Business Central for UK Professional Services
Professional services firms live or die on chargeable utilisation, project margins, and how quickly they can invoice. Standard BC's Project module gives you the structure; the difference is in how time data flows in, how invoicing gets out, and whether project P&L is visible on a Tuesday or three months later.
What we configure
BC's Projects, Resources, General Ledger and Sales modules form the spine. We design the dimension structure carefully — typically Client, Project, Practice Area, and Resource — because dimensions are what make slicing margins by anything-other-than-account possible later. Time entries integrate from your existing tracker (Harvest, Toggl, internal app) or via a Power App that staff use directly.
Where BC alone stops short
- Real-time project P&L. BC's standard project reports lag because cost posting is batched. We build a Power BI or Power App dashboard that pulls direct from BC and shows margin by project as time hits.
- Retainer invoicing. Recurring retainers with usage-based overage need scheduled invoice generation — usually a Power Automate flow plus a small AL extension to handle the overage calc.
- Disbursements. Client-billable expenses with a markup, properly attributed to the right project, are surprisingly fiddly in standard BC.
Relevant Amplio extensions
- Smart Recurring Contracts & Renewals — retainer repository with renewal alerts, RPI uplifts, and churn-risk dashboard.
- HR-Lite — leave entitlement, sickness, and SSP wired to project costs via dimensions.
- Mass Journal Paste — month-end timesheet adjustments, accruals, and disbursement reclassifications without re-keying.
Typical engagement
6–8 weeks for a standard go-live; 10–12 weeks if your time-tracker integration or invoicing flow is custom. See the professional-services case study.