Built for Consulting Firm Account Managers

The CRM consulting firm account managers actually run their named book from.

Salesforce was built for the pursuit. Jira was built for delivery. The spreadsheet is where the engagement margin, cross-practice referral, and renewal clock really live. Strkr collapses the three into one record on every named account you own.

Start free trial See pricing
Why buyers are here

Consulting firms Account Managers: the daily pains.

An account manager at a management, strategy, or IT consulting firm is the one role expected to own the long-term economics of a named client across every engagement that firm has in flight. The pursuit team won the first project, the delivery partners are heads-down on scope, but the AM is the only person watching the second engagement scope conversation drift, the cross-practice referral window close, the margin bleed on an overrun, and the multi-year master services agreement renewal arrive. Running a 10-to-20 named account book from a Salesforce + Jira + spreadsheet stack is a daily exercise in flipping windows and reconciling three numbers that disagree. The six pains below are the ones every consulting firm AM recognizes in the first minute of a buyer call, and the ones every managing partner hears about in the Monday portfolio review when margin dips.

Multi-engagement scope sprawl

Three active engagements per account, zero shared view.

A single enterprise client might have a strategy workstream in flight, an IT implementation running in parallel, and a change-management advisory kicking off in the next quarter. Each engagement lives in its own Jira project, its own Smartsheet, its own partner deck, and the AM is the only person expected to hold the three in mind at once. Strkr tracks every active engagement against the parent account record with scope, burn, and status all on one page, so the AM walks into the Monday client call with the whole portfolio in view rather than three browser tabs and a mental reconciliation.

Expansion missed across practices

The client needs IT. Your IT practice never heard about it.

Cross-practice expansion is where consulting firms grow margin, but the signal usually surfaces in a status call tangent or an offhand comment in a strategy workshop, and the AM is the only person positioned to catch it. By the time the AM remembers to loop in the IT practice lead, a competitor has quoted the work and the warm referral window has closed. Strkr AI reads the account signal set, surfaces the cross-practice moment to the AM queue, and attaches a routing playbook so the referral lands on the right partner inside the week.

QBR prep across engagements

Every QBR is a Thursday of pulling status from four partners.

Pull the strategy deliverables from the strategy partner. Pull the IT burndown from the delivery lead. Pull the hours against budget from finance. Pull the roadmap from the firm practice director. Rebuild the client-facing deck. Multiply by fifteen named accounts a quarter and the half-day-each becomes a full two weeks every ninety days. Strkr pre-populates the QBR packet from the account record automatically with every active engagement rolled up, and the Thursday goes back to the strategic conversation the client is paying the firm to have.

Engagement margin invisible

You find out an engagement is unprofitable in month four.

The utilization data lives in the PSA tool, the realized rates live in finance, the engagement budget lives in the proposal, and the AM never sees the per-engagement margin number until a quarterly reporting cycle, when a scope reset or change order conversation is already too late. Strkr surfaces effective engagement margin on the account dashboard in real time, so the AM walks into the partner review with the number, the trend, and the specific scope item or staffing mix that drove the drift.

Multi-year renewals in Sheets

The master services agreement renewal lives in a tab in a Google Sheet.

Strategic consulting relationships run on multi-year master services agreements with staggered statement-of-work renewals, auto-renew clauses, rate card refreshes, and preferred-partner review windows. The renewal calendar is a spreadsheet one firm admin maintains, and the AM looks at it on Friday from memory. Renewals that should have been T-180 conversations become T-30 scrambles with no leverage. Strkr runs the renewal clock as a native pipeline against the account, with reminders at every strategic check-in interval, and a forecast rollup the managing partner reads at a glance.

Partner coordination on named accounts

Three partners touch the client. Nobody owns the account view.

On a named enterprise consulting account, the engagement partner, the practice partner, and the relationship partner all touch the client in a given quarter, and none of the three sees what the other two did. The AM is nominally the quarterback, but without a shared record every partner opens the account meeting with the same five catch-up questions. Strkr gives the account one timeline every partner reads from, so the first ten minutes of every client touch is spent on strategy rather than status.

What ships on day one

The consulting firm AM primitives Strkr ships out of the box.

Strkr for consulting firm account managers is not a separate product from Strkr for the pursuit motion. It is the same CRM with the post-sale, multi-engagement, long-cycle primitives built in. The account record the pursuit team won on becomes the named-account surface the AM runs the portfolio from. Projects, Flows, Marketing, and Strkr AI all operate against that one record, so the AM stops reconciling three tools and starts spending time on the client relationship that renews master services agreements. The primitives below are enabled on the standard plan with no premium module to buy.

Shared named account record

Pursuit and AM, one record.

The account the pursuit team closed is the account the AM runs. Same timeline, same contacts, same files, same notes. The AM sees the original proposal narrative, the deferred-scope asks, the champion role, the executive sponsor map, and the specific business case that won the engagement, so the first client meeting is a kickoff from known ground rather than a context rebuild from pursuit scrollback.

Engagement projects

Every statement of work as a real project.

Every active engagement lives as a native project on the parent account record with a scope narrative, a staffing plan, a running tally of hours against budget, a visible burn bar, and client-visible status the AM can share without a status email. Multiple engagements on one account roll up to a single portfolio view, so the AM sees the strategy workstream, the IT implementation, and the advisory engagement side by side on one page.

Cross-practice expansion signals

Strkr AI watches for the referral moment.

Strkr AI reads the account signal set, every meeting note, every email thread, every captured status update, and surfaces the "they mentioned a cloud migration need in the March workshop" moment to the AM queue. Each signal lands with a routing playbook attached that names the right practice partner, the right discovery questions, and the right introduction template, so cross-practice expansion becomes a weekly motion rather than a quarterly accident.

Multi-year renewal pipeline

The master services agreement clock in the CRM.

Every master services agreement and every statement of work carries a live renewal opportunity on its own pipeline, with stage, forecast category, close date, probability, and next step. The managing partner forecasts the renewal book the same way the pursuit lead forecasts new engagements, in the same tool, with the same rollup math. The Monday portfolio call becomes a focused review of the next two quarters, not an hour of spreadsheet reconciliation across three partners.

QBR flows across engagements

The deck data lands before the meeting.

Two weeks before a scheduled QBR, a flow builds the prep packet from every active engagement on the account: hours against budget, deliverables shipped, open blockers, cross-practice opportunities surfaced, renewal timeline on each statement of work, executive sponsor touch count. The AM opens one packet instead of pinging four partners, writes the narrative, and the Thursday that used to go to a gather goes to the strategic conversation.

Account-specific nurture

Marketing touches tied to the named account.

The Marketing module runs account-specific nurture against the named client: milestone emails at engagement close, thought-leadership drops that match the active practice areas, QBR invites at T-21 against the renewal date, executive-sponsor briefings at the right rhythm. The AM is named as the sender so every touch feels one-to-one on a scaled motion the AM did not have to write by hand.

The AM week, run by flows

What Strkr automates for a consulting firm account manager.

A consulting firm account manager running a 15-account named book spends most of the week on small, repeatable administrative moves: the Monday engagement burn check across every active statement of work, the T-180 renewal nudge on the master services agreement, the overrun flag when an engagement tips past 75 percent of budget, the QBR packet gather, the cross-practice referral prompt after a positive workshop, the expansion signal review from Strkr AI. Strkr Flows handles those moves as native triggers against the account record. The patterns below are the ones every consulting AM team ships inside the first two weeks of a Strkr deployment.

Engagement burn alerts

Overrun flagged in week three, not week ten.

A flow watches hours logged against each engagement budget. When a workstream crosses 60 percent of budget past the midpoint, the AM gets a task. When it crosses 85 percent, the AM and the engagement partner get a joint task with a scope reset playbook attached. The margin leak gets caught before the change order conversation, not after the engagement has already written off hours.

Renewal reminders

T-180, T-120, T-90, T-45, T-14.

Flows fire against the master services agreement and statement-of-work renewal dates at strategic check-in intervals. T-180 opens the renewal opportunity. T-120 queues the executive sponsor touch. T-90 schedules the renewal conversation and pulls the QBR packet. T-45 flags the deal to the managing partner for the forecast commit. T-14 escalates if the deal has not advanced to a late-stage status.

QBR prep

Multi-engagement roll-up before the meeting.

Two weeks before a scheduled QBR, Strkr builds the prep packet from every active engagement on the account record. The AM opens one surface instead of pinging four delivery partners, writes the strategic narrative over coffee, and the Thursday that used to go to a gather goes to the renewal conversation that keeps the firm on the preferred partner list.

Cross-practice referral

The warm introduction, routed to the right partner.

A flow fires a referral prompt task after an expansion signal lands, a positive QBR runs, a workshop closes with a specific business need surfaced, a net promoter response rolls in at the top of the scale. The AM makes the introduction on the warm moment with a prefilled template and the right practice partner tagged, so cross-practice expansion becomes a tracked motion the managing partner can forecast.

Expansion queue

Strkr AI surfaces the signal.

Strkr AI reads the account signal set and lands qualified expansion opportunities on the AM queue with the specific signal attached. A cloud migration mention in a strategy workshop, a vendor consolidation plan in a status call, an operating model redesign in a board readout, the AM sees them all with a next-step playbook ready to run and the right practice partner tagged.

Executive sponsor touch

The quarterly check-in the AM never forgets.

Every named account carries an executive sponsor touch cadence. A flow fires a task on the configured interval that pulls the latest engagement status, recent deliverables, and open strategic questions into a prefilled briefing note. The AM runs a tight exec touch every quarter without rebuilding the context from scratch, and the managing partner reads a log of every executive conversation on the account timeline.

What the managing partner sees

Coaching, forecasting, and margin at the portfolio level.

A managing partner or client services lead running a team of AMs needs three numbers every Monday: the renewal forecast across the named book for the next two quarters, the margin health across every live engagement, and the cross-practice expansion pipeline the AMs are actually working. Strkr surfaces all three on default saved views that ship with the AM lead role, so the partner stops rebuilding a weekly rollup across three systems and starts spending the hour on the coaching conversation that moves the forecast.

Renewal forecast

The named book, by stage and category.

Commit, best-case, pipeline, and omitted buckets by AM, by segment, by practice, by region. The partner forecasts the renewal book the same way a sales leader forecasts new business, with the same forecast categories and the same rollup math. Change the forecast category on a master services agreement and the rollup updates live across every stacked statement of work.

Engagement margin board

Red engagements, surfaced early.

A saved view of every active engagement where effective margin has dropped under the firm threshold in the last 30 days, with the specific hours-overrun, scope-creep, or staffing-mix reason attached. One click to assign a coaching task to the AM, one click to open the scope reset playbook. Margin problems that used to surprise the partner at engagement close show up on the Tuesday standup.

Expansion pipeline

The cross-practice book, inside the named book.

Cross-practice expansion opportunities tracked on the same pipeline shape as renewals, with stage, forecast category, close date, probability, routing partner, and next step. The managing partner rolls up expansion revenue into the quarterly commit alongside renewal revenue, so the growth number is one view instead of a weekly reconciliation across three practice leads.

Per-AM activity

Touch cadence by rep, by account tier.

Weekly, monthly, quarterly touch counts by AM, segmented by named-account tier, margin status, and days-to-renewal. AMs with a stale strategic account surface against the pattern, not against a hunch. The 1:1 becomes a conversation about the two named clients that need more attention this week, not a defensive status update.

Referral attribution

Which clients drive new engagements.

Every closed-won engagement, new or expansion, carries a referral source field that points back to the referring account or executive. The partner sees which clients, which AMs, and which practices generate the warmest pipeline, so the firm invests in the referral motions where it already works and the thought-leadership drops land where they already convert.

Save motion

Playbooks on the at-risk engagements.

When an engagement turns red on margin, overrun, or sponsor-silence signal, a save-motion playbook template attaches to the record: the executive sponsor touch, the scope reset conversation, the change order proposal, the escalation path to the managing partner. The AM runs the sequence, the partner sees the moves logged on the timeline, and the save rate compounds across the named book.

Head-to-head

Strkr for consulting firm AMs vs the typical stack.

Most 20-to-200 person management, strategy, and IT consulting firms run the account management function on a Salesforce + Jira + spreadsheet stack. Salesforce was built for the pursuit motion, Jira was built for the delivery team, and the spreadsheet is where the engagement margin, the cross-practice referral, and the renewal clock actually live. The stack costs more than the function it enables, the data lives in three places, and the AM runs the week by flipping windows across three partners. The comparison below is drawn against that common configuration we see on buyer calls at firms this size.

What matters Strkr Salesforce + Jira + spreadsheets
Shared named account record (pursuit + AM) One record, both roles Salesforce record stale post-close
Multi-engagement rollup Native portfolio view on the account Spreadsheet reconciled across partners
Master services agreement renewal pipeline Native pipeline, forecast rollup Spreadsheet maintained by firm admin
QBR prep across engagements Flow pre-populates the packet Manual gather across four partners
Cross-practice expansion detection Strkr AI surfaces and routes the moment AM memory, best effort
Account-specific nurture Native Marketing module HubSpot seat, generic list
Per-engagement margin visibility Live on the account dashboard Quarterly report from finance
Executive sponsor cadence Flow fires on configured rhythm Ad hoc, mostly forgotten
Engagement overrun flagging Burn alert at 60 and 85 percent Found at engagement close
Implementation time Days, no services engagement Multiple tools, multiple contracts

See the CRM consulting firm account managers were finally given.

Start a 14-day trial with the full consulting AM stack enabled: shared named account record, engagement projects with margin tracking, native renewal pipeline across every master services agreement, QBR flows, Strkr AI expansion signals routed to the right practice partner, account-specific nurture. One record, one workspace, one bill. Migrate from your Salesforce plus Jira plus spreadsheet stack inside a week.

See pricing See project management
Common questions

Consulting firms Account Managers buyer FAQ.

Why not just extend Salesforce for named account management after the engagement closes?

Because Salesforce was shaped for the pursuit motion that ends at contract signed, and the post-sale rhythm at a consulting firm is a different shape: a multi-engagement portfolio view, a master services agreement renewal clock on a multi-year cycle, QBR touchpoints across every active statement of work, expansion signals surfacing across practice areas, and a cross-practice referral motion that depends on the right partner reading the right signal at the right time. You can bolt custom objects on and some firms do, but the result is a Salesforce admin bill that rivals the Strkr subscription and an account view the AM still exports to a spreadsheet every Monday. Strkr treats the AM motion as a first-class surface with its own objects and its own pipeline, on the same record the pursuit team closed on, so the handoff seam disappears without a second tool.

How does Strkr compare to a dedicated professional services automation platform for a 50-person consulting firm?

The dedicated PSA platforms land in the enterprise band on price, implementation window, and ongoing admin headcount. For a 20-to-100 person consulting firm with four or five AMs across three practices, the implementation footprint rarely clears the business case, and the per-seat line is sized for the enterprise band. Strkr ships the AM primitives on the standard plan with no premium module to buy, and the implementation lands in days rather than a full quarter. For firms that outgrow Strkr later and need deeper resource planning or financial consolidation, the data model exports cleanly so a later migration stays viable without lock-in.

Can Strkr track engagement hours and margin without replacing our PSA tool?

Yes. Strkr accepts time entries and realized-rate data from the common consulting PSA tools via webhook, and the hours land on the account record as rows against the current engagement budget. The burn bar on each engagement updates live, the overrun alerts fire at the configured thresholds, and the margin dashboard reflects the real tally. The AM never has to log hours in a second place, and the managing partner reads the full named book in one rollup without reconciling the PSA against the forecast spreadsheet every Monday.

What does Strkr AI actually do for a consulting firm AM?

Strkr AI reads the account signal set, every meeting note, every email thread, every captured workshop readout on the record, and surfaces three things to the AM queue. The cross-practice moment: "they mentioned a cloud migration need in the March strategy workshop, route to the IT practice." The engagement risk: "the executive sponsor has not responded to three touches on the roadmap deliverable." The referral opportunity: "net promoter response landed at 9, no reference ask on file." Each surfaced moment lands with a routing playbook attached, and every suggestion is reviewed and approved by the AM before it reaches the client or the partner. The admin surface lets the managing partner tune the thresholds per practice.

How does Strkr Projects compare to Jira or Smartsheet for consulting engagement delivery?

Jira and Smartsheet are strong tools for the delivery team, but they live outside the client record, so the AM reconciles engagement state against the master services agreement renewal and the overall account relationship in a spreadsheet. Strkr Projects runs every active engagement as a project directly on the parent named-account record, with the scope narrative, the hours-against-budget tally, the deliverable milestones, and the client-visible status surface all on the same page the AM already lives on. The managing partner reads a one-screen portfolio rollup across every active engagement without a status Slack thread or a parallel sheet, and the delivery leads can keep running Jira or Smartsheet for day-to-day task management if they prefer.

What is the migration path from Salesforce plus Jira plus spreadsheets?

The standard consulting firm migration is a one-week exercise. Export the named account records from Salesforce, the active engagement projects from Jira, and the renewal calendar from the ops spreadsheet, import all three into Strkr through the admin surface, map the custom fields on the first pass, and open the renewal pipeline against the master services agreement dates. The AM onboarding is a short walkthrough because the account record is the only surface to learn. For firms that want the hand-off done for them, a Strkr implementation partner handles the full migration inside two weeks, including custom field mapping, flow setup, QBR template configuration, and per-practice expansion signal thresholds.

Also considering

Related combinations.

For Agency Account Managers For SaaS Customer Success For SaaS Account Executives For SaaS Sales Managers For SaaS RevOps For B2B Startup Sales Leaders

Try it free. Bring your team next week.

No sales call, no migration consultant, no four-month implementation. Enter your card, get 14 days of the full Pro tier, cancel any time before day 14 with zero charge. Spin up a workspace, import your CSV, and have something useful before lunch.

Start free trial See pricing