Consulting Manager
You answer for a group of consultants — the work coming in for them, and the hours going out.
Consulting company
About 15 minutes a week
Your rhythm
Every day
- Clear assignment proposals while they’re warm
Every week
- Check the team’s hours before adjustment windows close
- Make sure any time off you’ve heard about has been entered
Every month
- Review last month’s hours and revenue for your team
- Review resumes after engagements end — and publish any left hidden
A typical week
Client requests turn up whenever they turn up. The hours cycle is the one part of your week that runs to the same schedule every time, so that is what the strip below shows.
Monday and Tuesday are the load-bearing days: that is when you can still influence what gets invoiced for last week.
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
You
Prilet
Deadline
Nothing due
Mon
Weekly hours summaries land for every consultant you manage
One per assignment. Rather than reading each, open Hours Review and look at the team in a single list.
Tue
Chase anything that looks wrong
If a consultant was away and the hours don’t show it, either prompt them or submit the adjustment yourself. You can act on behalf of anyone you manage.
Wed
Adjustment windows close
48 hours after each summary. After that the calculated hours are what gets invoiced, and reopening needs the client’s cooperation.
Fri
Look at the week ahead
Known time off entered now is time off that never becomes a correction later. A couple of minutes here saves the Tuesday scramble.
What each task involves
1
Answer the things a client is waiting on
Assignment proposals arrive by email and leave a client waiting until you reply. There is no hard deadline, but Prilet will chase you at three, seven and fourteen days — and a proposal sitting unanswered for a fortnight is usually a lost engagement rather than a slow one. Check with your consultant, then either decline it yourself or hand the yes to an admin, who signs.
In the app: Client Projects
About assignments →
2
Watch your team’s hours each week
Your Hours Review tile counts the weeks still sitting unconfirmed across your team. Most need nothing. What you’re looking for is the consultant who should have asked for an adjustment and hasn’t noticed — because once their 48 hours pass, the calculated hours are what your company invoices.
In the app: Hours Review
About billing weeks →
3
Be the backstop on time off
Time off is the consultant’s to enter, and they know their own diary better than you do. Your part is catching what they forget, because the deduction is only applied to a week at the moment that week is calculated. Enter it afterwards and nothing recalculates — it becomes an adjustment instead. You can add it for anyone you manage, so if you hear about leave before they’ve logged it, put it in.
In the app: My Team → the consultant → Time Off
About availability →
4
Review resumes, and be the one who publishes them
Consultants own their own resume content, and after an engagement ends they’re the right person to write up what they did. Two things are yours, though. A consultant you manage cannot take their own resume live — only you or an admin can, so a finished resume can sit hidden waiting on you. And a second pair of eyes before it goes back in front of clients is worth the five minutes. If the live switch won’t take, the cause is almost always your company’s Stripe account: no resume anywhere in the company can be published until it is verified, and that is an admin’s to fix rather than yours.
In the app: My Team → the consultant → Resume
About resumes →
5
Put people forward when work comes up
Two ways to start something new: send an offer link to a client you already know, or take a subcontracting request from another firm. Both end in the same place — an assignment with agreed rates — and both are yours to initiate rather than wait for.
In the app: Offers · Subcontracting
About offers →
6
Look at the month once it has closed
The figures at the top of your dashboard — hours, revenue, headcount, and the change on last month — are scoped to the consultants you manage, not the whole company. That is the quickest read on whether your team is as busy as you thought. On Solo Pro and above, Reports opens the same thing up by month, quarter or a custom range, with an export.
In the app: Dashboard · Reports
Your dashboard
My Team
Manage consultants on your team.
Client Projects
The projects your team’s work sits on, plus any you’ve been named to run.
Hours Review
Review and adjust weekly billing hours.
Offers
Write an offer for someone on your team — or for yourself — then send when you’re ready.
Subcontracting
Manage the subcontracting arrangements you answer for.
Where you spend your time
Visible, but rarely needed
What lands in your email inbox
The first one has a client on the other end of it.
“New Assignment Proposal from …”
Answer within days
A client wants to engage one of your consultants. Check availability, then decline it or pass it to an admin to accept.
“Still waiting: …”
Day 3, 7 and 14
A nudge that something above is still unanswered. If you see this, someone has been waiting a while.
“Weekly Hours Summary: …”
Weekly, one per consultant
Copied to you for each assignment you manage. Hours Review is the quicker read.
“New subcontracting request for …”
When it happens
Another firm wants to place one of your consultants. Approve or reject.
FAQ
Common questions
Can I request an hours adjustment for one of my consultants?
Yes, on a week that is still open — which means it is showing as pending and its 48 hours haven’t run out — the deadline is on the week. Within that window anyone who manages the consultant can open the week and submit the correction for them, which is the usual fix when someone is on a client site and out of contact. Once the window closes the week locks itself for invoicing, and no amount of managing gets you back into it.
One of my consultants missed their adjustment window. Can I still fix it?
Not from your side. The hiring company has to reopen the week first — ask their timekeeper or hiring manager — and once they do it comes back as pending and you can submit as normal. If it has already been invoiced, even that is closed off until the invoice is voided. Worth avoiding: it puts a manual step into someone else’s week.
Why am I getting an email for every consultant every week?
The weekly hours summary is sent per assignment, and you’re copied on each one for the people you manage. With a team of any size that is a lot of near-identical mail on a Monday, and you are not expected to read them one by one. Hours Review shows you the same weeks as a single list, and the tile badge tells you whether it is even worth opening.
Do I need to mark hours ready to invoice?
Usually not — weeks are locked automatically once the adjustment window has passed, and invoicing picks them up from there. The manual control exists for the occasions when you need to close a week early.
What can I see that a consultant can’t?
Rates, hours and earnings — for the people you manage, and for yourself. That financial visibility is why assignment proposals come to you rather than to them. Invoices and job costing are not in it: those belong to your admins.
Why can I decline a proposal but not accept it?
Because the two aren’t the same act. Accepting an assignment also signs your company’s agreement with that client the first time you work together — that is the firm committing itself, so it sits with an admin. Declining forms no contract, so it stays with you: you can turn down work your team can’t take without waiting for anyone, and hand the yes to an admin when it is one. Passing on it is the fast half on purpose, so nothing stalls in one person’s inbox.
Where did Invoices go?
To your admins. An invoice covers whatever work it covers — often several people across more than one team — so there is no honest way to show you part of one. The same goes for job costing. What you keep is the hours and earnings of the people you manage, which is the number your week actually turns on.
A client project shows in my list that none of my consultants is on. Why?
You’ve been named its project manager — the person running that engagement for your firm. An admin sets it on the project page. It adds that project’s hours and revenue to your reporting and lets you read the assignments on it, and that is all it does: you still can’t accept, decline or end a line on it, and your Hours Review is unchanged. It also tells you nothing about any other project the same client has.
My dashboard doesn’t look quite like the one in this guide.
Two reasons, both normal. Subcontracting only appears on the Agency plan, so a smaller company won’t have that tile at all. And if your company takes subcontractors on from other firms, a second Hire Consultants section sits alongside the one shown here — the Consulting Admin playbook covers what lives in it.
Can I manage someone at another company?
No. You manage consultants at your own company. Subcontractors from other firms appear in My Team while an arrangement is active, but their availability and resume stay with their own employer.
Different role? Consultant · Consulting Admin · All playbooks
Need more detail on anything here? The Help Center covers it all in depth.