Agencies & Professional Services · South Florida

Retainers Keep Landing. Margin Keeps Leaving.

Bookkeeping, controller, and fractional CFO work for agencies, consultancies, and professional services firms. Service businesses are our core clientele: retainer revenue, prepaid work, people-cost margins, and the question every founder eventually asks: which clients are actually worth it?

Where Agency Books Go Wrong

A people business has exactly one product: hours that know things. These are the six places the money story usually breaks.

NO MARGIN BY CLIENT

Revenue by client exists. Cost by client does not. So the loudest account looks like the best account, right up until you do the math and find it is your worst.

PREPAID RETAINERS BOOKED AS REVENUE

A retainer paid in advance is work you owe. Booked as income on arrival, it inflates this month and starves the month you actually do the work.

PAYROLL CREEP NOBODY PRICED FOR

Salaries rise every year. Rates do not. Three years later the same client roster pays the same fees to a team that costs 25% more.

SCOPE CREEP EATING THE RETAINER

The contract says ten deliverables. The client gets sixteen. Nobody invoices the difference, and the margin quietly funds the relationship.

REVENUE RECOGNIZED WHENEVER

Projects billed up front, milestone work, true-ups. When recognition is improvised, the P&L cannot tell a good quarter from a well-billed one.

DECISIONS ON TOP-LINE FEEL

Hiring, raises, and new service lines decided on revenue momentum instead of contribution margin. Growth that feels great and nets nothing.

Service Businesses Are Our Lane

KLYVNT was built for founder-led service businesses in the $1M to $5M range. Agencies and consultancies are not an industry we adapted to; they are who the practice is designed around.

The work is recurring-revenue mechanics: deferred revenue on prepaid retainers, margin by client and by service line, utilization math that tells you whether the next hire pays for itself.

In the service firms we work with, the most common finding is not fraud or waste. It is two or three clients, beloved ones usually, priced below the cost of serving them. Nobody decided that. The books just never said it out loud.

We make the books say it out loud.

Services & Pricing

MONTHLY BOOKKEEPING (From $699/mo)

Clean monthly books with revenue recognized when the work happens and retainer liabilities tracked properly.

  • Monthly close and bank reconciliation
  • Deferred revenue on prepaid retainers
  • Revenue by client and service line
  • P&L and balance sheet every month
  • Year-end package ready for your tax accountant

CONTROLLER / FRACTIONAL CFO (From $3,500/mo)

Controller-level review every month: client-level margin, utilization, pricing analysis, and a forward look at cash.

  • Margin by client and service line
  • Utilization and capacity analysis
  • Pricing and rate-card reviews
  • Cash flow forecasting
  • On call for hiring and pricing decisions

BOOKS CLEANUP (From $2,500)

Books behind, revenue booked on invoice date, client profitability unknowable. We rebuild the file so the answers exist.

  • Historical cleanup and full reconciliation
  • Revenue recognition straightened out
  • Chart of accounts built around clients and services
  • Fixed price quoted before we start

Answers We Already Wrote Down

Frequently asked questions

What kinds of firms do you work with?

Marketing agencies, consultancies, staffing firms, IT providers and MSPs, design studios, and other professional services businesses, mostly founder-led and in the $1M to $5M range. If your product is billable people and your revenue arrives as retainers and projects, this is built for you.

How much of my time does this take each month?

After onboarding, a few hours. You answer categorization questions as they come up, and the monthly review call runs 30 to 60 minutes for controller and CFO clients. The point of hiring us is that the finance function stops consuming your week.

Can you tell us which clients are actually profitable?

Yes, and it is usually the first month's biggest finding. We build cost by client (people time, contractors, tools) against revenue by client. In most service firms we review, at least one major account is priced below the cost of serving it.

How should an agency handle retainers paid in advance?

As deferred revenue: a liability that converts to income as the work is delivered, not when the cash lands. It is the difference between a P&L that describes your business and one that describes your invoicing.

How much does this cost for an agency?

Monthly bookkeeping starts at $699 a month. Controller and fractional CFO work starts at $3,500 a month, with full CFO engagements at $5,500. A one-time cleanup starts at $2,500. The rate card is public on purpose.

Do you replace our bookkeeper?

Not necessarily. If your bookkeeper is solid at data entry, we sit above that layer as the controller: reviewing, interpreting, and telling you what the numbers mean. If the bookkeeping itself is the problem, we take it over.

Do you do taxes?

No. Bookkeeping, controller, and CFO work only. Your tax accountant gets a clean file from us every January and sends fewer questions back.

KLYVNT Advisors provides bookkeeping, controller, and fractional CFO services for founder-led businesses in South Florida. Book a call.