Budget in money and get warned before it maxes out — and monitor the agreement against every other resource. Uku catches the loss while you can still fix it.
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Margin leaks in two places: the fee you capped too low, and the work no invoice ever counted. Budgeting watches the first, monitoring watches the second — and both react while the work is still happening.
They solve the same problem — protecting your margin — from two different angles. Here's exactly what each one measures and when to reach for it.
Measured in money.
You agree a budget per client and Uku counts every logged cost against it. A live progress bar shows what's left, and an alert fires before the budget is spent.
Reach for it when a fixed-fee engagement has a hard ceiling you must not quietly blow past.
Measured in real work.
Uku compares what you agreed to the work actually done — mostly time, plus the documents you processed and the payroll you ran — and shows a real-time red / orange / green status per client.
Reach for it when a client keeps sending "just one more thing" and you suspect the price no longer fits the workload.
Budgeting caps the money you charge. Monitoring proves whether that price still fits the work. Most firms run both.
Surprise overruns
Uku alerts you before a budget maxes out — and flags a client the moment work drifts past the agreement.
Tracked in real time
Every hour, entry and document counts automatically. No end-of-month spreadsheet reconciliation.
More billable revenue found
Firms report discovering underpriced agreements — billed for 8 hours while the team works 20 — and repricing with data.
Uku has given me and other managers valuable insights on employees, clients, and tasks.
Christer Haimi, CHK
Set a budget per client in any currency, based on your agreement. Uku counts every tracked minute against it.
Choose a threshold — Uku alerts the team lead when a client approaches it. React operatively to workload changes.
By client, by project, or by a set of topics. Example: $1,000 for monthly bookkeeping — set it in whatever currency you invoice in.
A clear progress bar shows budget usage and balance at a glance. Working on a task with a budget? You instantly see if the client is over.
Automatic alerts under every client task plus notifications — so you plan ahead and adjust instead of discovering overruns at invoice time.
Uku also keeps a record of previous budget periods — spot trends and see whether a fluctuation is a one-off or a real concern.
Money is only one dimension. Monitoring compares the agreement to the real work — mostly time, then the documents you processed and the payroll you ran — so a loss-making client can't hide behind a paid invoice.
Enter the client agreement — the hours, the documents to process, and the payroll to run. Set the allowed fluctuation for each.
Uku reads logged time, the document log and payroll in real time. Workload versus agreement updates automatically — no month-end reconciliation.
When a client drifts from the agreement, you see it immediately — green, orange or red — and react before losses pile up.
Red · Over-fulfilment
The client pays less than the work actually demands. Clear evidence for a pricing conversation — now, not at year-end.
Orange · Approaching
There's still capacity within the agreement, but the limit is close. Plan the next weeks before it tips into red.
Green · On track
Work sits within the agreed limits and profit is where it should be. Nothing to do — exactly what you want to see.
The colors give you a clear signal for the pricing conversation — not gut feel, but data drawn from every tracked hour, processed document and payroll run.
Monitoring grounds your decisions in data — not gut feeling, and not last month's Excel.
No complicated configuration. Turn monitoring on for all your clients in one go, then it runs automatically in the background.
Match the budget to your client agreement, in any currency.
Get notified at the level you choose, before the budget is used up.
Live view of consumed versus agreed, per client and period, with history.
The bulk of it — compare agreed hours with the time actually spent per client.
Compare the documents you agreed to process with what was actually processed.
Track how many clients you ran payroll for against what was agreed.
Define the tolerance for each before a client is flagged.
Red / orange / green status of agreement fulfilment across every client.
Always the current state of every agreement — not last month's numbers.
Every budgeting and monitoring question we hear from accounting firms — and the answer is always the same.
Budgeting measures the money. You set a budget in any currency per client, and Uku warns you before it maxes out. Monitoring measures everything else — it compares the client agreement to the actual work done, mostly time plus the documents you processed and the payroll you ran, and shows a real-time red/orange/green status per client. Budgeting caps the fee; monitoring proves whether the price still fits the workload.
You agree on a budget with your client — in any currency — and Uku tracks every logged minute against it in real time. When the budget approaches its limit, Uku notifies you so you can react in time.
Agreement monitoring automatically compares the work you agreed with a client to the actual work done — mostly time, plus the documents you processed and the payroll you ran. A simple red/orange/green status shows whether each client is still profitable, so you can react before you do free extra work.
Red means the client exceeds the agreed plan — you are doing more work than you are paid for. Green means work is within the agreed limits and profit is on track. Orange means there is still room, but the limit is approaching.
Choose a threshold, for example 80% or 90% of the agreed budget. When a client's tracked work crosses it, the team lead gets an alert — before the budget is used up, not after.
Budget-versus-actual history and the monitoring traffic light both show which agreements are regularly exceeded. That gives you concrete evidence for renegotiating prices — firms report discovering significant underpriced work this way.
Client Budgeting and Agreement Monitoring are available in Uku's higher plans. Monitoring can be set up for all clients at once — it is easier than filling an Excel sheet.
Have a question? Contact us — real people answer.
Elevate your efficiency with the powerful yet easy-to-use accounting practice management software.
"Let's create a dream, where the team is happy, clients are well served and profits are fair." — Rain Allikvee, Co-founder of Uku
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