Write-offs
What would helpThis is a problem on our side. It is being monitored and does not need action from you.
This is a problem on our side. It is being monitored and does not need action from you.
Where it stands
Monthly, up to the last 12 months
Why it is where it is
This accounts for the fee value absorbed this period, $66k in all.
Absorbed against this account over the period. Billed $428k against a rate-card value of $460k across 12 lines.
How this was measured: The difference between the rate-card value and the billed value on this account's own fee lines, summed. Not an estimate and not a share of a total: each line is counted once, against the client on the line.
Absorbed against this account over the period. Billed $176k against a rate-card value of $190k across 9 lines.
How this was measured: The difference between the rate-card value and the billed value on this account's own fee lines, summed. Not an estimate and not a share of a total: each line is counted once, against the client on the line.
Absorbed against this account over the period. Billed $91k against a rate-card value of $103k across 12 lines.
How this was measured: The difference between the rate-card value and the billed value on this account's own fee lines, summed. Not an estimate and not a share of a total: each line is counted once, against the client on the line.
Absorbed against this account over the period. Billed $166k against a rate-card value of $169k across 12 lines.
How this was measured: The difference between the rate-card value and the billed value on this account's own fee lines, summed. Not an estimate and not a share of a total: each line is counted once, against the client on the line.
Absorbed against this account over the period. Billed $36k against a rate-card value of $38k across 2 lines.
How this was measured: The difference between the rate-card value and the billed value on this account's own fee lines, summed. Not an estimate and not a share of a total: each line is counted once, against the client on the line.
These are attributed and are inside the total above. They are folded together because a list this long stops being something a person reads, and the ones worth acting on are at the top.
Every fee line is counted once, against the client it was billed to. A line billed above the rate card is not netted off here: the total on the tile is what was absorbed, and what was recovered elsewhere is a separate figure, stated as $7k of value billed above the card over the same lines. The pair is the actionable part. Absorbing and recovering nothing is a scoping problem; absorbing and recovering elsewhere is a pricing spread.
What we checked, in order
Where absorbed work comes from.
These four run from the document to the team, and the order matters because the first two are changes to paperwork and the second two are changes to how people work.
1 of these 4 questions can be answered from what this workspace holds today. The rest name what it would take, rather than filling in with something that would be true of any firm.
- 1
Are the scope documents vague?
First because it is the cheapest thing to fix and because it is where the cause usually sits. Work absorbed at the end was work that was never pinned down at the start.
Not checked here
Nothing in the product reads what is in a scope document, so whether the ones behind this work are specific enough to bill against cannot be checked here.
This is the one on the list most worth doing by hand. Take the two largest absorbed items from the period and read the scope document each was sold on. The answer is usually visible in a minute and it is not a thing the product can look at for you.
- 2
Are change orders actually being issued?
Second because it is the mechanism that turns a vague scope into a billable conversation, and because agreeing the price of extra work in advance takes the negotiation out of the moment when everybody is already annoyed.
Not checked here
Change orders are not a record the product holds. Whether extra work was agreed and priced, or simply done, is not visible from the billing figures alone.
A change order recorded against the work it changed. Until then the useful proxy is the question itself: for each absorbed item, was there a conversation before the work was done.
- 3
Does the account team know how the firm makes money?
Third because a team that is measured on client happiness and cannot see margin will over-serve, and the fastest way to make a client happy is to give them more than they paid for.
Not checked here
This is not a data question. Whether the people running the accounts understand where the firm's margin comes from is something you find out by asking them, and no figure stands in for it.
It is on the ladder because it is the most common answer, not because it is measurable. A team measured on the client being happy, and unable to see margin, will over-serve, and the fastest way to make a client happy is to give them more than they paid for.
- 4
Is the team under-loaded?
Last because it is the least obvious. Idle capacity gets spent on live work whether or not anybody asked for it, so a quiet period can show up as absorbed hours rather than as free time.
The load numbers on this board are outside their bands, which is the condition under which absorbed work tends to appear: time that is available gets spent on live accounts whether or not anybody asked for it, and it turns up here rather than as free time. What the board can see is the condition. Whether that time actually landed on these accounts is not something it can tell you, because time is not recorded against what it went into.
- Utilization
- 50%no firm-wide target, set per person, so there is no band to read it against
- Billable percentage
- 79%against target ~75%, which it is outside
Utilization, from this boardBillable percentage, from this board
Root cause
A write-off is not an accident of billing. It is a decision taken late, to absorb work that was already done: scope that grew without a conversation, an overrun somebody chose to eat, a discount given to keep a relationship comfortable. Each of those is a scoping or approval decision made earlier and paid for here, which is why this total is a lagging read on how firmly work is scoped rather than on how carefully it is billed. On this workspace it is spread rather than concentrated. The largest single account is Lumio Beverages at $32k, with the rest across 6 accounts in all. A pattern that wide is usually about how work is scoped and approved generally, rather than about one relationship.
What to do now
Start with Lumio Beverages and Foundry Athletics. Pull the largest absorbed items on that work and read the scope document each was sold on. That is the check that tells you whether the work was priced badly or grew quietly, and it takes about an hour.
There is no published ceiling to breach here, so the useful reading is the pattern rather than the level. The pattern is in the section above and it names accounts, so the hour goes into the scope documents rather than into working out whose they were. One thing to read alongside it: the same period carries $7k billed ABOVE the rate card. A firm absorbing and recovering nothing has a scoping problem. A firm doing both is running a pricing spread, and that is a different conversation.
This closes no measured driver above, and does not claim to.
What stops it coming back
Move the decision earlier. A write-off is what a scope change costs when nobody had the conversation while the work was still ahead of them, so the structural fix is an approval step where scope moves, not a tighter review at billing.
Two things do most of the work. The first is that a change in scope produces a conversation rather than a quiet absorption, which is a change to how work is run and not a product setting. The second is that write-offs are attributed back to the account and the kind of work they came from, so a pattern is visible while it is still forming rather than at year end. The product can carry the second once this tile is decomposed. It cannot carry the first, and the first is the one that stops the leak.
This closes no measured driver above, and does not claim to.
What happens if this is ignored
This is earned value the firm chose not to bill, and because it never appears as a cost line it is the leak that hides best. Left alone it does two things. It quietly resets the price: an account that has absorbed the same overrun several periods running has learned what the work costs, and it is not the rate card. And it lands in client profitability without ever being named there, because the hours were worked and carried cost while the fee did not follow them. An account can drift under the profit floor for a reason that is fully visible on this tile and invisible on that one.
Is this target still telling you anything
We read this workspace and nothing in it answers this.
This metric carries no ratified target, so there is nothing here to calibrate. A target can only be too easy or too hard once somebody has set one.
Setting a level for this metric is what turns it from a number you watch into a number you are held to, and it is what this section reads against.
Fee value billed below the rate card. Write-ups are tracked alongside. For each fee line that carries a standard rate, the gap between the rate-card value and what was actually billed. Billing above the rate card counts separately as write-ups. Lines with no standard rate, like flat retainers, are left out rather than guessed.
Write-offs are earned value you chose not to bill: scope creep absorbed, overruns eaten, quiet discounts. They never show up as a cost line, so this is often the most invisible leak in the firm. Both directions are worth tracking, and no ceiling is set here. It sits on this board with no ratified level to read it against: no target set.
- Window
- Stated as of Oct 22, 2026. The period the reading covers is set by its source and is not stated on this tile.
- How it is counted
- For each fee line that carries a standard rate, the gap between the rate-card value and what was actually billed. Billing above the rate card counts separately as write-ups. Lines with no standard rate, like flat retainers, are left out rather than guessed.
- Source
- Financial ledger, as of Oct 22, 2026
- Drivers
- Reasoned from this metric's own definition and sources. The driver breakdown is not composed for this tile yet, and the section below says what it would take.