Field Notes
Essays from inside a 120-person digital agency on Jira — written by Ernest. Project margin, estimating, the architecture of profitability, and the small decisions that compound. No content marketing.
How role-rate variance silently erodes agency margin when senior staff absorb work below their cost line. Worked tables of role rate × employee cost across four common scenarios, with the conditional logic that should drive who works on what.
A definitional piece for finance directors and agency owners. Project margin is not invoice value minus labour cost. It is the share of project revenue left after labour at real cost, allocated overhead, and any unbilled scope. Worked example, common mistakes, and the formula that survives audit.
Marketplace financial plugins do cost rates, billing rates and project budgets. They do not do pre-sold contract tracking, overhead allocation, three project types, role-mismatch attribution or a manager view. Each missing category maps to a specific recurring margin leak.