Capacity planning for consultancies
Plan project budgets in person-days (PDs) and allocate them to your team. For every week you see who is already fully booked, where capacity is still free and whether your projects are running to budget.
Capacity planning features in QUANTICAL.ERP
- 1.
See weekly utilisation per employee
The capacity overview shows for every employee how many person-days per week are available, already planned or still free. You see at once who can take on more work and where overplanning is building up.
- 2.
Plan project budgets in person-days
Project budgets are allocated directly to employees. You enter the period and the planned person-days per week. Based on the applicable hourly rate, QUANTICAL.ERP calculates automatically which part of the budget is already planned and how much is still available.
- 3.
Leave and other absences handled automatically
Leave, public holidays and sick notes flow into the capacity planning automatically. If an employee is on leave for two days, their available capacity for that week is reduced accordingly.
- 4.
Book time straight from the plan
Planning is connected to time tracking. Employees see which hours are planned for them on an engagement and can take their planned hours straight into the week. All that remains is adding a description of the work done.
- 5.
Compare plan and actual in controlling
Project controlling shows how planning and actual bookings differ. Planned and booked hours, and the revenue and margins that result from them, can be compared per project and period.
What capacity planning has to deliver in a consultancy
In a consultancy it is not enough to know how many hours an employee has already worked. The real question comes earlier: how many days are planned on which engagement, and does the employee still have free capacity beside it?
In many consultancies this planning still lives in Excel. Project budgets sit next to staff lists and weekly plans. As soon as leave moves, a new engagement starts or the project scope changes, the plan has to be adjusted by hand.
QUANTICAL.ERP therefore connects project budget, capacity planning and time tracking. For every project you define which employees are planned in which period and with how many person-days per week. The planned utilisation of the team follows from that automatically.
The actual time bookings then run against the same plan. You see not only how employees and projects were planned, but also what was actually booked in the end.
Plan project budget and employee utilisation in one system
A project in QUANTICAL.ERP starts with its budget. That budget is then allocated to the employees who are going to work on the project.
For every employee you define the period they are planned for and how many person-days per week are intended for the project. Using the stored hourly rate, QUANTICAL.ERP calculates at the same time what share of the project budget this planning already commits.
The plan thus answers two questions at once: how heavily is the employee booked in a given week? And how much of the project budget is already planned?
When the plan changes, both values update immediately.
How capacity planning works in QUANTICAL.ERP
- 1.
Create the project budget
For a project you create one or more budgets with duration and amount. That fixes the financial frame available for the project.
- 2.
Plan employees onto the project
Next you assign the intended employees to the budget. Per employee you enter the period and the planned person-days per week. The applicable hourly rate is taken into account automatically, so you already see during planning which share of the budget an employee is likely to consume.
- 3.
Check employee utilisation
The capacity overview shows the plan across all projects. For every week you see an employee's available capacity, the person-days already planned and the time still free. Overbookings and free capacity show up before the week begins.
- 4.
Book hours to plan
Employees see their own plan directly in time tracking. The planned hours can be taken over for the week. Instead of creating every booking from scratch, they only describe the work actually done and adjust any deviations.
- 5.
Run the plan vs. actual comparison
After booking, planned and actual hours sit side by side in controlling. Per project you can trace whether the planned effort was kept and how deviations affected revenue and margin.
Capacity planning in person-days per week
QUANTICAL.ERP deliberately plans capacity in person-days per week. That is the level many consultancies already know from proposals and project calculations. An employee can, for example, be planned for three person-days per week on project A and two person-days on project B.
Leave, public holidays and other absences reduce the available capacity automatically.
QUANTICAL.ERP is therefore not a classic workforce scheduling tool for shift operations. There are no shift models, no skill-based scheduling and no complex planning scenarios.
The focus is on the question that matters for consultancies and other project-based service providers: how do we distribute our available time across our projects?
Example of a capacity plan
A consulting project comprises 60 person-days over twelve weeks. Two consultants are each to work 2.5 person-days per week on the project.
The project budget is allocated to both employees accordingly. The capacity overview, however, shows at once that one of the consultants is already planned for four person-days on another engagement in one of the coming weeks.
The plan can be adjusted before that week begins, for example by moving part of the planned work one week back or assigning it to another employee.
After the project closes, the plan vs. actual comparison shows how many person-days were actually booked and how the deviation affected revenue and margin.
Frequently asked questions about capacity planning
How do I see which employee still has capacity next week?
The capacity overview shows for every employee the available, already planned and still free capacity per week. Leave, public holidays and other recorded absences are already taken into account.
How do I plan a project budget in person-days?
You first create the project budget and then allocate it to the intended employees. For every employee you enter the period and the person-days per week. Using the applicable hourly rate, QUANTICAL.ERP calculates the resulting budget consumption automatically.
How is employee utilisation calculated?
An employee's planned person-days are set against their available capacity. If an employee works five days a week and is planned for four person-days on projects, their planned utilisation is 80 percent. Absences reduce the available capacity accordingly.
What happens with leave, public holidays or sickness?
These absences are taken into account in the weekly capacity automatically. An employee who has one day of leave, for example, has correspondingly less plannable capacity in that week.
Do employees still have to track their working time?
Yes, but planning makes booking much easier. Employees can take the planned hours from their plan and then only add the description of the work or adjust deviations.
How does the plan vs. actual comparison of a project work?
In controlling the planned values are set against the actual time bookings. Per project and period you see deviations in hours, revenue and margin.
Is QUANTICAL.ERP a resource planning software?
QUANTICAL.ERP includes resource and capacity planning built for consultancies and other project-based service providers. Planning is done in person-days per week on the basis of the project budgets. The focus is not shift scheduling or skill matching, but the link between project budget, employee utilisation, time tracking and project controlling.
Can I plan individual hours per day?
The capacity planning itself is done in person-days per week. The resulting hours are then distributed across the individual working days in time tracking.
Capacity planning without separate Excel lists
Plan project budgets, see employee utilisation and then book straight against the plan - in one system.