Stop overservicing
your retainer clients
See retainer usage in real time. Get alerted at 80%, not after the period closes. Bill scope creep honestly, or stop it at the source.
Free plan. No credit card.
Overservicing is silent until it isn't
Every agency, consultancy, and managed-service team has the same story. The retainer was profitable when you sold it. Twelve months later you're delivering 30 extra hours a month for free and nobody's quite sure when that started.
- A "quick favour" turns into 90 minutes. It happens twice a week.
- The account manager doesn't see the numbers until the end of the month, by which time it's too late to reset expectations.
- Nobody wants to invoice the overage retroactively because it feels confrontational.
- The hours get written off, and the team starts treating that client as their loss-leader.
The fix isn't being stricter. It's seeing the number live so you can have the conversation while it's still small.
Three layers of protection
Usage you can see today, not next month
Every retainer shows hours used, hours remaining, and days left in the current period. The number updates as the team logs time. There's no delay, no spreadsheet, no batch import.
- Live progress bars on the dashboard
- Days remaining in the current period at a glance
- Auto-resets at the end of each period, fresh budget every cycle
Get warned at 80%, not 110%
Configurable alert thresholds per retainer. The account manager sees a warning while there's still time to act: pre-approve the overrun, redirect capacity, or have the conversation with the client before it's a problem.
- Threshold set per retainer, override on the ones that matter
- Visual states (green, amber, red) so the dashboard tells the story
- Hours over the cap are still tracked, never silently dropped
Bill the overrun, or don't, on your terms
When you invoice the period, you pick which entries are billed. Bill the retainer cap. Bill the cap plus the overrun. Bill the cap this month and the overrun separately. Whatever your agreement allows, the system supports.
- Select exactly which entries are on this period's invoice
- Overrun entries stay available until you decide what to do with them
- Invoice pushes to Xero as a draft so finance can review before sending
How to stop overservicing in one billing cycle
Model the retainer honestly
Set the cap to the contract, not the wish. Pick the period that matches.
Set the threshold to 80%
It gives the account manager time to react before the cap.
Check the dashboard weekly
Two minutes. The amber retainers are this week's conversations.
Invoice with a decision, not a guess
When the period closes, you already know the number. Push to Xero.
Make overservicing a conversation, not a write-off
Visibility is the whole feature. Try the free plan, set up your busiest retainer, see the dashboard fill in this week.
What changes when you can see the cap
Overruns stop being a surprise
You hear about them at 80%, with time left to act.
Honest client conversations
"We're at 6.5 of your 8 hours this month" is easy. "You owe us for 40 hours" is not.
Margin you can name
Every retainer's profitability becomes visible, not anecdotal.
Better contracts next time
Real usage data lets you size the next retainer correctly.
Common questions
What is retainer overservicing?
Overservicing is delivering more hours than the retainer covers without charging for them. It often happens slowly: a small favour here, a quick fix there, until the average client is consuming 130% of the retainer and you're effectively running at a loss on them. The fix isn't being stricter, it's having real-time visibility so the situation never reaches month-end as a surprise.
How do I track retainer hours used vs budget?
Set a retainer with an hours budget and a billing period (weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, or custom). Track time against that client as normal. Hour Cap shows usage as a percentage with a configurable alert threshold so you hear about a problem at 80%, not 110%.
What's a good alert threshold for retainer usage?
80% works for most teams. It gives the account manager and the delivery lead enough notice to either stop work, pre-approve an overrun with the client, or rebalance team capacity. Setting it higher than 90% leaves no room to react.
What happens to hours that overrun the retainer cap?
They are still tracked. Hour Cap shows the retainer at over 100% so you and the client both have visibility. When invoicing the period, you can choose to bill only the retainer cap, the full hours used, or a subset. The decision stays with you; the system makes sure nothing is hidden.
Can different retainers have different billing periods?
Yes. Each retainer has its own period (weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, or custom). Periods don't need to align with calendar months or with each other; the budget for each resets independently on its own cycle.