Know which clients are profitable and which ones are costing you

Yes. Magnetic calculates margin at a client level by pulling in data from timesheets, costs estimates, invoices and purchases across all of that clients projects. This is different from most project management tools, which only show profitability per project. The problem with project-level profitability is that one profitable project can hide three unprofitable ones under the same client. Magnetic rolls everything up to the client level so you can see the full picture: Total revenue, total cost and actual margin per client. You can filter by data range, project type or team and the numbers update in real time as timesheets are submitted or costs are logged. Shift ONE a south african agency used this view to identify which clients they were over-delivering for and underquoting, which they couldn't see when they were tracking projects individually.
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Magnetic compares time logged and costs incurred, against the original scope or budget you set at a project level. You choose the warning threshold, for example 80% of budget used. When a project or client hits that threshold, the system flags it automatically and sends a notification to the project owner and account manager. The alert comes while there's still budget left to manage. You can see over-servicing broken down by client, project or project owner, which helps you spot patterns (e.g., one team consistently under-estimating, or one client consistently requesting out-of scope work). The over-servicing report shows hours logged, vs. hours estimated side by side, so you have the data you need for the scope conversation with the client.

Yes! Retainer management is built into the project structure in Magnetic, not a workaround or a separate module. You can set the retainer fee, define the scope (hours, deliverables or both), track burn rate against the retainer agreement, and see profitability per retainer in real time. This matters because retainers are often the hardest revenue to track. The work tends to be ongoing, scope creep is gradual and most teams don't realise a retainer has become uprofitable until the quartely review. Magnetic tracks burn continuously, so you can see exaclty how much of the retainer has been used, what's been delivered, and whether the retainer is making or losing money, at any point during the month.

No. When you convert an opportunity to a project in Magnetic, everything carries over in one click: the cost estimate, notes, contact history, rate cards, and any time or expenses already tracked against the opportunity. The project team picks up with full context. This solves one of the biggest complains in professional services firms, which is the information gap between sales and delivery. In most setups, account managers win the work and then spend hours re-briefing the project team becausemothing transferred from the CRM to the PM tool. In Magnetic the CRM and project system are connected so the handoff is simply a status change. The estimate becomes the project budget. The client record stays connected. Nothing is re-entered.

Most teams are up and running within a couple of weeks. Chapu, a 60-person accounting firm, was fully live in one week, including migrating from manual spreadsheets. The speed depends on how much historical data you want to bring across and how many active projects are in flight. Magnetic's implementation team handles the migration and onboarding alongside your team.

Thats the exact problem Magnetic replaces. Most professional services firms we work with are running a CRM for pipeline, a PM tool for projects, a rime tracker, a separate invoicing system and a set of spreadsheets that try to tie it all together. The problem is that none of those systems talk to each other, so you end up with double entry, stale data and no view of client profitability, Magnetic combines CRM, project management, resource planning, time tracking, invoicin and reporting in one system. Most firms switching to Magnetic are replacing 3 to 5 separate tools. The data flows in one direction: from pipeline to project, to timesheet, to invoice, to report. Nothing needs to be re-entered or reconcilled.