Consultancies Back-Office Services
Back-office services for consultancies. Professional Employees Award payroll, industry-specific bookkeeping, BAS and compliance.
Applicable Award
Professional Employees Award 2020 / Clerks Private Sector Award 2020
For Consultancies, the entire back-office — Professional Employees Award 2020-compliant payroll, BAS, bookkeeping, managed IT and Essential Eight cybersecurity — can run through one accountable Valont team, from $1,500–$3,000/month fixed-fee. You need back-office support from people who know your industry — the revenue models, the compliance landscape, the operational realities. Valont provides integrated finance, people, and technology operations built for professional services businesses like yours.
The Applicable Modern Award
Consultancies employees are typically covered by the Professional Employees Award 2020 / Clerks Private Sector Award 2020.
Classification structure: Professional Employee Level 1–4, Consulting Associate, Admin (Clerks Award).
Ordinary hours: 38 hours/week. Client engagement hours may extend beyond standard.
Penalty rates: Standard Professional Employees Award penalties.
Key allowances: Travel allowance, professional development allowance.
Getting award interpretation wrong creates systematic underpayment that compounds with every pay period. Our payroll specialists configure award-specific software to calculate every classification, penalty, and allowance correctly — and conduct quarterly audits to ensure ongoing compliance.
Sources: pay and award rules — Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work Commission; superannuation, BAS and tax — the Australian Taxation Office.
Back-Office Challenges for Consultancies
For Consultancies, the back-office complexity a generic provider isn't built for begins with project-based billing and WIP management — then runs through the operational realities below:
- Project-based billing and WIP management across multiple concurrent client engagements
- Consultant utilisation tracking — billable vs non-billable time as the key profitability driver
- Subcontractor and associate consultant management — engaging specialist subcontractors for specific engagements
- Travel and expenses — client-billable travel and expenses requiring separate tracking and recharge
- Proposal and business development costs as non-recoverable overheads
- Revenue concentration risk — tracking client revenue percentage to identify dependency
- Intellectual property and deliverable cost tracking
Industry Compliance
Professional body memberships, PI insurance, privacy obligations for client data, and contract management.
We maintain a compliance calendar that covers both your general business obligations (BAS, STP, super, payroll tax, workers compensation) and your industry-specific requirements, ensuring nothing falls through the gap between your financial compliance and your operational compliance.
How Valont Supports Consultancies
Finance Hub
Project-level billing and WIP. Consultant utilisation reporting. Subcontractor management and TPAR. Client-billable expense tracking and recharge. Revenue concentration analysis. Proposal cost tracking. Client profitability reporting.
People Hub
Professional Employees Award-compliant payroll processing through KeyPay or Employment Hero with automated award interpretation. STP reporting with every pay run. Superannuation calculation and initiation on schedule. Ongoing payroll compliance audits. HR advisory covering employment contracts, workplace policies, onboarding, and termination processes specific to the professional services sector.
Operations Hub
Managed IT support with proactive monitoring and helpdesk. Essential Eight cybersecurity implementation. Cloud platform management (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace). Integration management between your industry-specific systems and accounting/payroll platforms.
Pricing
For a consultancy with 5–15 staff: Finance + People Hub $1,500–$3,000/month. This replaces the combined cost of a separate bookkeeper, payroll provider, and the owner's time spent on admin — typically 10 to 15 hours per week for a business of this size.
Fixed-fee, month-to-month, no lock-in. We retain clients through service quality, not contractual obligation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you specialise in consultancies?
Yes. Our team has direct experience with the Professional Employees Award and the specific operational, financial, and compliance requirements of consultancies. We configure our services around your industry's reality rather than forcing you into a generic template.
Which award applies to Consultancies?
Most consultancies employees are covered by the Professional Employees Award 2020 / Clerks Private Sector Award 2020. Professional Employee Level 1–4, Consulting Associate, Admin (Clerks Award). We determine the correct award and classification for each employee during onboarding and configure payroll accordingly.
Can you integrate with our existing systems?
Yes. We integrate with the industry-specific platforms that consultancies use. The Operations Hub manages all integrations — configuration during onboarding, continuous monitoring, and issue resolution.
What if our current books are a mess?
Most consultancies come to us with some level of backlog or disorganisation. We bring your books current during onboarding at no additional cost and establish the systems and processes that keep them current going forward.
Built for Consultancies, Not Adapted From Generic Templates
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