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The retainer did not die in a meeting. It died as a proposal with no next case.

Northbridge Advisory is a six-person accounting and ops practice. Their abandoned cart is an Engagement still Proposed while a Case about “waiting on you” burns SLA. Clients are companies on the person; work is retainers and cases, not a salesboard costume.

Illustrated walkthrough of the pack — not a named customer case study.

Firm
Northbridge Advisory
Accounting & ops retainers, illustrated walkthrough
Where
Edinburgh old town, mostly remote delivery
Six practitioners, ~40 active retainers
A laptop and notebook on a meeting table

Case board · SLA today

  • NB-1044High

    VAT packing — Finch Logistics

    Due today

  • NB-1031Normal

    Payroll query

    2 days

  • NB-1022Normal

    Onboarding checklist

    Waiting on you

“If kickoff and waiting-on-you are rewritten every time, we look like we have no practice — only inboxes.”

Tom Hale, Account manager

Monday 09:25. A Priority-tier client’s VAT case is due today. A Discovery-stage founder has not opened the proposal PDF sent last Wednesday. Both are in the same inbox, different objects.

Records on the person

Client Journey — New enquiry → Discovery → Proposal → Engaged → Retainer (or Declined)

  • Engagement

    Q2 ops retainer · Type Retainer · Status Proposed

  • Case

    NB-1044 · VAT packing · Priority High · due today

  • Case comment

    Internal: waiting on client CSV

  • Client fields

    Company / account, support tier Priority, preferred channel Email

Role the pack adds: Account manager

The thread

AI answers what the pack knows. A human takes the same conversation when it needs judgement.

Helen Cho, Finch Logistics

Email · same thread

We still cannot find the CSV for NB-1044. Can you send the waiting-on-you note again?

AI

Case NB-1044 is High, due today. I can resend the file checklist. A person will take this if the SLA is at risk.

Human

Tom — checklist attached. When the CSV lands, we close the case the same day. Separate thread: the Q2 retainer proposal is still Proposed if you want to talk scope.

That day

  1. 09:25

    SLA before business development

    Urgent cases sort above Proposed engagements. Support tier Priority is on the client so the board is not first-come.

  2. 11:00

    Kickoff is a template

    When an Engagement flips Active, kickoff goes out on their preferred channel. Nobody writes a new essay.

  3. 15:40

    Proposal ageing

    Eleven days in Proposal, no case opened. That is the stall: work never started, revenue never retained.

  4. 17:10

    Waiting-on-you, then silence

    If they still have not sent the CSV, the journey assigns Tom and pauses extra nudges once he is in HUMAN.

AI, journeys, campaigns

AI chatbot

Practice desk

Meeting slots, which documents a case is waiting on, office hours. It does not give tax advice.

“What are you waiting on for NB-1044?” → the checklist, then a human if they argue scope.

Journeys

  • Proposal unopened

    Stage Proposal ≥ 5 days, engagement still Proposed

    One email. Then account-manager task. No weekly spray.

  • Case SLA today

    Case due date is today and still open

    Waiting-on-you template on preferred channel.

  • Retainer kickoff

    Engagement status becomes Active

    Kickoff template + first case if onboarding is the area.

Campaigns & newsletters

  • Year-end packing slots

    Email newsletter

    Support tier Standard, last engagement Completed

  • Declined last quarter

    Email

    Pipeline Declined, account still in the book

  • Priority QBR

    WhatsApp

    Tier Priority, engagement Active, no Review analogue — a case type Request

Unsigned proposal — the practice’s abandoned cart

What they almost lost

Discovery went well. Engagement is Proposed. No Case has been opened because there is no yes. That PDF is the cart they walked away from.

A single ageing journey, then a human with a smaller first case (implementation vs retainer) so they can start without a twelve-month yes.

Win-back · then scale

Lost customers, then mid-market

Declined proposals, and Completed projects that never rolled into a retainer

Newsletter is a calendar of filing windows, not a thought-leadership dump. Win-back is “your year-end slot”, named. As headcount grows, they watch Proposed ageing and SLA breach rate — the metrics a mid-market practice actually manages.

A six-person firm stops losing yeses in email. A twenty-person firm uses the same cases and retainers to see which partners stall in Proposal.

Small now: Two partners, cases in email, proposals in Drive.

Next: Account managers, SLA board, kickoff templates — still one client thread.

A small team talking in an office
Colleagues collaborating around a table

The pack adds Engagement, Case, Case comment, client fields and kickoff/waiting-on-you templates. It is not practice-management billing or a tax engine.

Other industries — different days

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