Can You See Your Profitability?
In this article:
Q: What is client profitability reporting?
A: It’s the ability to see your true profit per client, not just billings or revenue, by factoring in costs like staff time, overheads, and operational expenses. It helps agencies move beyond gut feel to track performance and make smarter decisions.
Q: Why does it matter for agencies?
A: Because high billings don’t always mean high profit. Profitability reporting shows you where your agency is earning real margin, and where time, effort or scope creep may be eroding returns.
Q: How does Pegasus help?
A: Pegasus brings general ledger and client data for billing, revenue and expense together in one system, so you can build customised reports that reflect net profit by entity, client, product, group or account lead, without needing spreadsheets or workarounds.
Why Every Agency Needs Client-Level Insight
What if your biggest client wasn’t your most profitable?
What if your finance software showed a strong bottom line, but missed the story behind it?
That’s the problem with operational-only reporting tools: they stop at the P&L. Pegasus goes further.
Why Client Profitability Reporting Matters
For growing agencies, revenue is only part of the story. True success lies in knowing where your profit comes from and where it doesn’t.
Margins vary wildly between clients. Scope creep builds quietly. Clients get over-serviced, and high-billing accounts can still bleed profit. Without clear visibility, decisions are based on intuition or legacy loyalty.
As Natasha Grondin, Pegasus Systems' Professional Services Manager, explained in our profitability-focused webinar,
“Profitability supports the freedom to pursue work that builds both your reputation and your business.”
Pegasus turns guesswork into strategy, showing which clients actually contribute to the bottom line and which ones are dragging you down.
Excerpt from our recent webinar showcasing client profitability
From Spreadsheets to Real-Time Visibility
Agencies often cobble together spreadsheets or multiple reports to figure out profitability, and even then, it's a best guess.
Pegasus replaces all that with live, always-on profitability reporting, tied directly to your general ledger. The overhead expense allocation is only completed at month-end, so a net profit statement is only going to be true at month-end once all the costs are finalised.
This isn’t about saving time (though it does that too). It’s about empowering your agency to make faster, better, and more confident business decisions.
As Natasha said:
“You don’t need 12 different reports to answer one question. It’s all in one place.”
Excel and PDF extracts showing client-level net profit broken down by agency branch, with a consolidated total across all entities – a clear view of revenue, expenses, and margin performance.
Profitability Reporting That Works Like You Do
Pegasus lets you see profitability:
By entity, branch, or client
By client group (e.g. strategic partnership), client type (e.g. market segment), or account director (e.g. client service lead)
With actual billings, revenue, staff cost, overheads and net profit all drill-down ready
In clean, customisable reports, exportable to Excel or PDF
And the magic? It reconciles directly to your P&L. Finance and operations see the same story, just told through a different lens: the client lens.
“One tells the agency story. The other tells the client story,” Natasha explained. “When those don’t align, that’s where the real questions start.”
Snapshot: What Client Profitability Looks Like
Picture this: a report showing your top clients by margin, not just revenue. Another breaking down profitability by account lead or region. One more mapping client profitability over time, exposing scope creep or underpricing.
You can track:
Net profit by client or product
Overheads, fully allocated
Costs spent vs costs charged
Trends across months or quarters
It’s your profitability, from every angle, at your fingertips.
Pegasus Profitability Report Writer: client profit by industry and entity, with billings, revenue, and expenses split by staff, direct costs, and overhead.
This Isn’t Just a Finance Feature. It’s a Strategic Lens.
Just like Jenny Stilwell noted in From Founder to $2M+, scaling an agency means stepping out of the delivery weeds and into a CEO mindset.
Client profitability reporting is the lens that lets you do that.
It shows which accounts are scalable.
It justifies pricing changes and resourcing shifts.
It separates emotion from commercial reality.
It gives leaders clarity, not just vibes.
The Payoff: From Insight to Action
Knowing your client profitability isn’t just “nice to have.” It gives you:
Powerful positioning: Build pricing and proposals from real effort and return.
Sharper focus: Invest time in the clients that generate value.
Risk reduction: Spot overservicing, scope creep, and poor fit accounts early.
Data-led decisions: Move with clarity, not gut feel.
Ask Yourself: Can Your Software Do This?
Can you see your client profitability in real-time, from anywhere?
Or are you still stuck piecing it together with spreadsheets and guesstimates, hoping for the best?
“Are your numbers right?”
“But do you know your revenue today?”
“Are your profits actually reflected by your finance ERP?”
Outgrowing spreadsheets is just the start. To lead with confidence, you need a profitability engine built for agencies.
Client-Level Profitability, At Your Fingertips
Want to see Pegasus client profitability reporting in action? We’re here to help.
Whether you’re exploring it for the first time or ready to level up your usage, the Pegasus team can guide you through setup, reporting, and best practices.