The retainer that was fine on paper
The contract says four blog posts, twelve social posts a week, monthly paid social management and a report. That was the deal when the client signed. Eight months later the account manager is also resizing banners for a trade show, writing a quick email for the sales team, checking why a landing page form stopped working and joining a Tuesday call that was never in the plan.
None of those requests were big. Each came with the words "quick one" or "when you get a sec". Each was done because saying no to a good client feels worse than doing twenty minutes of work. At the quarterly review the finance side finally looks at the timesheets and finds the team spent far more time on this account than the fee supports, and nobody can say exactly when it started.
Why nobody catches it in the month
Most agencies have a statement of work and most have timesheets. The trouble is that the two never meet during the month.
- Requests arrive in a shared Slack channel, a client WhatsApp group, direct emails to a designer and comments on a Google Doc. None of these places knows what the retainer includes.
- Timesheets are logged against the client, not against a scope line, so an hour on banners looks the same as an hour on the agreed blog posts.
- The account manager who agrees to the extra work is measured on client happiness, not margin.
- Timesheets are often filled in on Friday afternoon from memory, so the small tasks vanish into a general "account management" entry.
- By the time finance runs the numbers, the month is closed and the conversation with the client feels like an ambush.
The root cause is not a lack of discipline. It is that the scope lives in a PDF and the requests live in chat, and there is nothing in between that says "this one is outside the deal".
What the leak really costs
The obvious cost is unpaid hours. The less obvious costs do more damage. The team gets stretched on one account and other clients' work slips. The client gets used to a level of service the fee never covered, so when the agency finally raises it, the client hears a price rise rather than a correction. Senior people spend review meetings arguing over what "social support" meant in the proposal.
It also hides which retainers should be repriced at renewal, because the data that would show it is spread across chat threads nobody will ever read again.
The request log we build around your retainers
What we build sits between where clients ask for things and where your team does the work.
- Each retainer's scope is entered once as lines: deliverables per month, included meetings, included revisions, and anything explicitly excluded.
- Requests are captured from where they actually arrive. A Slack shortcut, an email forward address and a short client request form all create an entry against the client.
- Each new request is matched to a scope line or marked as outside scope. A language model such as OpenAI or Anthropic Claude can suggest the match from the wording, and the account manager confirms it with one click.
- Time logged in your existing tool, such as Harvest or your project system, is linked to the request, so hours land against the scope line rather than the whole client.
- The account lead sees a running view per client: what is used, what is left, and what has been done outside scope this month.
- Outside-scope requests can go straight to a quick estimate for the client to approve, or be logged as goodwill so the decision is at least visible.
| Where the request arrives | What happens to it |
|---|---|
| Client Slack channel | Shortcut creates a logged request in the thread |
| Email to a designer | Forwarded to the log address, matched to the client |
| Call or meeting | Account manager adds it from the call notes |
| Client request form | Arrives already tagged with client and deadline |
| Comment on a shared doc | Added by whoever picks it up, linked to the doc |
We do not ask your team to stop using Slack or email with clients. The log only needs to catch the request once.
A month with the log in place
Halfway through the month the account manager can see the client has already asked for three things outside the retainer. She sends a short note with an estimate for one, agrees to do another as goodwill, and pushes the third to next month's plan. The client is not surprised at renewal, because the extra requests have been visible all along.
At the quarterly review, finance and account management look at the same view. The argument is no longer about whose memory is right. It is about whether the retainer needs another scope line, which is a much easier conversation to have with a client.
Signs your retainers are leaking
- Clients regularly ask for "quick ones" in chat and they get done the same day.
- Timesheets are logged against the client but not against what was sold.
- Account managers cannot say how much of this month's retainer is left.
- Renewal conversations turn into arguments about what was included.
- Some clients feel profitable and some do not, but nobody can prove which.