Project Accounting Software for UK Professional Services Firms

Basic accounting software tracks income and expenses at a high level, giving you financial reports showing overall business performance. Project accounting software tracks finances at a granular project level, showing exactly which projects are profitable, where resources are allocated, and how actual performance compares to budget. For project-based businesses, this detailed visibility is essential for managing profitability.

Yes. Professional services firms often need different billing arrangements for different project phases or deliverables. Access Financials supports milestone billing, percentage fees, work-in-progress billing, time and materials, and fixed fee arrangements. You can use multiple billing types within a single project, giving you flexibility to match billing to your commercial agreements.

Work in Progress (WIP) billing tracks unbilled time, expenses and materials on active projects. Access Financials automatically calculates WIP values based on recorded time, incurred expenses and purchased materials—giving you accurate balance sheet figures whilst identifying projects with significant unbilled work.

Staff can record time and expenses using online web applications or mobile apps. Time can be logged using simple timers, manual entry, or schedule-based approaches. When integrated with Access Absence, holiday and absence automatically updates schedules and timesheets. Managers receive notifications for approval, and all time data flows automatically into project costing and billing.

Project profitability is calculated by comparing total revenue against all project costs (direct labour, expenses, materials, overheads). Access Financials tracks costs in real-time at project, phase and task level, comparing actual spend against budget to show profitability as projects progress—not weeks after completion.

If you're managing multiple projects, tracking billable time, and need resource scheduling, then you've outgrown basic accounting software. Access Financials provides ERP capabilities, integrating project management, time tracking, purchasing and accounting, without the complexity and cost of enterprise ERP systems.

Access Financials integrates with many third-party systems commonly used in professional services including CRM platforms, HR systems, project management tools, and Microsoft Office. Integration approaches include APIs, automated data feeds, and manual import/export where necessary. During implementation, we'll assess your specific system landscape and design appropriate integration approaches.

Staff use online or mobile apps to log time against specific projects, phases or tasks throughout the day. Time entries automatically populate into timesheets for manager approval. The system tracks billable vs non-billable hours, calculates utilisation rates, and feeds approved time directly into project costing and client invoicing—eliminating manual timesheet consolidation.

Yes. Access Financials supports UK GAAP reporting requirements and handles Making Tax Digital submissions to HMRC. The system manages multi-currency transactions with automatic VAT calculations for UK, EU and non-EU suppliers. Revenue recognition methods comply with UK accounting standards including FRS 102 for professional services firms.

Implementation timelines depend on your business complexity, number of users, volume of data to migrate, and integration requirements. A straightforward implementation for a single-office consultancy might take 8-12 weeks. Larger, more complex implementations spanning multiple offices with significant integration needs might take 4-6 months. Your implementation team will provide a detailed project plan during the scoping phase.

We migrate relevant historical data as part of implementation, including customer records, supplier details, nominal ledger opening balances, and active project information. The amount of detailed transaction history to migrate depends on your requirements and source system capabilities. We'll discuss your specific data migration needs during implementation planning.

Yes. Access Financials handles multi-office scenarios with consolidated reporting across locations whilst maintaining detailed records for each office. You can track profitability by office, allocate overheads appropriately, and manage inter-office transactions. Reporting works at both individual office and consolidated group level.

The system handles multiple revenue recognition methods including percentage-of-completion, milestone-based recognition, and completed-contract approaches. You can recognise revenue separate from billing, ensuring your management accounts and statutory accounts properly reflect economic reality whilst maintaining compliance with relevant accounting standards.