AxisIQ for agencies and professional services firms

AxisIQ runs an agency or services firm: briefs, proposals, engagements, timesheets, utilisation, retainers and GST invoices with TDS in one workspace.

AxisIQ is the system a growing agency or professional services firm runs its practice on: client briefs and the pipeline, proposals with priced lines, engagements with milestones, tasks and change requests, timesheets against budgets, retainers, project expenses, and GST invoices with the TDS your clients withhold — all in one live workspace, with Ask Axis, the built-in assistant, working on that data under each person's permissions. The Agencies & Professional Services template builds all of it at signup, for creative and digital agencies, IT services and consulting firms, and CA, CS, legal and architecture practices that bill for projects, retainers and time.

The work this replaces

A services firm sells hours, and hours are the hardest thing to track. The pipeline is a sheet updated before a review. Proposals are Word files, version four of which the client signed. Timesheets are a Friday-afternoon Google Form filled from memory. Whether a fixed-fee project is losing money is discovered after it has.

Billing is another world: invoices raised in Tally when a partner remembers, TDS deducted under 194J explained at year end, freelancer bills never rebilled. The proposal, the hours, the milestone and the invoice describe one engagement, but they live in four places.

What the Agencies & Professional Services template sets up

Six apps and seventeen record types, plus new fields on the built-in invoice and payment records:

The built-in Invoice gains a billing basis (milestone, retainer, time & material, expense rebill), links to the engagement, milestone and retainer it bills, a taxable value, a GST amount and the SAC code. The built-in Payment gains TDS deducted and TDS section (194J or 194C), so a short receipt is explained on the record that received it.

Two published forms come with it: Start a project, which creates a client brief, and How did we do?, which creates a client feedback record. Two PDF layouts are ready in Templates: a Proposal (cover and fee summary) and a GST Tax invoice for professional services, each generated from its record and saved to Drive.

The links make the numbers honest: timesheets point at engagements and tasks, invoices at the milestone or retainer they bill. "Hours burnt against budget on every fixed-fee job" is one query.

How a week runs in it

A brief arrives. A prospect fills the Start a project form on your website — the owner grants public access once, then it embeds anywhere (Forms) — or BD logs one from an email or referral. Each new Client brief opens an Opportunity at the lead stage, unless it was already marked converted or not a fit.

The pitch. BD qualifies the opportunity, sets the engagement type and estimated value, and writes a Proposal with Proposal lines — fixed fees, a monthly retainer, hourly rates — sending it as the Proposal PDF. When the client accepts, marking the proposal accepted moves its opportunity to won, and the won deal opens an Engagement in setup, carrying the client, type and service line across.

Delivery. The project manager sets budget hours and value and breaks the work into Milestones and Tasks. A client ask the proposal never covered becomes a Change request with extra hours and fee, approved before work starts.

Time. Team members log Timesheet entries against the engagement and task; hours times bill rate gives the billable value. The PM approves them, and each entry's billing state — unbilled, invoiced, covered, written off — turns hours into work in progress you can count.

Billing. When the client approves a milestone, a draft milestone invoice is created for finance to check, add GST and send as a Tax invoice PDF. Retainer invoices follow each Retainer's billing day; T&M invoices bill approved, unbilled hours as Invoice lines, alongside any rebillable Project expenses. A payment link through your own Razorpay account can go with the invoice.

Collection. The payment is recorded with any TDS the client deducted and the section they deducted under. When a milestone invoice is paid, its milestone is marked paid, so the delivery view and the billing view never disagree. At a milestone or close, send the How did we do? form; answers land as Client feedback.

Automations included

Five flows, switched on from the first minute:

• New brief opens an opportunity — every new client brief opens a lead in the pipeline, unless it was already triaged.
• Accepted proposal wins the deal — an accepted proposal moves its opportunity to won.
• Won deal sets up an engagement — a won opportunity opens an engagement in setup for the PM to plan.
• Approved milestone raises a draft invoice — a client-approved milestone creates a draft milestone invoice for finance.
• Paid milestone invoice closes the milestone — when that invoice is paid, the milestone is marked paid.

Each is an ordinary flow in Automation you can change or switch off, with a run history.

Roles

• Business development — briefs, the pipeline, proposals and client contacts.
• Project manager — engagements, milestones, tasks, change requests; approves time and expenses.
• Team member — works assigned tasks and logs time.
• Finance & billing — milestone, retainer and T&M invoices, payments and TDS, vendor bills, the books.
• Delivery head — resourcing, rates and utilisation across every engagement.

Each role is edited app by app, and field-level access can hide cost rates from roles that shouldn't see them. See Permissions.

Your home dashboard

Practice overview opens on four numbers — Billed, Unbilled WIP, Receivables overdue and Open pipeline (weighted) — then charts of Hours logged by day, Pipeline by stage and Utilisation % (30 days), and three worklists: Projects over budget, Milestones due this week and Overdue invoices. Every widget is a SQL query over your own records, editable or extendable in Analytics.

Platform apps that come switched on

• Calendar — team and client meetings, with booking pages a prospect can use to pick a slot for a discovery call.
• Forms — the brief and feedback forms above, and any other you need.
• Messaging — email, SMS and WhatsApp through your own provider account, for invoice reminders and client updates; WhatsApp messages to clients use Meta-approved templates.
• Invoices & Payments — payment links through your Razorpay account; a paid link comes back as a payment record.
• Accounting ledger — double-entry postings your CA can work from.
• Sheets — edit records in bulk as a spreadsheet and push changes back.
• PDF document templates — the Proposal and Tax invoice layouts, editable, plus any you add (guide).
• Knowledge Base — SOPs, rate cards, past proposals, searchable by the team and by Ask Axis.

Switched off: In-Store Checkout, Marketplaces, Work Queues and Functions, which a services firm rarely needs, and Content Studio and Web Campaigns — the template serves every kind of firm, and only some of them run content and ads for clients. A digital agency switches those two on in Settings → Apps (how that works).

Make it yours

After signup Ask Axis asks how your firm differs from the template, and you answer in plain words:

• "On engagements, add a field for the client's purchase order expiry date."
• "When a change request is approved, open a task on its engagement for the project manager."
• "Add a dashboard widget for write-offs by engagement this quarter."
• "Raise draft invoices for every active retainer for October."

Ask Axis makes each change in your live workspace under your permissions and asks before anything destructive. Example data — ten team members, nine engagements, ninety-odd timesheet entries and their invoices — makes every screen readable on day one; it never triggers the automations, and Settings → Industry template → Clear example data removes only those rows in one click. Started blank? A template can still be applied from Settings while the workspace is empty. See Ask Axis.

What AxisIQ doesn't do

• No GST return filing, e-invoicing (IRN) or e-way bills. Invoices carry taxable value, GST and SAC, and the ledger balances; your CA files from there.
• No TDS calculation or returns. The TDS a client deducted is recorded on the payment; reconciling it against Form 26AS and filing stays with your accountant.
• No Tally sync or export, and no payroll. Team member cost rates are for project costing, not salary processing.
• No offline mode. Timesheets and tasks need a connection.

Sub-verticals

• Digital marketing agencies — retainers, briefs by form, proposals, deliverable tasks, and client ad accounts and content when you switch them on.
• IT services firms — T&M and fixed-fee engagements, change requests, timesheets and utilisation, milestone billing, TDS on receipts.
• CA, CS and legal practices — clients with GSTIN and PAN, recurring compliance retainers, staff time, fee billing.

More industries at /industries.

FAQ

Is AxisIQ agency management or PSA software? It covers what both do — pipeline, proposals, projects, timesheets, utilisation, retainers and billing — in one workspace with the ledger, payments and analytics.

Can AxisIQ handle timesheets and invoicing in one place? Yes. Timesheet entries carry hours, bill rate, a computed billable value and a billing state, and invoice lines bill those hours, so unbilled WIP is a number on the dashboard.

Does AxisIQ support fixed-fee, retainer and time & material billing? All three are engagement types. Fixed fee bills by milestone, retainers carry a monthly fee, hours included and an overage rate, and T&M bills approved hours.

How does AxisIQ track utilisation? Each team member has a weekly capacity and a utilisation target, and every timesheet entry is marked billable or not; the dashboard charts utilisation for the last 30 days.

Can I record TDS deducted by clients? Yes. Each payment records the TDS deducted and the section (194J or 194C), so the gap between invoice and receipt is explained on the record.

Start with the Agencies & Professional Services template — or see AxisIQ in action.