A retainer tracker that does more than turn a cell red
The Bookkeeping & VA Retainer Workbook is for independent bookkeepers and virtual assistants who sell monthly retainers — a set fee for a block of hours. Many simple retainer trackers stop at hours used against the block and a red “Over” cell. This one tracks each client’s unused and overrun hours from month to month under that client’s own rollover rule, prices the overrun in dollars, shows what each client really pays you per hour once admin is counted, and turns your recent real usage into a renewal fee and included hours you can defend.
It works in Excel and Google Sheets — delivered as an .xlsx plus a one-click “Make a copy” Google Sheets link — and in LibreOffice Calc. It opens already filled in with a fictional practice of eight clients, so every tab is computing before you type a thing.
How do rollover hours work when every client has a different rule?
On the Client Roster, each client gets a monthly fee, included hours, an overage rate and one of three rollover policies:
- None — unused hours expire at the end of the month.
- Next month only — unused hours roll into next month, once. Carried hours are used first.
- Carry with cap — the unused balance keeps rolling, but the bank can never be more than the cap you set as a share of the monthly hours.
Retainer Burn then executes those rules across a six-month window that starts in the month you set on Setup & Rates (move it forward to review a later stretch), one row per client per month: included hours plus hours carried in, hours used from the Time Log, what rolls forward, what expires, and any overage hours times that client’s overage rate. Each month gets a burn status of Healthy, Near cap or Over, so you know who needs the heads-up note before the invoice goes out. A client marked Paused stops getting hours from the month you enter.
What does each client really pay you per hour?
The Time Log (400 rows) labels every block of work twice: Retainer work or Unbilled admin (chasing receipts, check-in calls, invoicing), and In scope or Out of scope. That is what keeps the quiet work from vanishing.
Client Profitability divides each client’s fees by all the hours they took — admin included — and compares the result to your target rate for that service line. Out-of-scope hours that were not already counted as overage are priced as scope-creep dollars. Every client gets a profitability verdict of Reprice, Watch or Healthy and a plain next move, and the same figures roll up across the seven service lines, so you can see which kind of work pays and which only feels busy.
How much should you raise a retainer at renewal?
Renewals & Rate Planner looks at each client’s last few months of real hours (three by default, set on Setup & Rates) and prices them at your target rate, rounded to the fee step you set (for example, the nearest multiple of 25 dollars) and capped at the largest increase you are willing to ask for. It proposes the included hours too — from retainer work only, because admin time is priced into the fee rather than handed back as hours — and never fewer hours than the client has today. The price of an included hour never goes down.
You also see each client’s “Due in N days” flag, the proposed monthly recurring revenue, the monthly uplift, and the breakeven churn: the share of the proposed monthly revenue you could lose and still come out even. The blanks in the playbook’s renewal letter (average hours, retainer hours, new fee, new included hours) come straight from this row.
For the arithmetic behind a fair monthly fee, walk through how to price a monthly retainer.
Can you take on another client?
Capacity & New-Client Fit measures your free hours from what your active clients actually take, not from the hours on paper. Pick up to three prospects from the Pipeline; it adds your usual unbilled-admin load to the hours they are asking for, checks whether they fit, and tells you the fee at your target rate — so “yes” comes with a number. The Pipeline weights each open deal by its stage and runs the same rate check.
The money side, and one dashboard
Money In & Out holds payments received and business expenses. Income & Tax Set-Aside sets aside your chosen share of each month’s net, year to date, and totals it by the four US federal estimated-tax periods. It is a savings habit, not a tax calculation. The Dashboard pulls it all onto one page: monthly recurring revenue, how much depends on your largest client, overage and expiry by month, the next five renewals, capacity, and your set-aside.
The playbook: terms your workbook can run
The Retainer Terms & Renewal Playbook (11 pages) gives you sample rollover and overage clauses for each policy, twelve common out-of-scope requests with why each is outside and how to handle it, four client scripts, a renewal letter keyed to your Renewals & Rate Planner row, a monthly routine, and a glossary. The wording is sample language to adapt and have reviewed for where you work. The 16-page Start Here guide walks through every calculation.
Want to try it first? The free Retainer Rate Calculator works out what one client really pays you per hour for one month, admin and out-of-scope time included. The full workbook does it for every client across six months, with rollover, overage and renewal pricing.
Own it, don’t rent it
Practice-management apps are usually a monthly subscription. This is a file you buy once: no app to sign up for, no subscription, nothing to cancel, and your client numbers stay in your own copy.
What this workbook is not
It organizes your retainers and does arithmetic on the figures you enter. It is not tax, legal or accounting advice. It does not track time automatically, send invoices, or connect to a bank feed or accounting software. The example practice and every client name in it are fictional.
