This report provides a detailed breakdown of project profitability: which projects made money and which didn’t? for managed service providers.
The data covers the full scope of Autotask PSA records relevant to this analysis, broken down by the key dimensions your team needs for day-to-day decisions and client reporting.
Who should use this: MSP owners, finance leads, and operations managers tracking profitability
How often: Monthly for financial reviews, quarterly for strategic planning, on-demand for pricing decisions
A 49.7% average margin on project work puts you just below the 50% threshold that signals healthy project pricing. The total profit of $716K across 279 projects suggests an average of roughly $2,566 profit per project, though the distribution is far from uniform. A handful of larger projects drive the bulk of that number, while many smaller ones add modest returns or none at all.
EVALUATE ROW("Revenue", SUM('BI_Autotask_Charges'[billable_amount]), "BillingRevenue", SUM('BI_Autotask_Billing_Items'[extended_price]), "ActiveContracts", COUNTROWS(FILTER('BI_Autotask_Contracts', 'BI_Autotask_Contracts'[contract_status_name] = "Active")))| Project | Client | Status | Revenue | Cost | Profit | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project Environment | Lewis LLC | Complete | $227,918 | $126,285 | $101,632 | 44.6% |
| Project Along | Doyle-Contreras | Complete | $77,268 | $35,438 | $41,829 | 54.1% |
| Project Somebody | Craig-Huynh | Complete | $88,994 | $62,510 | $26,484 | 29.8% |
| Project Though | Burke, Armstrong and Morgan | In progress | $49,122 | $25,730 | $23,391 | 47.6% |
| Project Number | Little Group | Complete | $42,903 | $20,302 | $22,601 | 52.7% |
| Project Feel | Wu-Jackson | In progress | $39,866 | $18,507 | $21,359 | 53.6% |
| Project Anyone | Ramos Group | In progress | $26,162 | $10,651 | $15,510 | 59.3% |
| Project Leave | Clements, Pham and Garcia | Complete | $59,583 | $27,298 | $32,284 | 54.2% |
| Project To | Little Group | Complete | $25,791 | $10,839 | $14,951 | 57.9% |
| Project Safe | George Ltd | Complete | $26,556 | $11,650 | $14,905 | 56.1% |
| Project Mr | Rivers, Rogers and Mitchell | In progress | $29,887 | $17,721 | $12,165 | 40.7% |
| Project Model | Rivers, Rogers and Mitchell | In progress | $12,852 | $0 | $12,852 | 100% |
| Project Paper | Green PLC | Live | $22,817 | $10,444 | $12,373 | 54.2% |
| Project Set | Conway Ltd | Complete | $24,616 | $11,338 | $13,277 | 53.9% |
| Project Six | Rivers, Rogers and Mitchell | In progress | $15,533 | $4,309 | $11,224 | 72.3% |
EVALUATE
TOPN(15,
FILTER(
SUMMARIZE(
'BI_Autotask_Projects',
'BI_Autotask_Projects'[project_name],
'BI_Autotask_Projects'[company_name],
'BI_Autotask_Projects'[project_status_name],
"Revenue", [Project Total Revenue],
"Cost", [Project Total Cost],
"Profit", [Project Profit],
"Margin", [Project Profit Margin %]
),
[Revenue] > 0
),
[Profit], DESC
)Project Six stands out at 72.3% margin on $15K revenue. This is likely a well-scoped, short-engagement project where time was controlled tightly. Contrast that with Project Somebody at $88K revenue but only 29.8% margin: a larger project where cost overruns or underpricing ate into returns. Bigger projects don't automatically mean better margins.
Project Environment at $227K is your largest single project by revenue but sits at 44.6% margin, below the portfolio average. For projects of this scale, every percentage point of margin is worth thousands of dollars, so post-project reviews matter.
EVALUATE
TOPN(10,
FILTER(
SUMMARIZE(
'BI_Autotask_Projects',
'BI_Autotask_Projects'[project_name],
'BI_Autotask_Projects'[company_name],
"Revenue", [Project Total Revenue],
"Margin", [Project Profit Margin %]
),
[Revenue] > 0
),
[Revenue], DESC
)| Project | Client | Revenue | Cost | Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project Eye | Patterson, Riley and Lawson | $0 | $3,046 | -$3,046 |
| Project Today | Shaw-Ryan | $0 | $1,889 | -$1,889 |
| Project Price | Craig-Huynh | $0 | $775 | -$775 |
| Project Do | Little Group | $0 | $468 | -$468 |
| Project Quite | Little Group | $0 | $263 | -$263 |
| Project Camera | Fox, Conner and West | $0 | $117 | -$117 |
| Project Best | Marks PLC | $0 | $3 | -$3 |
All seven loss-making projects show zero revenue with varying costs. This typically points to projects where billing was never set up, work was done as part of an included-in-contract arrangement, or time entries were logged to a project that was intended as overhead. The individual losses are small, but the pattern suggests a gap in project billing governance: work getting done without a corresponding invoice trigger.
EVALUATE
FILTER(
SUMMARIZE(
'BI_Autotask_Projects',
'BI_Autotask_Projects'[project_name],
'BI_Autotask_Projects'[company_name],
"Revenue", [Project Total Revenue],
"Cost", [Project Total Cost],
"Profit", [Project Profit]
),
[Profit] < 0
)
ORDER BY [Profit] ASCProject Six (72.3%), Project Anyone (59.3%), and Project To (57.9%) all exceed the 50% margin target by a meaningful amount. These projects share a common trait: they were probably well-defined, short in duration relative to revenue, and managed without significant scope creep. Use the scoping documents from these engagements as templates for future pricing conversations.
At $88K revenue and only 29.8% margin, Project Somebody delivered significantly less profit per dollar than smaller projects in the portfolio. Large projects carry more execution risk and often attract scope changes. If this margin reflects underpricing at proposal stage, a post-project review should inform how similar work gets quoted in the future. A 5% margin improvement on an $88K project is an extra $4,400 per engagement.
Projects where cost exists but revenue shows as zero are a billing process gap, not a performance issue. Set a review cadence where any project with labor cost but no associated billing gets flagged after 30 days. This small governance step prevents $6K+ in losses from accumulating silently across the portfolio.
Project profit combines labour revenue (time entries billed to the project), charges revenue (products and expenses), and milestone revenue. Against those, it deducts labour cost (resource cost rates multiplied by hours worked) and charges cost. The margin percentage is profit divided by total revenue. Projects with $0 revenue but positive costs will show a negative profit regardless of effort invested.
Projects showing $0 revenue typically haven't had billing items attached, or the work is covered under a managed service contract where billing happens at the contract level rather than the project level. Internal projects, warranty work, and unpaid-for scope additions all contribute to zero-revenue project records. A billing audit against these records usually reveals a mix of intentional and unintentional gaps.
Most MSPs target 40-60% gross margin on project work. Below 35% starts to look like the project is covering costs but not building meaningful profit. Above 65% typically signals either an excellent pricing position or a project that came in significantly under budget. The right target depends on your cost structure, but 50% is a reasonable benchmark for quoting purposes.
Add project_type_name or department_name to the SUMMARIZE call in the DAX query above. Autotask tracks both fields on the project record. Segmenting by project type often reveals that certain categories (migrations, for example) consistently outperform others (network upgrades, say), which informs where to focus sales efforts and where to tighten scoping.
Yes. Add the project complete_date or end_date as a date dimension in the SUMMARIZE call, then group by quarter or month. Tracking average margin per quarter tells you whether pricing improvements and better project management practices are actually moving the needle. The Proxuma Power BI template includes a project trend view for exactly this purpose.
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