Bookkeeping for Agencies and IT Service Firms: Project Costs, Subcontractors and Retainers
Last updated: October 2026 · Written for owners of agencies and IT service firms and the accountants who serve them
Your revenue is retainers and projects, and your costs are people, tools and subcontractors. The margin lives at the project level, but the bookkeeping lives at the bank-account level. When a client asks whether the project was profitable, you reconstruct it from emails.
The short answer. VoiceAccountant lets agencies and IT service firms say an expense out loud, snap a receipt, forward an invoice or upload a batch. The AI drafts the entry with a confidence score, your accountant approves it, and it posts to QuickBooks Online with the document attached. A few things this business asks for are not built yet. This page marks each one Coming soon, so you can see what is real today and what is on the way. Start a 14-day free trial, no credit card.
Watch: Agencies and IT service firms in 35 seconds
Video transcript
Sound familiar? Subcontractor and freelancer invoices arrive in many formats. Now try this. Just say it: One thousand eight hundred, freelance developer, Acme project. The AI drafts it, codes it, and your accountant approves it. And it keeps growing. Coming soon: time tracking and work in progress, recurring entries, contractor slips, and quotes and progress billing. Try Voice Accountant free for fourteen days. No credit card needed.
What keeps agencies and IT service firms up at night
- Subcontractor and freelancer invoices arrive in many formats.
- Software and cloud costs run across clients and cards.
- Retainers and project fees are billed on different schedules.
- You cannot see project profitability without a spreadsheet.
- Clients in several countries and currencies.
A day in the life, with VoiceAccountant
Here is what four ordinary moments look like, including money coming in. The amounts and names are illustrative, not a real customer.
| You say, snap or forward | The AI drafts (illustrative) |
|---|---|
| One thousand eight hundred, freelance developer, Acme project | Freelance developer, $1,800.00, Subcontractors, project Acme, 88% sure, invoice attached |
| Forwarded email: cloud hosting invoice | Cloud provider, USD 312.00, Hosting, project Acme, converted at the transaction-date rate, 94% sure |
| Photo of a conference ticket | Conference, $450.00, Professional development, 91% sure |
| Say it: Acme paid the March retainer, five thousand | Retainer received, $5,000.00, Services income, project Acme, 94% sure |
Each draft carries its confidence score and the original document. Low scores are flagged for your accountant instead of being guessed, and nothing posts until it is approved. Corrections are remembered, so the same vendor is coded the same way next time.
What works today
- Say it, snap it, forward it or bulk upload, and the AI drafts the entry
- Record income too: say a sale, an e-transfer or a cheque received, or snap a deposit slip, and it is drafted as income
- A job or project on every entry, so costs line up with the work
- Multi-currency with the exchange rate saved on the transaction date
- A confidence score on every draft, with doubtful items flagged instead of guessed
- Your accountant approves before anything posts (auto-approve is opt-in per client)
- Approved entries post to QuickBooks Online with the receipt attached
- Branded invoices, including invoices built by voice
Coming soon for agencies and IT service firms
These are on our roadmap. They are not available today, and timing may change. We list them so you can see where the product is going and tell us what you need first.
| Feature | How it will work | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Time tracking and work in progress | Hours logged to a client or job, and billed from the same record. | Coming soon |
| Recurring entries | Rent, subscriptions and loan payments post themselves each month, and you only look at what changed. | Coming soon |
| Contractor slips | T4A or 1099 totals for the subcontractors you paid, ready at year end. | Coming soon |
| Quotes and progress billing | Estimates, deposits and stage invoices tied to a job. | Coming soon |
How this compares with the alternatives
Most owners of agencies and IT service firms already use one or more of these. They are good at what they do, and most of them solve a different half of the problem. This is a general comparison from public product pages as of October 2026. Weaknesses are as reported by users and reviewers on public review sites and vendor forums, not from our own testing, and individual experiences vary. Confirm current details with each vendor.
| Option | What it does | Weaknesses and gaps |
|---|---|---|
| VoiceAccountant | Voice, photo, email and bulk capture. AI drafts with a confidence score. Accountant approval. Posts to QuickBooks Online with the document attached. | No automatic bank, card or sales feeds yet, and no payroll (see Coming soon above). Income and costs are captured by voice, photo, email or upload today. |
| Dext | Receipt and invoice capture that publishes to QuickBooks, Xero or Sage. | Costly for small clients: published practice pricing is about $18 to $19 per client per month with a 10-client minimum, and reviewers also cite USD pricing for Canadian users, slow support and some billing and cancellation problems. Auto-publish can put a mis-read receipt in the books before anyone reviews it, and it needs supplier rules and tax defaults set up first. Extraction only: no voice capture, no client messaging, and clients get a Dext-branded app, not your firm's. |
| Expensify | Receipt scanning, card matching and mileage, aimed at expense reports and teams. | Reviewers report scanning glitches, duplicate or missing entries, intermittent accounting sync issues, cumbersome receipt matching, manual expense splitting and per-user pricing some find unpredictable. Built around reimbursing expenses, not drafting ledger entries for a bookkeeper. |
| Wave, FreshBooks and Zoho Books | All-in-one ledger and invoicing. Receipt scanning is gated by plan or capped by monthly allowances. | They replace your ledger instead of working with QuickBooks and your accountant. Receipt scanning is gated by plan or capped (Zoho's free tier has a small monthly allowance, and bought scans expire after three months). No voice capture in their published features. |
| QuickBooks receipt capture | Built-in receipt matching and a review tab, included with QuickBooks Online. | Users report weak category suggestions (one Intuit Community user estimated 1 to 3 hours of fixing per 100 to 300 receipts a quarter), no splitting a receipt across categories, one receipt per file, and lower accuracy on thermal receipts and busy photos. No voice capture, no confidence score, no separate approval step. |
Head to head, feature by feature
| Feature | VoiceAccountant | QuickBooks receipt capture | Dext | Expensify | Wave, FreshBooks, Zoho Books |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voice capture | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Drafts income, transfers, loans and bills, not just receipts | Yes | Receipts only | Documents only | Expense reports | Own ledger |
| Confidence score on every draft, doubtful items flagged | Yes | No | Extraction only | No | No |
| Accountant approval required before anything posts | Yes (auto-approve is opt-in) | A review tab | Optional, auto-publish available | Report approvals, not ledger drafts | Not applicable |
| Posts to QuickBooks Online with the document attached | Yes | Native | Yes | Yes, sync issues reported | No, replaces QuickBooks |
| Client app carries your firm's name and logo | Yes | No | No, Dext-branded | No, Expensify-branded | No |
| Price model | 14-day free trial, no card, no client minimum | Included with QuickBooks | Per client, 10-client minimum on practice plans | Per user | Plan-based |
"No" means we found no such feature in the vendor's published feature lists as of October 2026. Check each vendor for current details.
Why owners of agencies and IT service firms switch
- Every cost carries its project. A freelancer invoice and a cloud bill each land on the right client project, so margin by project becomes answerable.
- Subcontractor invoices arrive as drafts, not attachments. Forwarded emails and PDFs become coded entries with the document attached.
- USD cloud costs and CAD clients live together. Multi-currency entries keep the original amount and the transaction-date rate.
- Nothing posts unconfirmed. Receipt tools can auto-publish a mis-read entry, and users report hours of cleanup after weak category suggestions. VoiceAccountant scores every draft and waits for approval.
- Your clients see your brand, and QuickBooks stays. The app carries your firm's name and logo, and approved entries post into the QuickBooks your accountant already uses.
Where specialist tools are ahead today
Dedicated connectors for sales, mileage and payroll are further along than we are. VoiceAccountant is not a replacement for them yet. If one of them already covers your needs, keep it and use VoiceAccountant for the costs it never sees.
Frequently asked questions
Can I see profit by project? Every entry carries a project, so costs line up with the work. A built-in project profitability report is not available yet and is on the roadmap.
Does it handle USD and CAD together? Yes. Each entry keeps its original currency and the rate on the transaction date.
Does it track my team's hours? Not yet. Time tracking is on the roadmap.
See it with your own receipts
Ask your accountant to start a free trial, or start one yourself, and capture your next three receipts by voice. Try VoiceAccountant free for 14 days → No credit card.
Related reading: Bookkeeping by business type, What your QuickBooks connectors miss, Photographers, designers and creators and clinics, dentists and therapists.
Examples are illustrative scenarios, not case studies. Competitor details come from public pages as of October 2026 and can change. All product and company names are trademarks of their respective owners, and VoiceAccountant is not affiliated with them. Features marked Coming soon are not available today.