Role Playbooks / Solo Consultant

Solo Consultant

You’re the consultant and the back office. The good news is that most of the back office runs itself.

Solo Sub & Solo Pro About 15 minutes a week One active engagement

Solo Sub — free

You work through consulting firms. They own the client, you’re paid the sub rate named on each engagement (never below your agreed floor), and only a firm you subcontract to can put you forward for work.

Solo Pro

Everything above, plus direct engagements with hiring companies, branded invoices and revenue reporting.

Where the two differ below, it’s badged inline. Compare plans.

Your rhythm

Every day

  • Answer anything a client or prime is waiting on

Every week

  • Read the Weekly Hours Summary and adjust if it’s wrong
  • Enter time off you already know about

Every month

  • Skim the invoices that went out
  • Refresh your resume after an engagement ends
  • Confirm your payout account is still healthy

A typical week

Nobody is watching your deadlines for you, so the Tuesday habit is worth forming.

Once a month closes, its invoices generate and send themselves at 10:00 am ET — each one on the first morning every week it covers has settled, which is usually around the 3rd. That is the only date outside this week worth knowing.

Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
You
Prilet
Deadline
Nothing due
Mon

Your hours arrive

“Weekly Hours Summary” for the week just finished, showing working days less time off and holidays.

Tue

Check the number

Right? Close the email; it becomes an invoice on its own. Wrong? Request an adjustment now rather than at the end of the week.

Wed

Your adjustment window closes

48 hours after the summary. With no manager behind you, a missed window means asking the client to reopen the week as a favour.

Fri

Ten minutes on the business

Time off for the weeks ahead, anything sitting unanswered from a client or prime, and a look at whether your resume still reflects the work you are doing.

Billing cycle

1st

The month closes

The last week of a month is cut short if it needs to be, so one month never spills into the next invoice. It calculates and summarises as normal, which usually leaves it still inside its adjustment window on the 1st.

Around the 3rd

Your invoices go out without you

Prilet looks every morning at 10:00 am ET once the month has closed and sends each invoice as soon as every billing week on it has settled — usually around the 3rd, when the last week’s adjustment window closes, and sooner if every week was confirmed early. Solo Pro bills your clients on the cadence you set; Solo Sub bills your prime on the terms the two of you agreed. You get a copy either way.

A few days in

Skim what went out

Open Invoices and check the batch — right client, right period, nothing missing. Five minutes, and the cheapest moment to catch a problem, because there is nobody else on the account who will.

On the due date

Payment, then your payout

Reminders go out on their own as an invoice ages, so routine chasing isn’t yours to do. When the money arrives the payout to your bank follows automatically and you’re emailed once it completes. Solo Sub is paid by the prime on your agreed terms, which doesn’t wait on their client paying them.

You
Prilet

What each task involves

1

Record time off before you take it

Your hours are calculated from each assignment’s working days, less time off and public holidays already on record. Enter the day off before the week is calculated and the number comes out right on its own. Enter it after and you’re filing a correction and waiting on a client to approve it.
In the app: My Availability → Time Off About availability →
2

Check your hours, then let them go

The weekly summary tells you what was calculated. If it’s right — and it usually is — you do nothing and it becomes an invoice by itself. If it’s wrong you have 48 hours from that email to request an adjustment. Reviewing the total is the whole job; nothing gets entered day by day.
In the app: Hours Review About billing weeks →
3

Answer what’s waiting on you — you’re the whole approval chain

Assignment proposals and subcontracting requests both come to you, because there is nobody else. None of them expire, but each has someone on the other end deciding whether you’re responsive. Prilet will nudge you at three, seven and fourteen days.
In the app: Dashboard → Needs you About assignments →
4

Keep your resume current

Your resume is what a firm reads before putting you forward, and one that stops at your last-but-one project makes you look junior. Availability needs far less from you: it starts at 40 hours a week and Prilet subtracts each assignment as it begins and adds it back when it ends, so the only reason to open it is a genuine change in what you can take on. Solo Sub means work reaches you through a consulting firm. Solo Pro lets a hiring company engage you directly as well.
In the app: My Resume · My Availability About resumes →
5

Watch your Stripe account — it holds everything else up

You are your own admin, and this is the part of that job with real consequences. A verified Stripe account is what lets you be listed at all and what lets money reach you. Stripe periodically asks for updated information, and if nobody answers, payouts pause and your resume comes back down, so you can’t be put on new work. Those emails say Action Required and they mean it — there is nobody else on the account to catch one you missed.
In the app: Settings → Payments About payouts →
6

Check the invoices, don’t write them

Invoices are generated from your finalised hours and sent on each client’s cadence, with a copy to you. Nobody clicks send. What is worth doing is opening the batch a few days after it lands and skimming it — right client, right period, nothing missing — because that is the cheapest moment to catch a problem. Solo Pro lets you put your own branding on them and choose the cadence; Solo Sub invoices your prime on the terms the two of you agreed.
In the app: Invoices About billing →
7

Line up the next engagement before you need it

Propose yourself to a prime you work with — they invited you, or you used Invite a Prime — at the rate you'll work for, and it's your arrangement once they accept. Solo Pro also lets you send offers to hiring companies and agree terms with them directly. Solo Sub routes everything through a prime firm, who owns the client relationship and pays you the sub rate named on each engagement — never below the floor you proposed.
In the app: Subcontracting → New Proposal · Offers About offers →

Your menu

  • My Resume

    Update your skills, experience.

  • My Availability

    When you can take work.

  • Client Projects

    Your clients’ projects and the assignments on each.

  • Hours Review

    Every week you’ve worked. The weeks still open to adjustment are on your dashboard too, under Your hours.

  • Receive Payments

    Your bank account for client payments, under Settings at the foot of the menu.

Items with something waiting carry a count, and the dashboard lists every one of them under Needs you. On a phone the menu opens from the button at the top left.

What lands in your email inbox

You receive both the consultant’s mail and the company’s. Filtering any of it away is a bad idea.

“Weekly Hours Summary: …” Weekly

Your hours, and the start of your two-business-day adjustment window.

“New Assignment Proposal from …” Answer within days

Someone wants to engage you. Check your availability, then accept or decline.

“… accepted your proposal for …” When it happens

A prime took you on. The rate you proposed is the floor under everything they pay you.

“Action Required: Update your payment account…” Drop everything

Stripe needs something. Unanswered, this pauses your payouts.

“Payout Completed: …” Per payment

Money has reached your bank. Nothing to do.

“Still waiting: …” Day 3, 7 and 14

Something above is unanswered and there’s a person on the other end of it.

FAQ

Common questions

What’s actually different between Solo Sub and Solo Pro?

Solo Sub is free and subcontract-only: you work through consulting firms and can’t create direct agreements. Solo Pro adds direct engagements with hiring companies, custom-branded invoices, configurable billing cadence, and revenue reporting. Both cap you at one active consultant at a time.

Am I my own manager?

Yes, and Prilet treats you that way — you get both the consultant’s emails and the ones a manager would normally field. It also means nobody catches your missed adjustment window for you, which is the one real cost of working alone here.

Do I invoice my clients?

No. Invoices are generated and sent automatically from finalised hours on each client’s cadence, and payouts follow when the client pays. Your involvement is checking the invoice looks right after it goes out.

My invoice didn’t arrive around the 3rd. What happened?

An invoice covers a group of billing weeks and waits for the slowest one, so a single week still inside its adjustment window — or with a request the client hasn’t answered — holds the whole thing back until it settles. It goes as soon as that resolves. Two other explanations: that timing only applies to clients on a monthly cadence, and a December invoice often lands in the second week of January because the last week of the month is still open on the 1st.

When do I get paid as a subcontractor?

On the terms you agreed with the prime, when the prime pays your invoice. It does not wait on the end client paying the prime, and your leg can be on a faster cadence than theirs. Prilet takes no cut of it.

Can I take on someone else’s consultant as a subcontractor?

Not on a Solo plan — that’s the Agency plan, which also lifts the one-active-consultant cap and adds multi-user roles. Until then, subcontracting isn’t part of your account.

I registered my firm and I’m placing someone else, not myself. Does this still fit?

Mostly. The commercial half is identical; the difference is that the consultant has their own login and gets the hours emails, while you handle everything else. Read this alongside the Consultant playbook and hand them that link.

What if I want a second person working at the same time?

That’s the Agency plan. Both Solo plans allow one active consultant at a time — you can have several people on the account and swap between engagements, but not run two at once.

Different role? Consultant · Consulting Admin · All playbooks

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