Free tools for consulting firms
Quick calculators on utilization, bench cost and margins, used by hundreds of consulting firms to make real-time decisions.
Utilization rate calculator
Drop in your team's monthly averages. See real utilization, billable revenue, and bench cost.
Free ready-to-use templates
Start with ordered columns for a searchable candidate archive you can use in a spreadsheet.
Download the free CSV templateKeep client, contact, request, value, stage and next commercial action together.
Download the free CSV templateCollect time by person, client and project while retaining submission and approval status.
Download the free CSV templateRecord each expense with its document, reason, project and accountable approver.
Download the free CSV templateCompare capacity, skills, client demand and future allocations without losing critical constraints.
Download the free CSV templateHow to read the number the calculator gives you
A utilization figure means nothing without its denominator, and that is where most disagreements start. Whether holiday, training and internal work reduce the available hours changes the result by ten points or more, so the first thing to settle is not the target but the definition — written once and applied the same way every period.
The realistic bands also differ by role. Delivery consultants sit higher than managers and partners, who spend real time selling and running people; comparing the two on a single number produces an argument rather than a decision. And one month says very little: the pattern across a quarter is what indicates whether the pipeline or the staffing is the problem.
- Settle the denominator before arguing about the target
- Different bands for delivery, management and partners
- Read a quarter, not a month
- The same definition every period, or the trend is meaningless
From the calculation to a decision
A low utilization number is almost never an effort problem, and treating it as one damages the team without moving the figure. It is usually one of three things: not enough sold work, work sold for skills the bench does not have, or people held on projects that no longer need them.
Each has a different response and a different owner. The first belongs to whoever runs the pipeline, the second to whoever plans capacity and hiring, the third to the project owners. Working out which of the three applies takes twenty minutes with the assignment data, and it is the step most firms skip.
- Separate the three causes before acting on the number
- Bench cost per week makes the decision concrete
- Assignments ending in the next six weeks, listed
- An owner and a date on every action, not just an alert