In a professional services business the hour is the product, which makes scheduling an inventory problem with a very short shelf life. An hour that is not sold on Tuesday is not carried forward to Wednesday; it is simply gone. That single fact makes utilisation the number the whole business runs on, and makes the schedule the place where margin is created or quietly lost.
Utilisation is the number, and it is nobody favourite
Billable hours divided by available hours, per person, per week. It is uncomfortable because it makes visible how much of a working week is not sold, and it is worth the discomfort because every pricing conversation is downstream of it. A business that cannot state it is guessing when it quotes.
The gap between booked and delivered
On the worked example this site publishes, 22% of a field day goes on travel, which for a services business is the equivalent of unbillable movement between engagements. Whatever your own version of that number is, it is the difference between the hours you sold and the hours you paid for, and it is usually larger than people expect.
Scheduling people is scheduling commitments
A consultant booked for a Thursday is not available for anything else, including the urgent thing that arrives on Wednesday. Boards that model people as infinitely divisible produce weeks that were never possible. The honest board shows commitments as occupancy rather than as intentions.
Where the exempt and non exempt line falls
How a professional is paid, and whether overtime applies, depends on tests the Department of Labor sets out in its guidance on the executive, administrative and professional exemption. It matters for scheduling because a schedule that routinely runs long is either an overtime cost or a retention cost, and knowing which is a question with an answer.
Questions people ask about professional services scheduling software
Is this the same as project management?
No. Project management sequences the work. Scheduling decides whose week it comes out of, and the two are usually held in different tools for good reasons.
What utilisation should we target?
This site will not tell you, because it varies enormously by discipline. What it will say is that a target you have not measured against is a slogan.
Does Dispatchzo suit a services firm?
It suits work that involves going somewhere and producing a document. Pure desk work is better served by a practice management tool.