Verity for software agencies
Agencies quote fixed prices against estimates and learn nothing from how wrong they were. Verity records estimate against actual per work type, so the next quote is better than the last.
Verity runs the agency. Your issue tracker and repositories stay where they are.
Verity / Projects
LiveActive projects
14
Over estimate
5
Milestones unaccepted
9
In warranty
11
Needs attention
Illustrative figures. Verity shows your own projects in this shape.
How the business runs
A software agency sells fixed-price projects, time-and-materials work, or something between. Fixed price is quoted from an estimate, and the entire commercial outcome depends on whether that estimate was right. Most agencies do not record actual effort against estimate at a granularity that teaches them anything, so the same category of work is under-quoted repeatedly.
The second characteristic loss is the unraised change request. Clients ask for things outside the agreed scope, developers build them because refusing feels disproportionate, and the effort is absorbed. Five projects past estimate with no change request raised is not five mistakes; it is a firm-level habit that eliminates the margin the estimate was supposed to protect.
The third is acceptance. Milestone-billed work cannot be invoiced until the client accepts, and acceptance requests sit unanswered while the agency continues to fund the next phase. Nine delivered milestones blocking sixty-four lakh is a cash position, not a delivery problem.
The fourth is warranty. Post-delivery bug fixing is contractually owed, unbudgeted and delivered by the same developers who are supposed to be on new work. It is the most reliably underestimated cost an agency carries.
The fifth is allocation: two developers promised to overlapping sprints because each project assumed full availability.
Verity records estimate against actual, change requests, acceptance and warranty against the projects that generate them.
What Verity calls these things
What gets in the way
Agency difficulties come from quoting against estimates that are never compared with what actually happened.
Estimates are never compared with actuals
Effort is tracked loosely, so the agency cannot say which categories of work it systematically under-quotes.
In Verity Actual effort is recorded against the estimate at the level it was made, so estimating improves from evidence.
Change requests are not raised
Out-of-scope work is built because the request seemed small, and the effort disappears into the fixed price.
In Verity Out-of-scope work is identified against the specification and raised as a change request with effort attached.
Acceptance blocks billing indefinitely
Delivered milestones await client sign-off with nobody chasing, while the agency funds the following phase.
In Verity Acceptance is a workflow step with an age and an owner, so unaccepted milestones are chased as a cash matter.
Warranty work is unbudgeted and invisible
Post-delivery fixes are owed under contract and delivered by developers who were allocated to new work.
In Verity Warranty work is recorded against the delivered project, so its true cost and its effect on capacity are visible.
Developers are committed twice
Two projects plan against the same person’s full availability, and the conflict surfaces at sprint start.
In Verity Allocation is recorded against people and periods, so overlap is visible when the second commitment is made.
Acceptance criteria are informal
What "done" means is agreed in conversation, so acceptance becomes a negotiation rather than a check.
In Verity Acceptance criteria are recorded with the milestone, so acceptance is a verification against something written.
The complete system
One system across estimates, delivery, change and warranty.
Work
Each is work with a client, an estimate, allocated people, acceptance criteria, actual effort and a state.
Why it matters here The estimate and the actual have to sit on the same record or the comparison never happens.
In practice Five projects past estimate by six hundred and forty hours with no change request raised.
Workflows
Estimation, scope change, milestone delivery, acceptance and warranty claims move through defined steps with recorded decisions.
Why it matters here These are the commercial gates, and the two that matter most — change and acceptance — are usually conversations.
In practice A change request raised with effort attached rather than absorbed into the fixed price.
People
The team is modelled once with skills and availability, and every allocation, task and warranty fix shows who owns it.
Why it matters here Allocation is the constraint, and warranty work silently consumes it.
In practice A developer effectively full time on warranty across eleven delivered projects.
Relationships
Clients are records with their projects, contracts, acceptance behaviour, change history and balances.
Why it matters here Client acceptance speed and change behaviour are the two facts that most affect agency cash and margin.
In practice A client whose acceptance averages thirty-one days, visible before the next fixed-price quote.
Records
Specifications, contracts and acceptance criteria attach to the project and milestone with versions retained.
Why it matters here Scope disputes and acceptance disputes both resolve to what was written down.
In practice The acceptance criteria for a milestone, referenced when the client raises a new expectation.
Control
Warranty periods, obligations and the work delivered under them are recorded against the project, with one audit trail.
Why it matters here Warranty is a contractual obligation that behaves like an unbudgeted support contract.
In practice Warranty effort recorded against the delivered project rather than absorbed into general capacity.
Reports and analytics
Estimate against actual by work type, change request recovery, acceptance lead times, warranty cost, allocation conflicts and project margin come from the operational records.
Why it matters here An agency that cannot grade its estimates cannot improve the single number its business depends on.
In practice Estimate accuracy by work type, which is the most valuable report a fixed-price agency can have.
Verity AI
Verity AI answers from your own project, effort, change and acceptance records, respects permissions, and can create assigned follow-ups.
Why it matters here The questions worth asking are about overruns without change requests and cash blocked on acceptance.
In practice "Which projects are past estimate with no change request?" returns five with reviews assigned.
Communication
Requests, approvals and clarifications attach to the project or milestone they concern.
Why it matters here A scope decision taken in a call is the one disputed at acceptance.
In practice A client’s agreement to defer a feature, recorded on the milestone.
Locations
Organisational units roll into the agency, with allocation and reporting following the same structure.
Why it matters here Estimation accuracy and margin vary by team, and only identical recording makes them comparable.
In practice Estimate accuracy and margin by team and practice.
Work in motion
These already happen. Recorded together, the estimate finally gets graded.
Estimating from historical actuals by work type is the difference between an estimate and a hope.
The comparison has to be at the level the estimate was made, or it teaches nothing.
Absorbing scope becomes a recorded decision rather than the default behaviour of a helpful team.
Unaccepted milestones are a cash problem, and they are usually treated as a delivery detail.
Classifying a defect as warranty or new work at the point it is raised is what keeps warranty bounded.
Warranty is real allocation, and excluding it from capacity planning is why sprints start short.
Verity AI
Verity AI reads the same project, effort, change and acceptance records the agency creates as it delivers. It answers from your own delivery book, respects permissions, and can turn an answer into reviews and chases.
Verity / Ask
Verity AI only returns what the person asking has permission to see.
Without chasing
Each runs from the project records at the point the condition is met.
When
Effort passes a share of the estimate
When
A milestone is delivered
When
A defect is raised after delivery
When
A new project plan uses committed people
When
A project completes
When
Warranty load exceeds its allowance
What you can understand
Estimation quality and delivery economics from the projects themselves.
Verity records delivery and commercial data. Your issue tracker, repositories and deployment tooling continue as they are.
One system, different ways of seeing it
Everyone works from the same records, and each role opens on what they need.
Founder
Are we estimating and pricing correctly?
Estimate accuracy by work type, project margin, change request recovery, warranty cost.
Delivery lead
What is running over and why?
Effort against estimate, out-of-scope work, milestones unaccepted, allocation conflicts.
Project manager
Is this project on plan?
Effort against estimate, change requests outstanding, acceptance criteria, team allocation.
Developer
What am I on and what is in scope?
Assigned work with estimates, specification and acceptance criteria, warranty items, effort to record.
Finance
What can we bill?
Milestones accepted and unaccepted, change requests approved, balances ageing, warranty cost.
Where it is used
Effort recorded at the level the estimate was made, so the agency learns which work types it systematically under-quotes.
Out-of-scope work raised as a change request with effort attached, so absorbing scope is a decision rather than a habit.
Delivered milestones aged against acceptance with escalation, since unaccepted work is blocked billing rather than a delivery detail.
Post-delivery fixes recorded against the project that owes them, exposing the agency’s most reliably underestimated cost.
Commitments recorded by person and period including warranty load, so overlap surfaces before a sprint starts short.
What "done" means written against the milestone, so acceptance is a verification rather than a negotiation.
Acceptance speed and change frequency recorded per client, informing the next fixed-price quote.
Plain-language questions across estimates, scope, acceptance and warranty, with reviews assigned in the same step.
Getting there
Your issue tracker, repositories and deployment tooling continue to run and are mapped during implementation. Clients, active projects, estimates, milestones and warranty obligations are brought across, and Verity is introduced as the delivery and commercial layer.
Implementation runs about four weeks: discovery and mapping, configuration, migration, then an ongoing operations partnership.
Questions
No. Your issue tracker, repositories and deployment tooling continue and are mapped during implementation. Verity holds the commercial and delivery record — estimates, actual effort, change requests, milestone acceptance, warranty obligations and allocation.
Verity AI answers questions from your own project, effort, change and acceptance records: which projects are past estimate with no change request, what estimate accuracy looks like by work type, which milestones are delivered and unaccepted, how much developer time is going to warranty. Each answer can become a review or a chase.
Actual effort is recorded against the estimate at the level it was made, so the agency can see which categories of work it systematically under-quotes. For a fixed-price business that comparison is the single most valuable report available, and almost no agency produces it.
Out-of-scope work is identified against the recorded specification and raised as a change request with effort and schedule impact, so absorbing it becomes a deliberate, visible decision rather than the default behaviour of a helpful team.
Milestone-billed work cannot be invoiced until it is accepted, so unaccepted milestones are blocked cash while the agency funds the next phase. Ageing acceptance with escalation treats it as what it is.
Warranty periods and obligations are recorded at delivery, defects are classified as warranty or new work when raised, and warranty effort is recorded against the project that owes it — which makes visible a cost most agencies carry without measuring.
Commitments are recorded by person and period, including warranty and support load, so a new project plan using already-committed people surfaces as a conflict before signing rather than at sprint start.
A ten-person agency carries the same estimation blind spot and the same warranty load, and a single overrunning fixed-price project is a much larger share of its year.
About four weeks: discovery and mapping of how work is estimated and delivered, configuration of work types and milestones, migration of clients and active projects, then an ongoing operations partnership.
It is the number your business depends on and the one almost no agency measures. Tell us how effort is tracked today.