--- title: "Fixed fee packages were scoped below the hours they consumed" description: "Standard packages had drifted below the real delivery hours as client complexity grew. Marketing & margin audit: $52k/yr in margin identified." url: https://marginfix.ai/cases/fixed-fee-packages-were-scoped-below-the-hours-they-consumed/ lastmod: 2026-10-24 --- Fixed fee packages were scoped below the hours they consumed. [Request an audit →](/book/) Services · Accounting & tax # Fixed fee packages were scoped below the hours they consumed. This marketing & margin audit surfaced **$52k in annual margin** in a Services business, evidenced, senior reviewed, and delivered in 6 days. $1–3M annual revenue Accounting & tax Focus: Scope vs hours +$52k margin recovered / yr +8pts engagement margin 6 days to findings Margin on the fixed fee engagements Before audit 9% → After fix 17% ## The business An accounting and tax practice sold its work as fixed fee packages, priced to be simple and predictable for clients. The packages had been set some years earlier and rolled forward largely unchanged, even as client complexity, compliance requirements and the hours each engagement genuinely consumed crept steadily upward across the book. ## What triggered the audit The practice was busy and revenue looked healthy, yet partner profit per hour was quietly falling, a classic sign fixed fees had drifted below the work. The audit reconciled the actual delivery hours logged against each fixed fee package, testing whether the prices still matched what the engagements truly cost to serve. ## What the audit found The fixed fees had fallen well behind the work they were meant to cover. Timesheet reconciliation showed that client complexity and expanding compliance obligations had pushed the real hours on many engagements far past what the package prices assumed when they were set, so a large share of the book was being delivered below cost on a per hour basis. Because the practice looked busy and top line revenue held, the erosion was invisible. Nobody had matched logged hours back to the fixed prices, so partners were effectively working harder each year for less. The gap between what engagements cost to deliver and what clients were charged amounted to roughly $52k a year of eroded engagement margin. ◉ How we produced this finding The scope vs hours finding came from reconciling the services ledger line by line against what was actually delivered, billed and paid. It’s no estimate but a reconciled figure a named senior auditor traced back to source and signed off before you see a single number. Data sources: Contracts, invoices, billing records and delivery or fulfillment logs, reconciled against each other, so the exact gap behind scope vs hours is traced to the specific line driving it rather than estimated from the top down. Key frameworks: Line by line ledger and contract reconciliation, unit economics and cost to serve analysis, framed by Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) for evidenced business value, cost and risk. Human validation gate: Every reconciled figure is checked against your own records and signed off by a named senior auditor before it ships. Nothing is reported without a human tracing it to source. Verified against Time tracking / utilization Timesheet / utilization logs Project P&L CRM pipeline Invoiced revenue The margin recovered / yr was measured like for like over a matched period, reconciled to the billed and delivered project P&L, and signed off by a named senior auditor before publication. Client identity redacted to protect their commercial position. WORKING PAPER ████████ Accounting & tax Representative Redacted Engagement Engagement margin Advisory retainers +21% Simple returns +16% Complex fixed fee +2% margin recovered / yr +$52,050 Recurring, recovered every year the fix holds, not a one off. Working paper: margin on the fixed fee engagements traced line by line and reconciled to the billed and delivered project P&L over a matched period. Line items representative and redacted; the recovered figure is the reconciled audit finding. ## What we changed ✓ Reconciled logged delivery hours against every fixed fee package, exposing exactly which engagements had drifted below cost as client complexity grew. ✓ Repriced or rescoped the packages that no longer matched the work, realigning each fee to the hours the engagement genuinely requires today. ✓ Introduced a scope change trigger, so rising client complexity prompts a fee review instead of the practice silently absorbing the extra hours. ✓ Made engagement margin per hour a monitored metric, so fixed fees can’t quietly fall behind the work again across the book. ## The result The published chart shows margin on fixed fee engagements moving from 9% to 17%, an 8 percentage point increase. Logged hours and engagement level scope were the evidence used to reset package pricing and scope. $52k a year of engagement margin recovered by realigning fixed fees with the hours they actually consume, an annual figure equal to 9× the $5,950 Audit + Sprint fee. For any professional services firm, this is the silent squeeze: fixed prices set years ago drift below rising complexity while the practice looks busy. If you’ve never reconciled logged hours to your package prices, you may be working harder each year for less. A fixed fee audit reconciles it in days and resets scope to protect partner margin. From kickoff to signed off findings: 6 days. ![Portrait photograph of Leslie Martin](/assets/team/leslie-martin.jpg) Reviewed & signed off by: Leslie Martin Senior Auditor · MarginFix · 10+ years of auditing experience ✓ Anonymized to protect the client · senior reviewed findings · Audit completed between 2024 and 2026, contracted through Cristian Bragau's practice before the MarginFix name existed · Published in the MarginFix library July 21, 2026 · Last reviewed October 24, 2026 ## What the client said SERVICES $52k a year found in 6 days Margin on the fixed fee engagements: **9% → 17%** “Busy, revenue holding, and profit per partner hour falling. Leslie reconciled logged hours against every fixed fee package: complexity had pushed many below cost. We repriced and rescoped them, with a scope trigger so it stays fixed.” **Partner · Services · Accounting & tax** Written approval Under NDA 6 days to findings ![Portrait photograph of Leslie Martin](/assets/team/leslie-martin.jpg) **Leslie Martin** Senior Auditor · signed this audit off [Request an audit →](/book/) [Prefer to talk it through first? Talk to an auditor →](/book/call/) ## More Services findings [Job board spend was spread evenly regardless of fill rate, +$39k/yr](/cases/job-board-spend-was-spread-evenly-regardless-of-fill-rate/) [Travel and onboarding time was going unbilled, +$47k/yr](/cases/travel-and-onboarding-time-was-going-unbilled/) [Quoting ignored callback and warranty cost, +$44k/yr](/cases/quoting-ignored-callback-and-warranty-cost/) [Lead spend ignored close rate by source, +$47k/yr](/cases/lead-spend-ignored-close-rate-by-source/) [Intake was dropping a third of qualified calls, +$62k/yr](/cases/intake-was-dropping-a-third-of-qualified-calls/) [Every location bought the same keywords against each other, −$39k/yr](/cases/every-location-bought-the-same-keywords-against-each-other/) [The benchmark: what audits recover across 74 cases →](/benchmark/) [All case studies](/case-studies/) [Model a Services budget in the wasted ad spend calculator →](/estimator/services/)