Utilisation rate, billable hours divided by available hours, is the metric that determines whether a professional services firm is profitable. Most firms calculate it monthly in a spreadsheet. With Zoho, you can see it weekly, by person, by project, by client.
The data chain: Zoho Projects timesheets capture hours worked. Each timesheet entry is tagged billable or non-billable, linked to a project and task. Zoho Books invoices from approved billable hours. Zoho Analytics blends Projects and Books data for profitability reporting.
Configure timesheet submission deadlines. Weekly submission by Friday 5pm is standard. Zoho Projects can send automated reminders on Thursday and Friday to team members with incomplete timesheets. Project managers approve timesheets before they flow to billing.
The utilisation dashboard shows: each team member's billable percentage for the current month, trend over the last 6 months, and comparison to target (typically 70–80% for consultants, 85%+ for agencies). Flag anyone below 60% for a conversation, not a punishment, but an early indicator of bench time or scope creep.
Project profitability requires connecting time cost to revenue. Set an internal hourly cost rate for each team member (salary + overheads ÷ available hours). Compare against the billable rate on each project. A project billed at $200/hour with a team costing $120/hour internally is healthy. One costing $180/hour is losing money.
The conversation utilisation data enables: 'Sarah's utilisation dropped from 78% to 52% over the last two months, is she on bench between projects or spending too long on fixed-fee work?' This is the kind of operational insight that saves firms from discovering profitability problems at year-end.
Published 5 January 2026