Alphabet Soup
This is an acronym for the form used to request new job numbers.
What is a JIF (Job Initiation Form)?
A singular hourly rate that is applied to all levels/titles within a staff plan. It means we charge a single amount for every hour worked, no matter who worked it.
What is a Blended Rate?
This document reflects a project budget, often associated with out-of-pocket costs, and must be approved by a Client before beginning work.
What is an Estimate?
These are any charges that can be passed on to the client.
What are Billable?
Total revenue minus total FCB operating expenses. The income the agency is making on a client/project.
These three letters are how we describe the number of people working on a brand, where the number 1 represents a fully allocated person working on a business, and a percentage or 1 represents a person partially allocated.
What is FTE? or Full Time Equivalent?
This type of scope is also known as “fixed”, and means that we bill an agreed-upon rate no matter how many hours are worked. Commonly used for smaller fee, or incremental ad hoc projects.
What is Non-Reconcilable?
A number provided by our client that is referenced on all of FCB’s billing. It routes our invoices to the correct budget in the client’s system, and is often required for successful payment.
What is a Client PO, or Purchase Order?
What we charge the client for FCB’s time or labor. This is the amount of revenue a scope generates for the agency.
What is Fee?
This term refers to a budget where final actuals and/or fees are less than the approved budget. Despite its name, in financial terms it does NOT mean that we failed to deliver work.
What is Underdelivery? (shorthand = "underage")
FCB system terminology for estimate status, signifying internal FCB Agency approval?
What is INTA? or INTernal Approval?
This term refers to a scope where we charge the client for exactly the hours that have been incurred. After all work has been completed, a reconciliation is performed, and billing adjustments are implemented as appropriate.
What is Reconcilable?
This is how we notate that a job can be billed based on actual costs incurred to date.
What is WIP billing, or Work In Progress?
These are charges that are absorbed by FCB, usually for client entertainment, as an investment in a project that will eventually generate revenue, or as a make-good for an FCB-error. Can be either Fee or OOP.
What are Non-Billable, or Unbillable?
This term refers to a budget where final actuals and/or fees are more than the approved budget. Despite its name, in financial terms it does NOT mean that we really impressed our clients.
What is Overdelivery? (shorthand = "overage")
FCB system terminology for an estimate that has written external, or client, approval. Costs cannot be billed without this status, and ideally costs aren't incurred without it either.
What is EXTA? or EXTernal Approval?
A scope based on agreed-upon costs for specific things. Can be shown as an hourly rate by title, or as total cost for a deliverable.
What is Rate Card?
This is what happens when all costs are received for a project, the system estimate is updated to reflect this total, any remaining costs or credits are billed out, and the job is closed in our system. Its handled by the Business Manager.
What is Actualize and Close?
These are expenses that are passed through to the client, separate from costs for hours worked. Some examples are vendor invoices, travel (Concur) expenses, and 456 Studio costs (may vary by client). These have no impact on our profitability, as they only temporarily sit on our books.
What are OOP, or Out of Pocket costs?
Often expressed as a percentage, this number is is one of the most important measures of the financial health of a brand/business in the agency. It is a calculation of how much profit is earned for every dollar of revenue generated.
What is Margin?
This number represents the percentage of work that has been completed for a budgeted deliverable or SOW and is typically used to calculate revenues earned for a period.
What is POC, Percentage of Completion?
This is all of the names, titles, and hours identified to complete a specific scope or deliverable for a given project or team. Often developed as an annual view inclusive of all scoped projects for a business.
What is a Staff Plan?
Also referred to as an estimate bill, this is a client invoice that is generated before actual costs have been incurred. Often used large production scopes or end of year carry-over.
What is a Pre-Bill?
Represents what was truly incurred, often in reference to hours and their associated fee.
What are Actuals?
This phrase is the act of reporting how much money we bring in based on work that has been performed, in other words "earned." This often involves reporting said revenue to IPG or Wall Street. It is completely separate from when/how we bill our clients.
What is Taking Revenue, or Recognizing Revenue?