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| Customer | Core or Flex | Role | Staffed With | Week Starting | FTE | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NORTHWIND | Core | Senior Consultant | Diego Alvarez | 2026-05-04 | 1.0 | Active |
A utilization dashboard template connects three things most professional services teams track separately: who is staffed on what (the allocation grid), what they were planned to do versus what they actually logged (the timesheets), and whether each engagement will land within budget (the Estimate at Completion). All three feed a single Capacity Dashboard. Every number on that dashboard is a formula traceable to a cell someone filled in. The industry average for billable utilization is 68.9%1, well below the 75% target most firms set. The reason is almost always invisible in the headline number: late timesheets, double-booked consultants, and non-billable hours logged under client codes. This workbook makes those inputs visible.
A single headline utilization number is not a staffing tool. It becomes one when you can see the inputs underneath it.
What eight tabs produce
The eight tabs form one logical flow. Each tab answers a question that the next tab depends on.
| Tab | What it answers | Feeds into |
|---|---|---|
| Resource Classification | Who is available, at what cost and bill rate, in which region? | Every other tab |
| Customers | Which engagements are active, what commercial type, what contract value? | Timesheets, EAC Worksheet |
| Live Allocation Grid | Who is staffed where, at what FTE, for which weeks? | Capacity Dashboard |
| Timesheet (per customer) | What was planned vs. what was actually logged, per person per week? | Capacity Dashboard, EAC Worksheet |
| Capacity Dashboard | What is utilization by role and month? Who is over- or under-allocated? | Friday review |
| EAC Worksheet | Is each engagement on track to land within budget? | Commercial risk conversation |
| Holidays | Which days reduce available FTE in AMER, EMEA, and APAC? | Capacity Dashboard |
| Read Me | How does the workbook work? | Onboarding |
The workbook ships pre-seeded with 14 consultants across four roles and 8 engagements across T&M, Fixed Fee, and FF+Milestones commercial types. The seeding exists so the utilization bands, EAC flags, and allocation colors are all live on first open. Replace the sample data when you are ready.
The formulas that do the work
Three formula patterns drive the whole workbook. You do not need to rebuild them; they are already there. Knowing what they are tells you where the numbers come from.
Utilization per person per week:
= Actual Hours Logged ÷ (Available FTE × Weekly Hour Norm)Available FTE comes from the Resource Classification tab, net of any holiday deductions from the Holidays tab. Weekly Hour Norm defaults to 40 hours but is configurable per region.
EAC (Estimate at Completion) per engagement:
= Hours to Date + Planned Remaining HoursThis is the simplest defensible EAC formula for services work. It assumes the remaining plan is accurate, which forces the engagement manager to update the plan when actuals diverge. When actuals are running fast (early-phase scope expansion is the usual cause), EAC climbs above budget before anyone has to say anything out loud. The worksheet flags Amber at 105% of budget and Red at 115%. Both thresholds are configurable.
Variance per resource per week (in each Timesheet tab):
= Actual Hours − Planned HoursPositive variance means the person logged more than planned. Negative variance means they logged less, or nothing. Persistent negative variance on a past week means a timesheet was never submitted.
The allocation color bands
The Capacity Dashboard and the Live Allocation Grid both use conditional formatting keyed to these ranges:
| Color | Allocation range | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Coral | Above 100% | Double-booked. Resolve before the week starts. |
| Green | 80% to 100% | Target band. Booked, not overloaded. |
| Mint | 50% to 79% | Healthy partial. Acceptable for senior staff carrying non-billable work or ramp weeks. |
| Soft-mint | Below 50% | Under-utilized. Either the staffing plan has a gap or a timesheet is late. |
The 80% to 100% target band is not arbitrary. Effective utilization at most professional services firms runs 10 to 15 points below booked utilization once you account for proposal work, internal meetings, and unplanned scope. A firm booking at 85% often lands at 70 to 72% effective. The gap is where most staffing plans fail.
Reading the EAC Worksheet: a sample output
The EAC Worksheet surfaces budget risk before it becomes a billing conversation. The seeded data in the workbook matches this shape.
| Engagement | Type | Hours to Date | Budget Hours | % Consumed | EAC Hours | Delta | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NORTHWIND Phase 2 | Fixed Fee | 312 | 400 | 78% | 438 | +38 | Amber |
| CALIBRA Migration | T&M | 180 | 600 | 30% | 590 | -10 | Green |
| VANTAGE Analytics | FF+Milestones | 510 | 480 | 106% | 620 | +140 | Red |
| ARDENT Onboarding | T&M | 88 | 200 | 44% | 196 | -4 | Green |
| SOLACE Rollout | Fixed Fee | 220 | 320 | 69% | 315 | -5 | Green |
VANTAGE Analytics is the engagement that needs the conversation now: 106% consumed at week eleven of a sixteen-week fixed-fee project, with EAC sitting 140 hours above budget. On a Fixed Fee commercial structure, those hours come out of margin. The Red flag fires before the delivery lead has to reconstruct the math in a steerco.
NORTHWIND Phase 2 is the one to watch. Amber at 78% consumed. Not urgent yet. Worth a Friday review to confirm the remaining plan is still accurate.
The two-touch cadence
Two inputs keep every other number accurate. Monday morning, the engagement manager updates Planned hours in each Timesheet tab for the week ahead. Friday afternoon, each consultant logs Actual hours for the week just ended.
That is two columns. If they are filled honestly, every formula in the workbook updates automatically. The Capacity Dashboard shows this week’s over-allocation before the week starts. The EAC Worksheet shows emerging budget risk before it becomes a billing conversation. The Friday review becomes a 15-minute read of Amber and Red rows, not a reconstruction of what happened.
The workbook relies on someone remembering to fill those two columns. A system closes that gap: in Servantium, the planned hours and the actuals are already in the engagement record, so the cadence is enforced by the software, not by a recurring reminder on the engagement manager’s calendar.
Fixed Fee vs. T&M: why the EAC matters differently
On a Time and Materials engagement, hours over budget become an invoice. The client may push back, but the conversation is commercial: you send more hours, you bill more hours.
On a Fixed Fee engagement, hours over budget come out of your margin. The client owes you nothing extra. This is why the EAC Worksheet flags FF engagements earlier in the consumption cycle. The moment VANTAGE Analytics hit 100% consumed with six weeks still on the plan, the margin conversation should have already happened internally. The Red flag exists so it does.
The common failure pattern: a firm-wide dashboard reads 82% utilization and looks healthy, while two senior consultants are double-booked on overlapping engagements and a third is logged at 0% because their timesheet carries the wrong client code. The headline number is technically correct and the staffing situation underneath it is a mess. That is the gap this template closes, and the gap a system closes more reliably: when planned hours, actuals, and assignments live in one engagement record, the over-allocation and the mis-coded timesheet surface on their own instead of hiding behind a single average.
Where Servantium does this without the spreadsheet
Servantium’s capacity forecasting surface runs the same loop natively: planned hours per assignment feed a utilization forecast, actuals feed back against it, and the assignment grid surfaces over- and under-allocation directly. The EAC calculation runs on the engagement record. Thresholds are configurable per engagement type. The Friday review rhythm is the same.
Use this workbook until maintaining it costs more than the staffing call it informs. The practical ceiling is around 15 active consultants and 6 concurrent engagements. Above that, the merge conflicts and stale data are the problem, not the staffing.
Frequently asked questions
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Booked utilization is the percentage of available hours assigned to client work on paper. Effective utilization is the percentage actually logged as billable. The gap, usually 10 to 15 points at most services firms, comes from proposal work, internal meetings, unplanned scope, and late timesheets. This template tracks both: Planned hours give you booked, Actual hours give you effective. The deeper breakdown of why that gap is where margin lives is in the Utilization Paradox post at /blog/the-utilization-paradox/.
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Monday morning: the engagement manager fills Planned hours for the week ahead in each Timesheet tab. Friday afternoon: each consultant logs Actual hours. That two-touch cadence is everything the template needs. If timesheets slip past Friday, Variance cells turn coral and the Capacity Dashboard lags by a week. The spreadsheet relies on someone remembering to fill those two columns; a system like Servantium keeps planned and actual hours on the engagement record so the cadence is enforced by the software rather than a calendar reminder.
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The formula is the same for both: EAC = Hours to Date + Planned Remaining Hours. The commercial consequence differs. On T&M, hours over budget are an invoice conversation. On Fixed Fee, they are a margin problem; you absorb the cost. The EAC Worksheet flags both the same way at 105% (Amber) and 115% (Red) of budget. For FF engagements, Amber is the trigger to review scope with the client. Waiting for Red is too late.
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Three causes: late timesheets (actuals not logged, so variance does not appear), double-booking hidden across separate client tabs, and senior staff logging non-billable work under an internal code. The allocation grid's coral over-allocation flag catches double-booking. Late timesheets show as zero Actual hours in a past week. Internal time requires a separate row in the Resource Classification roster.
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When maintaining the spreadsheet takes longer than the staffing conversation it enables. Practical signals: more than 15 active consultants, more than 6 concurrent engagements, or more than one engagement manager writing to the same tabs. At that point, merge conflicts and stale data cost more time than a real platform saves.
Sources
- . (2025) . 2025 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark . Accessed 2026-06-16. ↩
What's inside
- Resource Classification tab. Master roster split Core (full-time delivery) vs Flex (subcontractors and partners). Role, name, region, default cost and bill rates, available FTE per week.
- Customers tab. Code, commercial type (T&M, FF, FF+Milestones), engagement manager, contract value, start/end dates, status. Drives the per-customer Timesheet tabs and the EAC Worksheet.
- Live Allocation grid. Rows are Customer, Core/Flex flag, Role, and Staffed With name. Columns are 26 weekly Mondays. Cells are FTE allocation 0.0 to 1.0. Coral for over-allocation, green for 0.8 to 1.0, mint for healthy partial, soft-mint for under-utilized.
- One Timesheet tab per active customer. Project Profile box at top. Below it: Planned hours, Actual hours, and a Variance formula per resource per week. Past weeks carry actuals with realistic drift. Current week is partial. Future weeks are forecast-only.
- Capacity Dashboard. Role filter dropdown. Average utilization per logged week. Per-month rollup for 12 months: Core FTEs Assigned, Core FTEs Available (net of holidays), Average Utilization, Spare Capacity. KPI tiles for last four weeks and next four. Top five over- and under-allocated people.
- EAC Worksheet. Per active engagement: Hours-to-Date, Cost-to-Date, % Consumed, Planned-Remaining hours, EAC hours and cost, delta vs budget, Green/Amber/Red flag.
- Holidays calendar. AMER, EMEA, APAC. Reduces available FTE in the Capacity Dashboard automatically.
- Pre-seeded with 14 consultants and 8 engagements across mixed commercial types so the logic is visible before you replace the sample data with your own.
Why we made this
Most utilization reports show the output without the inputs. An engagement manager looking at a 68% number cannot tell whether the forecast was honest, the timesheets are late, or someone is double-booked across two engagements. This template makes the inputs explicit: a weekly time-tracking grid feeds a planner, which feeds a dashboard, which feeds an EAC worksheet. Every number is a formula you can follow. It is the spreadsheet you use until you outgrow the spreadsheet.
