Professional Services
Professional services CRM for firms that win work through relationships and proposals
Senitix CRM keeps each pursuit at a consulting, staffing or advisory firm on one deal: the client's stakeholders, the referral source, every fee proposal version and the signed engagement. The relationship stays with the firm when a partner moves on, and delivery starts from the scope the client accepted.
Built for management, IT and HR consulting firms, staffing and recruiting agencies, corporate training providers, and accounting and advisory firms in the United States.
The pursuit, the fee proposal and the signed engagement on one deal
A firm sets the deal up as its pursuit. An administrator adds the fields the partners decide on, such as the referrer, the service line, the fee model and the expected start date, beside the deal's own source and the client's stakeholders with their roles. A staffing firm adds the role, headcount, shift pattern and work site instead. An example pipeline carries the pursuit from inquiry to handoff, each fee proposal is a numbered quote version on the deal, and the signed engagement letter or statement of work becomes a contract record with its dates.
In Senitix CRM
What Senitix CRM solves for professional services firms
Keep the relationship with the firm, not one partner
The account holds the client and its people, and calls, meetings, notes and connected email run down one timeline the next partner can read. A referral recorded as the lead’s source when the inquiry arrives carries over to the contact and the deal when the lead is qualified, so the firm can report which relationships bring in work.
- Stakeholders on each deal with their role: decision maker, economic buyer, executive sponsor, champion or influencer
- Gmail, Microsoft Outlook or any IMAP mailbox connected, with each thread linked to its contact, account or deal
- Senitix AI summarizes a long thread before the call and suggests a next step, which a person accepts or ignores
Keep every fee proposal as a dated version
Each revision of a proposal is a new numbered version on the same deal, priced line by line from the firm’s rate card, with a valid-until date and the assumptions and exclusions written into its terms. Earlier versions stay beside it unchanged, and the version the client accepts is the one delivery works from.
- Each service listed as a product, with the firm's day rates, retainers and fixed fees in a price book used as its rate card
- A discounted fee can go through an approval process with named approvers before the proposal goes out
- A proposal that has gone out moves to Expired once its valid-until date passes, so a stale fee never reads as live
Hand delivery the scope the client signed
When the deal is won, the engagement owner or the staffing coordinator starts from the accepted proposal version, the commitments made along the way and the deal’s timeline, not from a forwarded recap. An automation the team sets up opens a dated kickoff task for a named owner as soon as the deal is marked won. Our sales-to-delivery handoff checklist lists what that task should carry.
- The signed engagement letter, statement of work or staffing agreement as a contract record carrying the accepted proposal's lines and dates, with the signed file attached
- Bill rates and margins visible only to the roles that need them, through field permissions
- Every field change kept in the record's history, so a moved start date or a new headcount shows who changed it and when
See the renewal and the next engagement coming
Recurring work renews from a date on a record, not from someone’s memory. The contract record carries its end date, whether it renews automatically and its renewal period, and the contract owner is notified a chosen number of days before it ends. Work in another service line is its own deal on the same account, so a partner sees every engagement with that client in one place.
- A deal type of new business, renewal, upsell or cross-sell, so a report separates recurring work from new work
- Pursuits with no next activity and proposals past their valid-until date, on reports delivered on a schedule
- A date-based automation that opens a renewal task for a named owner well ahead of the end date
An example pursuit pipeline for a professional services firm
The stages a consulting, staffing or training firm might set up in Senitix CRM, from the first inquiry to the handoff to delivery. Each stage carries guidance the firm writes for itself and up to five key fields.
Example stages
- Inquiry or referral
- Scoped
- Proposal sent
- Revision
- Engagement signed
- Handed to delivery
Guidance on each stage
- Inquiry or referral The source is on the record, whether a referral, an RFP, an existing client or an employer's staffing request. An owner is assigned and the need is written on the deal in one sentence.
- Scoped A decision maker is on the deal with a role. The service line, fee model and expected start date are filled in, and the scoping call is logged as a completed activity. A staffing request also carries its role, headcount, shift and site.
- Proposal sent A proposal version has been presented to the client with a valid-until date, its assumptions and exclusions are in the terms, and a dated follow-up has an owner.
- Revision Every change is a new version on the same deal, and its notes say what changed: the scope, the rate or the dates.
- Engagement signed The client has accepted one version, and the signed engagement letter, statement of work or staffing agreement is attached to a contract record with start and end dates.
- Handed to delivery A kickoff task names the engagement owner or operations lead and the start date. For recurring work, the renewal date has an owner.
An example, not a template: your firm sets up its own stages, and nothing arrives configured. A stage shows guidance and key fields but never stops a deal from moving; rename, reorder or remove any stage, and open deals keep their history.
Customer story Staffing and HR services
İK Ekspert runs every employer request, from role brief to operations handoff, on one deal
According to its website, İK Ekspert has been a private employment office authorized by İŞKUR, Türkiye's public employment agency, since 2019. Its story describes how an employer's role brief, every proposal version and the handoff to operations are set up on one deal, with candidate data kept out of the CRM. It publishes no results.
Read the İK Ekspert storyFAQ
Professional services CRM questions
What is a professional services CRM?
A professional services CRM is a customer relationship management system set up for firms that sell expertise by the engagement: consultancies, staffing agencies, training providers and advisory firms. It keeps the client’s stakeholders, the referral source, each fee proposal version and the signed engagement on one record the whole firm can read. It is not professional services automation (PSA) software: resource planning, timesheets and billing stay in the tools built for them, and the CRM holds the commercial side up to the handoff.
What is the best CRM for consulting firms?
The one whose records match how the firm decides which work to pursue and how it prices that work. Look for stakeholder roles on the deal, proposal versions that keep their assumptions and valid-until dates, the engagement letter as a record with an end date, and reports that separate new clients from repeat work. In Senitix CRM each of those is a record or a field the firm sets up itself, and plan details are on the pricing page.
What should a staffing agency CRM track?
The employer side of the business. The client company is the account, with its HR, operations and purchasing contacts; each staffing request is a deal with the role, headcount, shift pattern, work site and start date as fields; bill rates sit on a versioned proposal, and the signed staffing agreement carries its end date. Candidates, résumés and interview notes stay in the applicant tracking system, which also keeps personal data away from people who only need the commercial record. The İK Ekspert story on this page shows that split at a staffing firm in Türkiye.
How do you track referral sources in a CRM?
Record the referral as the lead’s source when the inquiry arrives. When the lead is qualified, Senitix CRM creates the contact, the account and the deal in one step and carries the source over to the contact and the deal. A custom field on the deal can name the referrer, so a report shows which referrers and which existing clients bring in pursuits, and how many of those the firm wins. Our guide to lead source tracking covers how to set up the source list itself.
How should a firm manage fee proposal versions?
Keep every revision as a new version on the same deal rather than a new attachment in a new thread. In Senitix CRM a proposal is a quote built from the firm’s rate card, with line items, discounts, a valid-until date and the assumptions and exclusions in its terms. A new version leaves the previous one unchanged, the PDF comes from the firm’s own template, and the version the client accepts becomes the contract record without its lines being retyped.
Does a CRM replace PSA, time and billing, or an applicant tracking system?
No. Senitix CRM holds the commercial side: the relationship, the pursuit, the proposal versions and the signed engagement. Resource scheduling, utilization, timesheets, billing, project delivery and applicant tracking stay in the tools built for them, and there is no packaged connector to those tools today. Records move in and out as CSV or Excel files, other integrations run through connected apps the Senitix team registers, and outgoing webhooks are coming soon.
What should a professional services firm measure in its pipeline?
Start with win rate by service line and by referral source, how long pursuits sit in each stage, proposals past their valid-until date with no reply, and pursuits with no next activity. Add renewal dates for recurring engagements, and split new business from renewals and cross-sell by deal type; our renewal management playbook covers the timing. Each report reads the fields and stages the firm set up, so a stalled pursuit means what the partners agreed it means.
Is there a CRM page for law firms or architecture and engineering firms?
Yes. Law firms and mediation centers have their own page, Legal Services, and engineering and architecture practices have Engineering & Architecture, which covers the go/no-go on an RFP and the discipline scope. Both are listed under Industries in the site menu. This page is written for firms that sell consulting, staffing, training and advisory work.
Put the next pursuit on a record the whole firm can read
Start free today, or talk to us about setting up the fields, stages and roles around your service lines and the way your firm writes proposals.
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