Cross-practice share per client for consulting and advisory firms

A consulting firm's growth committee meets quarterly to talk about cross-practice selling, and usually has no numbers beyond an anecdote. The practice management system has all of them: which clients buy which practices, from which partners, for how much. This guide sets out how to compute cross-practice share per client, the partner concentration alongside it, and the reconciliation that lets the committee trust both.

The measures

Per client:

Cross-practice share = practices bought ÷ practices in the norm for the client's sector and size Gap value = Σ (missing practices × the firm's average fees per practice for that band)

Per partner:

Concentration = fees from the top three clients ÷ total fees Cross-practice opportunity = Σ gap value across the partner's clients

The rows you need

• Billed fees: one row per client, practice, partner and period. From Elite, Aderant, CCH, or a spreadsheet export from the practice management system.
• Client master: sector and size band. Often in the same system; otherwise a list business development keeps.
• Practice list: the practices as the firm bills them.

Client identifiers only. Partners see their own book.

Defining the norm

1. Band clients by sector and size.
2. For each band, count clients buying each practice in the trailing two years.
3. The norm is every practice bought by more than half the band.

A client below the norm has a gap in the practices it does not buy. The value is the firm's average fees per practice for the band, which the finance team can confirm from the same export.

The roll-up

1. Client by practice: fees, bought flag.
2. Client: practices bought, gap, valued.
3. Partner: fees, gap total, concentration. Assert that client fees sum to the partner's book.
4. Practice and firm: assert that partners sum to the firm, practices sum to the firm, and the firm equals billed fees for the period.

billed fees = Σ partners = Σ clients = Σ practices

The by-practice equality catches a practice renamed after a merger. The by-partner equality catches a client shared between partners without an agreed lead.

A worked example

Financial services band, norm of four practices. One client, one partner.

Two of four, $530k of valued gap, the larger half in technology, which the firm's technology practice head can now see as a named client without seeing the partner's full book. The partner's concentration: 62 percent of fees from three clients, of which this is one. That is a second conversation, and the same export started both.

Where it goes wrong

Matters coded to the wrong practice. A technology engagement billed under strategy because the strategy partner opened it makes the client look under-penetrated in technology. The fix is the practice on the matter, not the partner who sold it.

Group clients. A client's subsidiaries appear as separate clients with partial practice sets. Roll up to the group the firm manages the relationship at.

Shared clients without a lead. Two partners billing the same client makes the client appear twice in the partner roll-up. Name the relationship lead and keep the other partner as a contributor.

Norms from too few clients. A band with four clients has no norm. Merge bands until each has enough clients for the median to mean something, and say what the threshold is.

Each quarter, before the committee

Mapped once, the billed fees export produces the same roll-up each quarter: the gap list per partner, concentration per partner, and the reconciliation to billed fees. The committee opens with a list rather than an anecdote. Covirage builds this from the export as it is, with client identifiers only. The consulting and advisory page describes the setup.