AxisIQ for IT services and software firms

AxisIQ runs T&M and fixed-fee engagements, change requests, timesheets, utilisation, milestone billing with GST, and TDS on receipts for IT services firms.

AxisIQ gives IT services and software development firms one live workspace for the business side of delivery: time & material and fixed-fee engagements, milestones the client signs off, change requests priced before the work starts, timesheets against budget hours, utilisation by person and practice, milestone and T&M invoicing with GST and SAC, and the TDS your clients deduct recorded on every receipt. It starts from the Agencies & Professional Services template, set up at signup, and Ask Axis adapts it to how your firm runs projects.

AxisIQ workspace for AxisIQ for IT services and software firms

Where an IT services firm's operations break

Engineering lives in Jira or a similar tracker, and that part usually works. What breaks is everything a tracker was never meant to answer. Is this fixed-fee project still profitable now that the client's UAT has run three weeks long? Which of last month's T&M hours have not been billed? Who is on the bench next week, and who has been at 130% for a month?

Scope creep is the expensive one. "Just one more report" arrives on a call, a developer builds it, and nobody raises a change request because the PM didn't want to argue over two days. Six of those and the margin on a fixed-fee build is gone. Then billing: milestone invoices wait on a sign-off email nobody forwards to finance, T&M invoices are built from a timesheet export pasted into a template, and receipts come in short because the client deducted TDS under 194J — which someone must later match against Form 26AS.

How the template covers it

  • Engagement is the commercial project: type (fixed fee, retainer, time & material), service line, project manager, budget hours, budget value, client PO, status and a health flag (on track, at risk, off track). Won opportunities open engagements automatically, numbered ENG-26-0001 and carrying the client and type; Proposals are numbered QTN- and go out as the template's Proposal PDF.
  • Milestone carries the due date, the billing amount and a status from planned through delivered, approved, invoiced and paid, with acceptance notes. When the client approves a milestone, a flow raises a draft milestone invoice; when that invoice is paid, another marks the milestone paid.
  • Change request records the CR number, extra hours and extra fee, with status raised → estimated → approved or rejected — so out-of-scope work has a record before anyone writes code for it. An approved CR is billed as a change request line on the invoice.
  • Task links to its engagement and milestone, with an estimate in hours. Keep sprint-level tickets in your tracker; use tasks for the work you want costed and billed.
  • Team member holds designation, practice, cost rate and billing rate per hour, a utilisation target and weekly capacity. Timesheet entry records hours by activity — development, QA, design, client meetings, internal — marked billable or not, with a computed Billable value, PM approval and a billing state (unbilled, invoiced, written off).
  • Invoice gains a billing basis (milestone or time & material), the engagement and milestone it bills, taxable value, GST and SAC (998314 for IT design and development, for example), and prints as the template's GST Tax invoice PDF. Payment gains TDS deducted and TDS section (194J or 194C).

On the Practice overview dashboard, Projects over budget, Milestones due this week, Unbilled WIP and Utilisation % (30 days) answer most of those questions without anyone building a report. Anything else is SQL in Analytics.

What to ask Ask Axis to add

  • "Add a resource allocation type: team member, engagement, from date, to date, allocation %."
  • "Add a technology stack field to engagements with options React, Java, .NET, Python, SAP."
  • "When a change request is approved, open a task on its engagement for the project manager."
  • "Add an export invoice flag and a place of supply field to invoices."
  • "Add a widget for bench hours by practice over the last four weeks."
  • "Show me TDS deducted by client for this financial year."

Ask Axis changes the live workspace under your permissions and asks before anything destructive; the last one it simply answers, as a query over your payments. See Ask Axis. Both PDF layouts are editable, and the How did we do? form collects client feedback at UAT sign-off.

One honest limit

AxisIQ is not an issue tracker and does not sync with Jira, GitHub or Azure DevOps. It also does not calculate TDS or file returns: it records what the client deducted, and reconciliation against Form 26AS stays with your accountant.

FAQ

What is PSA software, and does AxisIQ cover it? Professional services automation joins pipeline, projects, time, resourcing and billing. AxisIQ covers each as linked records, plus the ledger, payments and analytics.

Can AxisIQ bill time & material and fixed-fee projects differently? Yes. Each engagement has a type; fixed fee bills by milestone through a flow on client approval, and T&M bills approved, unbilled timesheet hours as invoice lines.

How do we track change requests in AxisIQ? Each out-of-scope ask is a change request on its engagement with extra hours and fee, approved before work begins and billed as its own invoice line.

Can AxisIQ show utilisation by team member? Yes. Weekly capacity, utilisation targets and billable flags on timesheets feed a 30-day utilisation chart, and any other cut is one query.

How is TDS on client receipts recorded? Each payment records the TDS deducted and the section, so a short receipt against an invoice is explained on the payment itself.

Start with the Agencies & Professional Services template — or see AxisIQ in action. Back to AxisIQ for agencies & professional services.