Margin
Is this project making money? teamspace calculates the contribution margin per project and per client continuously, from booked time, internal cost rates, documents and costs.
Controlling software for service firms whose figures arise as work is booked.
Controlling software analyses a company's time, costs and revenue so that management can steer by them. In teamspace those figures come from the same data set your team uses to book hours, run projects and write invoices. So you see whether a project makes money during the week it happens, not at the quarterly close.
What matters
Three questions decide the result.
A professional services firm sells its people's time and expertise. An hour nobody pays for cannot be put into stock. That is why controlling for service firms looks at three levers rather than unit costs.
Utilisation
How much of the available time was billable? The reports separate billable from non-billable hours, per employee, category and period.
Pricing
Are we achieving the rates we calculated? Project and client analysis show the average revenue per hour, and the post-calculation shows the over- or under-recovery per order.
Why all three
A fully booked team is not yet a good margin.
At Bauer KG every consultant is booked until the end of the quarter. Utilisation looks fine, yet less is left at the end of the month than expected. The reason does not appear in any utilisation list: two fixed-price projects are running over budget, and a large client pays a rate below the average.
Anyone who sees only one of the three levers can easily pull the wrong one. In teamspace all three sit on the same data:
- The project analysis sorts projects by contribution margin, with the loss-makers at the bottom.
- The client analysis shows contribution margin and average revenue per hour for each client.
- The area and category analysis separates billable from non-billable time, per employee and month.
The key figures
Every key figure has its report.
Controlling for a service firm needs only a handful of key figures. In teamspace each of them comes from a ready-made report that works on the booked hours, invoices and documents, and a click on a total opens the bookings behind it. How management turns them into a cockpit with traffic lights is described under business steering.
- Contribution margin per project
- Project analysis Which project makes money, and which one no longer does?
- Contribution margin per client
- Client analysis Which client pays off, if you like with all of its departments combined?
- Average revenue per hour
- Project analysis and client analysis Are we achieving the rates we calculated with?
- Billable and non-billable hours
- Area and category analysis How much of the working time reaches the client, per employee and month?
- Over- or under-recovery per order
- Post-calculation Did the order pay off once it was finished?
- Plan and actual per cost centre
- 'Plan & analysis' tab of the cost centre Where does a department stand against its plan in the current year?
- Expected revenue
- Future revenue What will the coming months bring from orders and payment plans?
- Weighted revenue forecast
- Sales controlling, enterprise edition Is what sales is building up enough for tomorrow's utilisation?
One data set
The figures arise where the work is done.
Many service firms have long had their data in one system but analyse it somewhere else: in Excel, at the tax adviser's office or in the quarterly review. Accounting, project management and the directors then discuss three different sets of figures.
In teamspace, controlling is the analysis across all modules. Project hours come from time tracking, invoices and incoming invoices from the invoicing software, plans and budgets from project management, opportunities from the CRM and tickets from the service desk. Nobody transfers anything, and there is no interface to maintain.
One setting sits outside the reports: the internal cost rate per employee. You store it with a validity date in the HR area. Only then does a booked hour become a cost amount, and a later salary change leaves earlier months untouched.
The building blocks
What controlling in teamspace includes.
Four building blocks describe the function itself, two more carry controlling into projects and sales. Each has its own page.
Reporting Ready-made reports on projects, finance, staff, sales and tickets, all with filters, periods, drill-down and Excel export. Cost and performance accounting Cost type, cost centre and cost object on every time entry, document and posting, pre-filled by rule for time entries and documents. Contribution margin accounting What a project, a client or a business unit leaves over after its direct costs. Cost centre accounting Where in the firm costs arise, and where a department stands against its plan in the current year. Project controlling Plan, actual and forecast per project and phase, with status lights, earned value and milestone trend. Sales controlling Sales funnel, weighted revenue forecast and client analysis, so that tomorrow's utilisation becomes visible.
Cost accounting
Every posting knows what it was for.
Behind the contribution margin sits cost and performance accounting. Every project time entry, cost item, document line and posting gets three attributes: what kind of cost it is, where in the firm it arose and which project it belongs to. For time entries, cost items and document lines, a rule pre-fills them as the entry is made, so your team books exactly as before. How documents are checked and held against the plan on the project is described in the cost control process.
This gives two views of the same money. Contribution margin accounting asks what a project or client leaves over. Cost centre accounting asks what a department costs and how much of its time reaches clients.
Financial accounting stays with your tax adviser. Documents and invoices go across via the DATEV interface; controlling in teamspace is the management view alongside it.
How cost accounting is set up and used is described in the help centre, starting with the Introduction to cost accounting.
Choosing
Which controlling software fits your firm?
Two rather different kinds of tool are sold as controlling software. Planning and finance software works forward from the accounts. teamspace works from the booked hour. Which one you need depends on what your result depends on.
Where do the figures come from?
Planning and finance software
From financial accounting and other upstream systems, usually by import or interface. The calculations run on accounts and periods.
teamspace
From day-to-day work: booked hours with an internal cost rate, invoices and documents on the project. There is nothing to import, because everything arises in the same system.
What is being steered?
Planning and finance software
The company as a whole, with P&L, balance sheet and liquidity, and for groups the consolidated accounts too.
teamspace
Projects, clients, cost centres and your people's time. teamspace does not produce its own P&L or balance sheet; that stays with your tax adviser.
When does a deviation become visible?
Planning and finance software
Usually after the month-end close, once accounting has delivered its figures.
teamspace
As soon as hours and documents are booked. Warning levels on the project report when a threshold is reached.
Who works with it?
Planning and finance software
Controllers and the finance team, who build plans, scenarios and their own reporting models.
teamspace
Directors and project managers, who steer with ready-made reports.
A good fit if …
Planning and finance software
you plan several companies, your bank wants to see integrated financial planning, or your controlling team needs to model freely.
teamspace
your result depends on how many of your people's hours get paid for, and at what rate.
The two do not rule each other out. If you already work with planning software, you can pass the project and client figures from teamspace on to it via Excel export or, from the enterprise edition, the REST API.
Each month
A controlling month in five steps.
This is how the monthly conversation about the figures can run in teamspace, from a complete set of bookings to a decision.
- 1
Close the bookings
All hours for the month are booked and approved. Documents and incoming invoices have been checked and carry cost type, cost centre and cost object.
- 2
Sort projects by contribution margin
The project analysis puts the loss-makers at the bottom. A click on a project shows the hours and costs behind the figure.
- 3
Post-calculate finished orders
The post-calculation sets what was incurred and what was invoiced next to each order. If you see an under-recovery there, you price the next quote of that kind differently.
- 4
Hold cost centres against the plan
The 'Plan & analysis' tab of each cost centre shows plan and actual per month and since the start of the year, plus the cumulative variance.
- 5
Look ahead and decide
Future revenue shows what is coming from orders and payment plans, complemented in the enterprise edition by the weighted sales forecast. Then the decision follows, for example to replan a project or to raise a change request.
Limits
The reports are predefined, not freely modelled.
teamspace does not include a report designer in which you click together your own data models and dashboards as in a BI tool. The reports are predefined. Within a report you choose columns, period, breakdown and filters, and save the result as a bookmark.
If you need more, there are three routes:
- The Excel export that every report offers in its actions menu.
- The REST API from the enterprise edition, which lets you pull data into a tool of your own. How to build your own dashboard on it with an AI coding assistant is shown on the vibe coding page.
- The MCP server in every edition, through which an AI assistant answers freely worded questions about your figures, with exactly your permissions.
Your figures
Bring your monthly report along.
Show us the spreadsheet someone puts together by hand every month. In the call you will see which teamspace report delivers it, what needs to be set up for it and where the limits are.
Where the figures come from
Three modules supply most of it.
Controlling works with what is recorded in day-to-day business anyway.
Time tracking
Every booked hour is valued at the internal rate and lands as cost on the project.
- project time with category
- billable or not
- internal rate with validity date
Project management
The project is the most common cost object, with plan, budget and contribution margin.
- plan against actual
- contribution margin in the Analysis tab
- status light on deviation
Invoicing software
Outgoing and incoming invoices supply revenue and external costs at line level.
- revenue from invoices
- incoming invoices on the project
- post-calculation per order
First call
Which figure are you missing today?
Tell us what you steer your firm by today and which question remains open. We will show you where teamspace answers it from your own bookings.
Frequently asked questions about controlling software
What is controlling software?
Controlling software analyses a company's time, costs and revenue so that management spots deviations early and can steer. In teamspace, controlling is not a separate island but the analysis across time tracking, projects, invoices, CRM and service desk.
Which key figures does a service firm need in controlling?
Above all the contribution margin per project and per client, the share of billable hours in working time, the average revenue per hour, the over- or under-recovery per finished order and the revenue expected over the coming months. In teamspace each of them comes from a ready-made report based on your own bookings.
Can controlling software replace the monthly spreadsheet?
For the figures that come round every month, yes. teamspace calculates contribution margin, billable hours and post-calculation from the bookings, so nobody has to gather them. Excel remains useful for one-off analyses: every report can be exported as an Excel report from its actions menu.
Does teamspace replace a BI tool such as Power BI?
No. teamspace has no freely modelled report designer. The reports are predefined and can be adjusted through columns, period and filters. For further analysis you export to Excel or, from the enterprise edition, pull the data into a tool of your own via the REST API.
Does controlling replace accounting?
No. Financial accounting with balance sheet and tax stays with your tax adviser. teamspace hands over invoices and documents via the DATEV interface and provides the internal management view by project, client and cost centre alongside it.
Which firms is controlling in teamspace suited to?
Project-based professional services firms that sell their people's time, above all management consultancies and IT service providers. There are also dedicated pages for agencies, architecture and engineering practices and software vendors.
Why is the contribution margin empty in my reports?
Usually the internal cost rate of the employees is missing. Without it, teamspace cannot convert booked hours into costs. You store it per employee and period in the HR area; after that the project, employee and client analyses calculate in full.
Which editions include controlling?
The reports, cost and performance accounting, cost centre planning and contribution margin analyses are included from the office edition. Sales analyses, the utilisation analyses of capacity planning and the REST API come with enterprise.
What does controlling in teamspace cost?
Controlling is not an add-on module. It is included from the office edition at €19 per user per month. For sales analyses, capacity analysis and the REST API you need enterprise at €24. The prices shown are annual prices; a surcharge applies for shorter terms. Hosting and, if you want it, support come on top. A worked example is on the pricing page.
Can I analyse my figures with AI?
Yes. Reports have an Analyse with AI entry that reads the report on screen and points out what stands out. For this you connect your own AI access. You ask freely worded questions about your data through the MCP server and an AI assistant. Both are included in every edition; more on the AI in teamspace page.