For agencies, Work-in-Progress (WIP) is more than a report—it’s a real-time indicator of the agency’s financial health. It tells you exactly how much work is underway, how much has been earned, and where revenue might be slipping through the cracks. When WIP is clear and current, CFOs and COOs can make faster, better-informed decisions about resourcing, billing, and margins.
The problem is that most generic ERP systems were never designed with agency WIP in mind. Instead, they bury WIP data behind complex exports, manual reconciliations, and pivot tables that take hours to prepare. By the time the numbers reach decision-makers, they’re often a week—or even a month—out of date. This forces finance leaders to manage by hindsight rather than foresight, reacting to issues after the damage is already done.
True WIP tracking should work differently. It should update in real time, reflecting changes the moment a team member logs time, submits an expense, or invoices a client. It should be tightly connected to each job’s budget, scope, and profitability so you can see not just what’s in progress, but whether it’s on track to deliver the margin you planned for. And it should be able to roll up across jobs, clients, offices, and currencies without anyone having to rekey data or manipulate spreadsheets.
That’s why Accountability puts WIP at the core of the platform—not as an add-on module. Built by a former agency CFO, Accountability understands that WIP visibility is only valuable if it’s accurate, timely, and actionable. Every tracked hour and expense flows directly into WIP through our integrated Counta app, removing the need for importing data or running separate reports. Real-time revenue recognition ensures that WIP and earned revenue are always aligned, while multi-entity and multi-currency capabilities let global agencies see a consolidated view without workarounds. And because WIP is tied to job-level profitability dashboards, you can spot underperforming jobs early enough to intervene.
For CFOs and COOs, this changes the game. You no longer have to wait until month-end to uncover revenue recognition issues or discover margin erosion. Instead, you can address scope creep the moment it appears, adjust resourcing before costs spiral, and give your leadership team access to the same up-to-the-minute numbers you see. The result is faster, more confident decision-making—and a finance function that drives, rather than follows, agency performance.
Implementation doesn’t have to be slow or disruptive, either. While traditional ERP deployments can drag on for six to twelve months, Accountability’s in-house team gets agencies live in under 90 days, configured to your specific workflows from day one. That means you start seeing accurate, real-time WIP on your very first jobs, without the months of painful setup or customization.
If your WIP process still relies on spreadsheets, manual workarounds, or reports that are already stale when you open them, it’s time for a change. Accountability delivers the clarity, accuracy, and speed agencies need to keep jobs, margins, and revenue firmly on track.
