercial governance. It's the work that ensures your fixed fee actually delivers the margin you priced. And it's what keeps projects profitable without relying on heroics or guesswork.

Revenue recognition isn't a finance problem

Predictable revenue recognition isn't something finance can create after the fact. It's the outcome of disciplined scoping, aligned planning, and operational honesty. If you can't estimate the hours by role, you don't truly understand the work.

In a fixed fee world, not understanding the work is a gamble.

A simple place to start

If your agency struggles to forecast revenue, look at your active projects and ask:

• Do we know the hours required for every task, by role?

• Does our project plan reflect reality, not aspiration?

• Are we accounting for the time it takes to plan and manage projects, or just hoping it will work out?

Fix those first. Build your pricing sheets, turn them into project plans, and manage them actively. Use templates to make it repeatable.

When you do, revenue recognition stops being a hope and starts being a reliable, defendable metric. Margin stops being accidental. Capacity stops being a surprise.

Suddenly, your agency isn't just delivering work...it's delivering profitable, predictable, scalable work.

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