Need an accountant for agencies who can tell you today whether this retainer still pays?
Accountant for agencies running retainers, projects and freelance teams, where work is delivered weeks before anyone checks whether it was scoped properly or billed at all.
Most agency owners can quote their headline revenue. Far fewer can say which retainer has quietly grown into two days a week of unpaid servicing. That number decides your next hire, your next price rise and which clients you keep, and it usually arrives half a year late.
Ardein is an outsourced finance function for owner-managed UK agencies, run remotely from Chester by Gavin Jardine MIAB. It handles bookkeeping, VAT, payroll, year-end accounts and corporation tax, then reports monthly on retainer margin, project overruns and work delivered but not yet invoiced. Fees are scoped to the work, and the handover from your current accountant is managed at no separate charge.
“They don't feel like a contractor. They get fully involved in the business and are well respected by all.”
UK SME owner
- IAB member (MIAB 292185)
- Anti-money-laundering supervised
- Established 2021
Three things you’d know before signing the next retainer
Know which clients pay for themselves and which don’t
Time and cost land against the client they belong to, so margin is visible by account rather than in total.
Sign off the next hire with the payback in front of you
Committed retainer income, current utilisation and cash are on the same page before you make the offer.
Invoice everything you delivered, in the month you delivered it
Billing is checked against what shipped, so delivered work stops sitting in a folder instead of the sales ledger.
The agency decisions that go wrong when the numbers arrive late
Three things agency owners have said to me in a first conversation.
- Contract
“We held that retainer at the same fee for three years, because nobody could show me what the account actually cost to service.”
The account had grown from one day a month to nearly two a week. Nothing in the records tied hours to the client, so the fee was never revisited.
- Hire
“I hired a second designer off the back of one busy quarter, then spent the next two quarters paying for her.”
The busy quarter was project work, not committed retainer income. The split was in the books and had never been reported separately.
- Supplier
“We brought freelancers in to hit the deadline, and found out months afterwards the project had eaten its whole fee.”
Freelance invoices arrived after the project closed and were never matched back to it. The overrun only showed up at year end, long after the next quote went out.
- Day 90
What it looks like when the answer is in the room
By day ninety the month closes on a fixed date and the report arrives with it. You can see retainer margin by client, which projects ran over their fee, and what has been delivered but not yet invoiced. When a client asks for more scope, you price it from last month’s actual cost rather than a guess. When you want to hire, the decision takes an afternoon.
Quick check · no email
If your accountant cannot tell you this week which retainers made money last month, which projects overran, and what is sitting delivered and unbilled, you have the wrong accountant
Three questions about the accountant you already have, answered yes or no.
Question 1 of 3
Could they tell you by this afternoon which of your retainers made money last month?
Could they show you the work you have delivered this quarter that has not yet been invoiced?
Could they tell you today whether committed income covers another salary?
You are pricing retainers and making hires on instinct, and the gap is real. The review is where you find out what the records would have told you.
That is a reasonable position, and one area is still open. The entry below is what a sales ledger nobody reconciles tends to be hiding.
You are well served, and there is little here for you. The guide on the first ninety days is worth a read if you want to compare routines.
What a year-end accountant can tell you in March, and what it is already too late to change
Both jobs matter. They answer different questions at different speeds.
A year-end accountant
Files accounts and the corporation tax return accurately.
Confirms what last year’s margin turned out to be.
Sees an overrunning project once the work is long finished.
Answers when the records are ready, usually months after the decision.
Ardein
Does the same filings, from records kept to a monthly routine.
Reports retainer and project margin while the client is still live.
Flags delivered work that has not reached an invoice.
Answers the hire, price and scope question the day you ask it.
Eight things about your agency you should be able to answer today
Answer each one yes or no, as things stand this morning.
- 01
Do you know which retainer made the most money last month?
Not the largest fee. The one with the most left after the team’s time.
- 02
Do you know what has been delivered this quarter and not yet invoiced?
Delivered work sitting outside the sales ledger is the most common thing we find.
- 03
Could you price a scope change from last month’s actual cost?
Most agencies quote from the original estimate and absorb the difference.
- 04
Do you know how much of next month’s income is committed?
Retainer income and project income behave differently when you are hiring.
- 05
Do freelance invoices get matched back to the project that caused them?
If they arrive after the project closes, the overrun is invisible.
- 06
Do you know which client is slowest to pay?
Cash gets tight for a reason, and the reason is usually a name on the debtor list.
- 07
Could you tell a client today what a year of their account has cost you?
That is the figure behind every fee conversation you have been putting off.
- 08
Do your monthly numbers arrive on the same date every month?
A date you can plan around is what makes the rest of this usable.
What runs each month, and what it lets you decide
The compliance work is included. The point of it is the answer at the end.
Bookkeeping, VAT, payroll and year end
Kept to a routine rather than a rush, so the reporting above it is worth reading.
Monthly management accounts
Cash, debtors, creditors and margin by client, in time to change what you do next month.
Virtual CFO and FD input
For the hire, the price rise and the funding conversation, without a full-time salary.
Entry 01
The work that was delivered and never billed
One entry from client work, anonymised.
Figures as recorded in client work · names withheld
What clients say
“They don't feel like a contractor. They get fully involved in the business and are well respected by all.”
UK SME owner
What changes between now and day ninety
Four points where a decision you cannot make today becomes one you can.
You know what the current records are hiding
We agree scope, complete AML checks and collect the records. If you have an accountant, we manage the handover.
Everything delivered is on an invoice
Books complete, banks reconciled, debtors and creditors that make sense, and delivered work matched against what has been billed.
You can see margin client by client
Routines set for billing, freelance costs, credit control and payroll, so project and retainer costs land where they belong.
The hire and the price rise take an afternoon
Monthly reporting on cash, debtors, retainer margin and overruns, delivered on the agreed date each month.
Who this does not work for
We do not take on cash businesses, whatever the sector.
Construction work that lives on CIS belongs with a practice that handles it daily.
If an owner cannot explain how their own agency makes money, monthly reporting will not fix that.
Capacity is capped at four new clients a month, so the start date is sometimes next month.
The review tells you quickly whether the fit is there and what you would want dealt with first.
Questions agency owners ask before they switch
Is the review a sales call?
No. It is a worked review of how your finance runs now: bookkeeping and reporting, debtor and creditor visibility, payroll, systems, and the top five priorities we would tackle. You leave with an indicative monthly structure. There is a fixed review fee, credited in full against onboarding if you go ahead.
We already have an accountant, so why would we need an accountant for agencies as well?
Most agencies that come to us have an accountant who files accurate accounts once a year. What they do not have is anyone telling them in March which retainer lost money in February. Ardein does both, so you are replacing the annual filing exercise rather than adding to it.
What happens with our current accountant?
We deal with them. We write for professional clearance, collect the records we need, agree a transition plan around your year end and set out who is responsible for what from day one. The normal handover is managed by Ardein at no separate charge, and you do not run it yourself.
How long are we committing to?
The engagement is monthly, scoped to the work after we have seen the records and understood how the agency runs. There is no long lock-in. What we do ask is ninety days, because the first three months are where the records get rebuilt and the monthly routine is established.
How does an accountant for agencies work out retainer and project margin?
By making sure costs land against the client or project that caused them. Freelance invoices, subscriptions and salaries are coded consistently, so the monthly report shows what each account earned after servicing it. That depends entirely on the bookkeeping underneath, which is why we start there.
Do you work with agencies outside the North West?
Yes. Ardein is a remote practice based in Chester, with clients from Edinburgh and Newcastle down to Bristol, Exeter and Cardiff. Everything runs through Xero and email, with calls when a decision needs talking through. Location makes no difference to when your monthly reporting arrives.
Three ways to take the next step
Take the Finance Function Gap Review
You get the five priorities and an indicative monthly structure, and we both know within a week whether this is a fit.
See what you’d be told 02 · A question firstGot a question about your retainers?
Call or email Gavin directly and ask it, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
Ask Gavin a question 03 · Still decidingStill deciding
The guides set out what the first ninety days involve, so you can see what changes and when.
Read the guides →