Fixed fee. Internal budget.
A fixed-fee project carries the hours you sized it with. The client sees the fee. You see the hours, and the one that crosses them waits.
Industries · IT consulting firms
Time and materials. With a ceiling that holds.
A monthly cap of 120 hours across four engineers, two of them contractors. Ceed keeps the count and holds the hour that would cross it.
For consultancies of two to fifty people, from the first client with a cap.
Saltgrass Insurance · July · 120 h capHeld
122.0 of 120 h
Tue 28 Jul · 4.0 h · NetSuite to Salesforce integration, invoice-sync errors · Aisha K.
Held for approval. 2.0 h over the cap.
ApproveDecline
$23,400
the monthly cap
120 h
the hours behind it
$195
the hour past it, with a written yes
$23.40
Ceed, this month
An autopsy at month end. Or a decision at the hour.
Timesheets are filled in late and the burn is reconstructed at the month-end review, after the cap was crossed in silence. The choice left is a write-off or a change order the client did not see coming.
Ceed counts every entry against the cap the day it is logged, contractors included. The hour that would cross 120 waits for the engagement lead, and the client’s written yes is on the record before the hour is billed.
“By the time anyone fills in a timesheet the information is useless for decision making. It’s an autopsy, not a diagnosis.”
u/gannu1991, r/consulting, March 2026.
Held. Not hidden.
The hour that would push a client over budget is saved, marked, and waits for a yes or no. Nothing is billed quietly. Nothing disappears.
- Logged
4.0 h · Saltgrass Insurance · Integration
- Held
Over the 120-hour cap. Waiting for Tom.
- Approved
2.0 h inside the cap. 2.0 h at $195 with the client’s email on the record.
One set of hours. Everything follows.
Contractors on the same record. Same cap.
A 1099 engineer’s hours count against the same cap. Their statement is computed from the entries your invoice used, at their rate.
Beside your project tool. Not instead of it.
Jira, your ticketing and your ledger stay where they are. Ceed is the record of hours and money they work from.
Invoice · Saltgrass Insurance · July 2026Computed
Integration services, monthly cap · 120 h at $195.00$23,400.00
Approved hours past the cap · 2.0 h at $195.00$390.00
Total$23,790.00
Computed from the statement of work dated 2 Mar 2026. Aisha’s statement: 38.0 h at $110.00, from the same entries.
From the field. In their words.
What consultancy owners say in public about caps, late timesheets and eating the hours. Linked and dated. Not our words.
Said on X.
You fundamentally cannot go over on a not to exceed unless you amend it. So even if someone went over by 60% you wouldn’t be on the hook for paying for it unless they sign a change order.
As a consultant, companies give me a weekly bucket of hours. My job? Add value as I see fit.
Each week, I must prove my worth: 1. Find problems worth solving 2. Fix them
You ever quote a project thinking it’ll take a month, and four months later you’re giving discounts just to end the nightmare?
… Clients love fixed prices ’cause they know the cap, but if you underestimate (and you will, every time as a noob), you’re eating hours for free.
Said on YouTube.
Said elsewhere.
- YouTubeThe State of the Services Economy and 2026 OutlookSPI Research · 2025 · 26 min · the benchmark owner on billable hours and margin
- RedditHow do you catch budget overruns before they kill your margin?r/consulting · March 2026 · late timesheets, burn checkpoints and change orders
- RedditBillable percent targets: are you all really working 80 to 100 percent on client work?r/consulting · May 2026 · boutique targets against what the timesheet says
- RedditSubcontracting for MSPsr/msp · March 2026 · what a 1099 infrastructure consultant is paid from the hour
- ArticleProfessional Services Maturity Benchmark 2026, summarizedRocketlane on SPI Research · March 2026 · project overrun, margin and on-time delivery across 509 firms
Of what you invoice. That is the pricing page.
Invoice $23,400 this month for Saltgrass Insurance and Ceed costs $23.40. A month you invoice nothing costs nothing. No seats, no tiers, no minimum.
Questions. Answers.
Does Ceed replace Harvest, BigTime or our PSA?
Ceed is the record of hours and money: the cap, the hold, the invoice computed from the agreement, the contractor statement, the close. If a timer is where your hours live today, Ceed is where they live against a budget. Where Ceed stands beside the field is on the compare page.
The cap is 120 hours across four engineers, two of them 1099. Who is held first?
The entry that crosses, whoever logs it. Everyone on the engagement logs to the same cap, and the contractor sees that their entry is held the moment it is.
We are fixed fee. Can the budget be hours nobody bills?
Yes. The client sees the fee. The hours behind it are the budget you sized it with, and only you and whoever you name see them.
Is a held hour on a cap unbilled, or billed pending the client’s written yes?
Held. It is on the record and on nobody’s invoice until someone you name approves it. Approved, it goes on the invoice at the rate the agreement names. Declined, it stays on the record, unbilled.
A late timesheet arrives on the third, after the close. Where does it go?
The closed month does not change. The late hour goes on the record in the open month, with who logged it and when.
From the blog: Held. Not hidden. The agreement said 40 hours. The month said 47. Other firms Ceed is for: IT MSPs · Software dev shops · Data and AI consultancies · all nineteen.