How These 4 Consulting Firms Use Accelo

Consultancies across various industries use Accelo to stay on top of projects, automate tasks and time tracking, accurately bill clients and more.

Our users in consulting have seen rapid growth, increased efficiency and productivity, boosted revenue and impressive administrative time savings. Get a glimpse of just a few of their stories below, and learn more about the platform’s applications in the consulting industry by reading each in-depth case study.

Fitzgerald HR

A UK-based HR consulting firm improved visibility and automated their client work processes.

Fitzgerald HR is an HR consulting firm in North Devon, England. The firm has helped employers of all sizes and in all industries recruit, manage, train and develop employees since 2008.

Beccy Soderlund, Head of Finance and Business, explains that they had outgrown their previous software and suspected they were losing billable minutes due to assignments and time logs not linking directly to client requests and project milestones. 

Upon implementing Accelo in 2020, Fitzgerald HR was able to:

• Organize work by service type using the robust ticketing system
• Track billable time and correctly bill for completed work
• Create custom automations to improve team efficiency 
• Develop internal processes to help create a consistent client experience

Outcome: Fitzgerald HR saved time with automated task assignments, time tracking and retainer management and provided the distributed team with essential visibility across the business.

Favorite Accelo feature: The custom internal workflows! Beccy appreciates how Accelo helps the business appear consistent and maintain industry standards with branded and editable emails. 

Read Fitzgerald HR’s case study.

Level Playing Field

An innovative Canadian accessibility consulting firm grew by 20X in one year.

Level Playing Field has a unique and important mission. This firm provides accessibility, risk management and pre-design construction consulting and more to designers, architects and property managers in the US and Canada.

When she founded the business in 2015, Darby Lee Young knew she didn’t want to rely on spreadsheets, as she had in previous workplaces. Her team needed a straightforward solution for project management.

Since they first started using Accelo, the team at Level Playing Field has:

• Eliminated the need for support staff, instead relying on Accelo’s automations
• Saved countless hours on billing with Accelo’s integration with Xero
• Minimized redundant internal communication with company-wide project visibility
• Enjoyed easy access to projects and data — and time tracking — from the field using the mobile app

Outcome: With Accelo’s expansive support for all parts of the client journey, Level Playing Field experienced a whopping 20X growth in just one year and has taken on three times the projects it once did.

Favorite Accelo feature: Darby loves having every task and communication involved in client work housed in one centralized platform.

Read Level Playing Field’s case study.

Marcussen Consulting

A growing UK-based tax consultancy doubled its profits despite trimming its client base.

Marcussen Consulting is a tax consultancy that guides entrepreneurs through the complexities of launching and growing a business. 

Leadership knew it was time to look for new software when they noticed the team spending too much time completing administrative work. Managing Partner David Marcussen says they were also unsure how profitable each client and service was.

Once they started using Accelo in 2019, the Marcussen team started:

• Automating mundane compliance tasks, such as anti-money laundering emails
• Using automatic invoice creation to replace a four-person invoicing job 
• Generating accurate reports to understand the real picture of billable utilization
• Reducing administrative work, such as manually saving client communication

Outcome: Accelo gave David the data to determine the most profitable clients and empowered him to cut the business’s client base from 300 to 50 — while doubling profits! The team also increased productivity by 93%.

Favorite Accelo feature: Robust reports! David calls the data the platform generates reliable, reconcilable and flexible.

Read Marcussen Consulting’s case study.

Vector Business Solutions

A team of QuickBooks and NetSuite experts cut administrative time in half.

Vector Business Solutions is a California-based team of accounting consultants who specialize in QuickBooks and NetSuite.

Founder Susie Schade was overwhelmed with managing a large portfolio of clients with unique schedules without having a good sense of her employees’ workloads. She did thorough research about her smart tech options and ended up going with Accelo after sifting through a list of 40 potential tools.

Vector Business Solutions started using Accelo in 2019 to:

• Manage retainers and projects in one platform that Susie calls “tightly integrated”
• Give clients more high-quality service and quicker turnaround on project plans
• Use accurate time logs to shift workload and avoid missed deadlines
• Generate detailed invoices that clients no longer question

Outcome: The decision to use Accelo reduced Vector’s overhead by 10% and saved the team eight hours per week that used to be dedicated to manual tasks.

Favorite Accelo feature: Divisions! Susie says being able to set up different pricing structures for different clients has been key to keeping the business afloat throughout the past two difficult years.

Read Vector Business Solutions’ case study.

Why Accelo Is the Best Platform for Your Consulting Firm

If you’ve struggled to stay competitive as 2022 consulting trends have taken hold, it could be time to choose tech designed for the professional services industry.

Accelo is a leading client work management platform among consultants across industries — and the globe.

• Why it’s great for leaders: Accelo offers unparalleled visibility via the convenient Activity Stream, which displays the history of each client’s account activity and communication in an easy-to-read format. It also gives leaders high-quality, up-to-date data to help determine the most profitable clients and services.
• Why it’s great for consultants: It’s easy to stay on top of projects despite a hectic travel schedule or remote work setup. You’ll find timers in Accelo’s mobile app, which help consultants track billable hours with zero hassle. 
• Why it’s great for clients: Your team doesn’t have to spend time updating clients on their project progress or budget usage. They can see it all in Accelo’s client portal, plus submit requests and accept work orders in just a few clicks.

Ready to join this list of successful consulting firms? Schedule a demo of Accelo.

About the Author

Chelsea Williams is Senior Copywriter at Accelo, where she shares unique insights with service professionals and tells user stories via blogs, eBooks, industry reports and more. She has over 15 years of B2B and B2C writing experience — primarily in tech, sales, education and healthcare. Chelsea is an AWAI-certified Master Copywriter trained in brand storytelling and microcopy.