In practice
Retainers, profitability & capacity
Retainers are first-class objects on a company: period, value, included hours, rollover, and overage policy, with live usage across linked projects. Convert a client request into a tracked Kanban card in one step so time rolls into the project and retainer automatically. Profitability folds billed revenue, staff cost rates, and project expenses into gross margin and a remaining-estimate forecast. Capacity week shows remaining, forecast, and overload with the projects driving the warning.
Retainers used to be two numbers on a project. Now they are the commercial spine: usage, requests turned into cards, and profitability that knows cost rates, so capacity warnings name the projects that tip the week.