The Firm Runs on Projects. The Systems Don’t.
In most firms, time lives in one tool, budgets in spreadsheets, invoicing in accounting software that has never heard of phases or subconsultants, and resourcing on a whiteboard. Principals find out a project lost money when it closes, months after anyone could have steered it.
Dynamics 365 Project Operations and Business Central put proposals, phases, time, resourcing, and billing on the same backbone as the books. Utilization, backlog, and project margin become live numbers, visible mid-project, with each project manager seeing their own work and principals seeing the firm.
Around that core, the other pillars carry the rest of a firm’s reality: the file-heavy IT of design work across offices, the drafting leverage of governed AI, and the security posture that federal and defense work increasingly demands.
All Four Pillars, Through an Architecture & Engineering Lens
The same operating model we bring to every engagement, tuned to the rules and realities of your field.
Project Accounting That Matches How Firms Bill
Project Operations handles proposals, phased budgets, time, subconsultants, and milestone billing; Business Central keeps the books; and the two stay in sync without re-keying. Power BI serves each audience its own view: project managers see their projects, studio leads see their teams, and principals see utilization, backlog, and margin across the firm.
Dynamics 365 Project Operations
Dynamics 365 Business Central
Power BI & Fabric AnalyticsIT for a Firm That Lives in Its Files
CAD and BIM files, submittals, and decades of project archives need storage that performs, backups that restore, and access that follows staff across offices and job sites. We run it fully managed, or co-managed alongside your internal IT staff, who keep admin access to everything we bring.
Co-managed IT
Microsoft 365
Azure InfrastructureProposals and Project Docs, Drafted Faster
Copilot, governed and deployed inside your tenant, drafts proposal sections, meeting minutes, and project correspondence from your own material. Workflow automation moves timesheets, expenses, and project documents between systems so project managers manage projects instead of paperwork.
Copilot & Azure Foundry
Power AutomateCustom AI & Workflow AutomationCleared for Federal and Defense Work
Firms pursuing federal and defense projects inherit cybersecurity requirements, and CMMC is becoming the gate. We build the controls on the Microsoft platform you already run and keep the evidence current, so pursuing that work is a business decision rather than an IT project.
CMMCSOC 2How an Engagement Comes Together
A fixed-fee solution design maps how proposals, projects, time, and the books should fit together for your firm, and what to migrate from the legacy job-cost system, before implementation is priced.
Project Operations and Business Central go live in phases, project templates match how your studios deliver, and reporting lands with row-level security so everyone sees exactly their slice.
The same team runs the platform and the IT underneath it, co-managed with your internal staff where you have them, with quarterly reviews that keep improving how the firm runs.
Principals stop discovering losses at closeout. The numbers that run the firm are live, trusted, and the same ones the books close on.
Implementation Options
Three ways to start, depending on how much certainty you want before you commit. Estimates and rates are quoted in your proposal.
T&M Implementation
- The full implementation on time and materials, billed to actual hours as consumed
- A written estimate up front, revisited at every phase gate
- Design and build run in parallel: the blueprint evolves while early phases are already being delivered
- Scope stays flexible, with changes approved through a written change order
- Simpler footprints with a clear picture of their requirements
- Teams comfortable steering scope as the work unfolds
Fixed-Fee Discovery & Design
- The first phase of a full implementation, run as a standalone engagement with its own deliverables (we call it Phase 0)
- Current state documented, future state designed, and the implementation blueprint delivered
- A fixed-fee implementation proposal, priced against confirmed scope
- Deliverables are platform-agnostic, not tied to Microsoft or to us, and detailed enough for any qualified partner to quote a fixed fee
- The fee is credited in full toward the implementation if you proceed with us within three months
- Complex or unclear scope, where guessing is expensive
- Boards and leadership teams that prefer the certainty of a detailed roadmap and fixed-fee scope before implementation kicks off
Fixed-Fee Implementation
- Follows a completed Discovery & Design engagement
- The implementation at a fixed price, quoted against the scope confirmed in discovery and design
- Milestone billing tied to deliverables you can verify
- Change orders only when the scope itself changes
- Budget certainty required before kickoff
- Regulated or board-governed purchases
Support & Training Options
However the engagement starts, ongoing support takes one of three shapes. The same structure applies across every service line on this page; rates and specifics live in your proposal.
T&M support & training
- A named bench for the systems we build and run, billed hourly as consumed
- Training sessions and documentation, scheduled as you need them
- No monthly commitment
- Teams with internal owners who need expert hands occasionally
- A first engagement, before committing to a program
Flat-fee service-line support
- Reduced professional services rates for your implementation
- Unlimited application support and training for the platforms we implement
- A predictable monthly fee on a rolling commitment
- Proactive improvements, not just break-fix
- Teams that want predictable cost and continuous improvement
- Businesses where the platform is now how the work gets done
Fully managed IT & applications
Everything in flat-fee service-line support, plus the IT operation underneath:
- Our lowest professional services rates for your implementation, as part of a holistic ongoing engagement
- Helpdesk, patching, backups, and vendor management, run by the same team
- Security monitoring, threat response, and email security
- An SLA on system-blocking issues
- Companies without internal IT
- Teams tired of application and IT vendors pointing at each other
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Dynamics 365 Project Operations?
Project Operations is Microsoft's system for businesses that sell projects. Quoting, staffing, time tracking, and billing live in one flow, so a project's real margin is visible while you can still do something about it.
How is this different from our project spreadsheets and PM tools?
Most project businesses run a quoting spreadsheet, a project tool, a timesheet app, and an invoicing system that never quite agree. Project Operations replaces the handoffs between them, which is exactly where hours go unbilled and margin leaks.
We already have an IT person. What happens to them?
They stay in charge. Co-managed IT is built around your internal lead: they remain first line for their own team, we take the escalations, they get admin access to every tool we bring, and someone senior covers them when they take a vacation. Several of our co-managed clients came to us specifically because their one IT person was at a breaking point.
What does an implementation cost, and when do we find out?
Early, on purpose. After discovery we put a ballpark scope and budget in front of you, with no signature expected, so both sides know the shape of the project early. After design, pricing becomes a fixed scope. We present two structures side by side, a straight hourly project and the same scope amortized monthly with support included, so you can show leadership the difference and defend the choice.
Do you require long-term contracts?
No. Our standard commitment is a rolling 90 days, so we earn your business every quarter. Everything we build lives in your own Microsoft tenant with nothing proprietary in the way, which keeps that promise real: you could hand the keys to any provider tomorrow.
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