Kurrent Accounting

Accounting for marketing, creative and digital agencies

Your agency can get busier without getting more profitable.

Revenue can grow. The team can be flat out. Retainers can look stable. And yet the amount of profit left at the end of the month can keep moving in the wrong direction.

Kurrent handles the accounting underneath the business, then helps you understand what is happening to the economics of delivery—payroll, contractors, margins, client concentration and, where the data supports it, client and project profitability.

Retainer economics · six monthsSame fee. More delivery. Less left.
Monthly retainer$15,000unchanged
EarlierNow
Delivery hours6590
Contractors$1,200$2,400
ContributionStrongerLower

The invoice stayed still. The work underneath it did not.

Illustrative example only
Based in
Melbourne, Victoria
Registered
Tax Agent 26372176
Working with
Service businesses across Australia

Where profit gets harder to see

The commercial pressure often sits underneath the invoice.

These are not generic accounting problems. They come from how the work is sold, delivered and paid for.

The number at the top of the P&L does not always tell the story

Media spend, production costs, contractors and other pass-through costs can make billings look large while telling you very little about what the team is actually earning from the work.

Employee wages may sit in operating expenses. Contractor costs may sit somewhere else. Project software may be spread across several accounts. A retainer may be billed at the same amount every month even though the workload has changed materially.

Revenue is up. Everyone is busy. Why is there not more profit?

A retainer can stay the same while its economics quietly change

Nothing about the invoice tells you the relationship has become less attractive. The client is still paying and the account team may feel successful because the client is asking for more.

If the work required to service the retainer keeps increasing without the commercial arrangement changing, margin can deteriorate while revenue appears perfectly stable.

How much does this client pay us? and How profitable is this client? are different questions.

Gross margin can be the wrong margin to manage

If the accounting setup places a large share of delivery labour below gross profit, the gross-margin line may look excellent while the actual economics of servicing clients are much tighter.

Kurrent does not force every agency into one reporting template. The accounting setup and management view should reflect the way the agency actually sells and delivers work.

After the people, contractors and direct costs required to deliver the work, how much contribution is actually left?

What the numbers should reveal

Three views show whether agency growth is actually working.

The goal is not a larger dashboard. It is knowing where margin is being created, where it is leaking and what the business can safely do next.

Is delivery producing margin?

  • Agency income
  • Payroll and contractor costs
  • Operating margin

Which clients are helping or hurting?

  • Client concentration
  • Client and project profitability
  • Unbilled work

Can the agency absorb the next move?

  • Overdue receivables
  • Cash versus upcoming obligations
  • Impact of a hire or major client loss

Our services

Find the right level of support.

Start with dependable accounting. Add monthly interpretation or forward-looking analysis when the decisions become more complex.

Accounting Managed Finance Planning & Performance

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Common founder questions

The questions behind the numbers.

Clear answers, including where reliable operational data is needed.
Why did profit fall when revenue increased?

We work through the financial drivers—including payroll, contractors, delivery costs, overheads and changes in margin—rather than stopping at the movement itself.

Which clients are actually good clients financially?

At the deeper service level, client profitability can be analysed where reliable operational and accounting data supports it.

Can we afford another account manager or strategist?

Managed Finance can assess the current position. Planning & Performance can model the effect of the hire on profit and cash under forward-looking assumptions.

What happens if our largest client leaves?

Planning & Performance can model client-loss scenarios and the effect on cash, profit and the team cost base.

Do I need an accountant who specialises in agencies?

Not every agency needs a highly specialised finance team. But once payroll, contractors, retainers, project work and different client economics become meaningful, the financial review should reflect how agencies actually operate rather than treating the business like a generic SME.

Can Xero tell me which clients are profitable?

Sometimes partially, depending on how the file is configured. True client profitability can also require delivery time, project data, contractor allocation or other direct delivery costs. Kurrent may use reliable operational data alongside Xero where deeper analysis is required.

20-minute Kurrent fit call

The books should tell you more than whether the agency made money last year.

If the business is growing but it is getting harder to understand what is driving profit, payroll and cash, Kurrent can help build a clearer financial view around the way your agency actually operates.
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