The Profit First case for consulting firms.

Most consulting firms run profit by the leftover rule. Revenue comes in. Costs go out. Whatever is left at the end of the month is the profit. If anything is left.

Profit First inverts that. Allocate profit first. Twice a month. The rest of the firm has to live inside what remains. The discipline is uncomfortable. The result is firms that actually keep what they earn.

The four buckets.

Every dollar of income gets split four ways the moment it lands. Profit. Owner's Comp. Tax. OpEx. The percentages are called CAPs. They start at the firm's current reality and move quarterly toward the target percentages from the book. TAPs.

The owner runs the allocation twice a month, on the 10th and 25th. Type the Income balance. See four transfer amounts. Tick the transfers off as the bank does them. Confirm the run. Five minutes. Done.

Why twice a month.

Because the discipline only works if it is unmissable. Once a month is too easy to defer. Weekly is too frequent. Twice a month puts a rhythm into the firm that the owner cannot avoid.

Profit allocation becomes part of the operating cadence. Not an annual finance review. Not a quarterly board prep. A fortnightly habit.

What it does to the firm.

Three things shift, fast.

OpEx stops creeping. When OpEx is the leftover bucket, every cost decision starts with a different question. Not "can we afford this?" but "what gets cut to make room for this?" The answer changes.

Tax stops being a surprise. A bucket fills automatically. The quarterly BAS or US estimated tax payment comes from the bucket. No more scramble.

Profit accumulates. Quarterly distribution becomes a real event. The owner pays themselves what the firm earned. Not what was left over.

The Instant Assessment.

The chart that matters is CAPs versus Actual versus TAPs per bucket. CAPs is what you said you would allocate. Actual is what you actually allocated last 90 days. TAPs is what the book says you should be at when fully systematised.

The gap between Actual and TAPs is the discipline you have not yet built. The gap between CAPs and TAPs is the trajectory you are on. Both visible. Both refreshed live.

The objection we hear.

"We are too lumpy for fortnightly allocations."

Every firm thinks they are lumpy. Most are less lumpy than they think. The Sanity Check feature cross references your typed Income against paid invoices minus configured pass through expense categories. So consultancies with significant subcontractor pass through do not take Profit on money that was never theirs.

Lumpy is solved. What remains is the habit.

ConsultancyOS ships Profit First as a module. Founding cohort firms get it from day one. Apply here.