How it works

Six stages.
One record.

Why one platform matters

Each stage inherits the last one’s work

Six stages is not the interesting part. Every tool has stages. The interesting part is that nothing is retyped between them, because each stage reads the record the one before it wrote.

  1. Brief answersEstimate linesScope becomes roles and hours
  2. Estimate linesProposal narrativeYour numbers, drafted into prose
  3. Accepted proposalProject planPhases, team, and planned cost
  4. Approved deliverablesA completed phaseThe gate opens when the client clears them
  5. Logged timeInvoice linesApproved hours, billed on schedule
  6. Planned against actualMarginThe gap, closed automatically

A project tool, a time tracker, and an e-signature app can each do their own column. None of them can do the arrows, which is where the retyping, the drift, and the lost margin actually live.

01Brief

The prospect writes the brief, not you

Share one public link. Prospects answer a structured discovery brief with no account and no back and forth, and every submission lands in one queue you triage.

  • The client
  • AI assist
  • A capture link for your site, your bio, or the footer of a proposal
  • AI suggestions help them articulate scope while they type
  • Attachments, budget range, and timeline captured alongside the answers

Inbound briefs

2 new
AllNewReviewedProposalsConverted
  • Kettle & CoE-commerce Store · 2 hours agoNew
  • Aster WellnessMarketing Campaign · YesterdayReviewed
  • Northwind RetailDigital Transformation · 3 days agoProposal sent
  • Lumen HealthWeb Development · 5 days agoConverted
Carries in
Nothing. This is where it starts.
Carries out
Structured answers, attachments, and a contact record
What gates it
You mark a brief reviewed before it can become an estimate.
02Estimate

Price it from roles and rates, not a gut feel

Build a resource and cost estimate line by line. Internal rate against billable rate gives you margin before you have quoted anything, and the same lines draft the proposal the client accepts.

  • Your team
  • AI assist
  • The client
  • Roles, hours, internal rate, and billable rate per line
  • Additional costs tracked separately and marked billable or not
  • Fixed price or time and material, set per project
  • The proposal narrative is drafted from these lines — AI writes the prose, never the numbers
  • The client accepts from a secure link; sent, viewed, accepted and declined are tracked as states, and acceptance is intent based and logged, not a legal signature.
  • Proposal templates set the sections, order, terms and intro text every proposal carries.
Carries in
The brief's scope answers and budget range
Carries out
Planned hours, internal cost, billable value, a margin figure, and an accepted proposal
What gates it
Margin is calculated as you build, so a thin job is visible before it is sent.
03Staff

Convert to a project and assemble the team

One action turns the accepted proposal into a live project with its phases, invites the client to their portal, and opens the estimate as the plan. Assign your own people, or bring in contractors through the talent pipeline.

  • Your team
  • Contractors
  • Per member roles, rates, and availability
  • Apply, shortlist, and onboard pipeline for contractors
  • Onboarding must be complete before a contractor can be assigned

Project team

Capacity checked
  • MKMaya KapoorLead developer74%
  • JTJon TranDesigner58%
  • SASara AliProject manager62%

Committed hours are checked against availability before anyone is assigned.

Carries in
The accepted proposal, its estimate, and the client contact
Carries out
A live project, phases, an invited client, and an assigned team
What gates it
Capacity is checked against committed weekly hours before anyone is assigned.
04Deliver

Run the work through gates the client has to pass

Deliver in agile, waterfall, or hybrid phases. Your team submits deliverables against named requirements, the client approves or rejects each one with a reason, and the phase will not advance until they are cleared.

  • Your team
  • The client
  • Contractors
  • Named deliverable requirements per phase, marked required or optional
  • Per deliverable client approve and reject, with reasons recorded
  • Risks, issues, change requests, and decisions logged as the work moves

Delivery · phases

Hybrid
✓ Discovery✓ BuildClient reviewSign off

Phase 3 of 4 · Client review active

  • Client UAT & feedback roundApproved
  • UAT feedback trackerAwaiting client
  • Sign off criteria confirmedNot submitted
Mark phase complete is blocked until all three are approved.
Carries in
The project plan, its phases, and the assigned team
Carries out
Approved deliverables, a document library, and a decision trail
What gates it
A phase cannot be marked complete while a required deliverable is unsubmitted.
05Track

Log the hours, approve them, bill on schedule

Your team logs billable time against phases. Two-level approval means an entry is checked before it can be billed or paid out, invoices go out on a payment schedule, and the governance record — risks, issues, decisions — stays on the same project.

  • Your team
  • The client
  • Contractors
  • Time logged against the phase it belongs to, not a free-text note
  • Two-level approval before an entry is billable
  • Invoices on payment schedules, with accounts receivable aging

Accounts receivable

1 overdue
Invoiced
$54,240
Collected
$24,000
Outstanding
$30,240
Overdue
$12,240
Collection rate44%
Overdue aging
0–30 days
$12,240
31–60 days
$0
61+ days
$0
Carries in
The live project, its phases, and the assigned team
Carries out
Approved time entries, invoices raised, and a governance trail
What gates it
Time is approved before it can be billed or paid out.
06Profit

See what it actually made

Watch the gap between what you planned and what it cost close in the reports. Margin per project, utilisation across the studio, and contractor payouts built from approved time.

  • Your team
  • Margin, planned against actual, per project
  • Utilisation across the studio
  • Contractor payout periods built from approved time
Carries in
Approved time, raised invoices, and the original estimate
Carries out
Margin, utilisation, and planned against actual
What gates it
Nothing gates a report — it reflects whatever the record already holds.
Two views of one project

What the client sees is a setting, not a spreadsheet you email

Clients get a portal on the same project record, carrying your branding rather than ours. They approve the work and see what they owe. They never see your internal rates or your margin.

Client capabilities

Per role
CapabilityOwnerBillingPMOStakeholder
View deliverables
Approve or reject
View invoices
View governance
Estimate and margin

Your estimate and margin are off by default for every client role.

What each side of a project can see
CapabilityYouClient
Phase progress and deliverablesFullVisible
Submit and approve deliverablesSubmitApprove or reject
Risks, issues, and decisionsFullToggleable
Invoices and payment scheduleFullVisible
Estimate totals and marginFullNever
Internal rates and payoutsFullNever

Client roles are product owner, billing contact, PMO contact, and stakeholder. Clients are never charged a seat.

Methodology

Set per project, not per workspace

A retainer and a fixed price rebuild are not the same shape of work, so they do not have to run the same way. Each project carries its own methodology and its own phase structure.

Agile

Sprint planning, execution, review, retrospective

Retainers and product work where scope is expected to move.

Waterfall

Discovery, design, build, QA, sign off

Fixed price builds where the client bought a defined outcome.

Hybrid

Fixed discovery and sign off, iterative in the middle

Most agency work, in practice. Firm at both ends, flexible between.

Custom

Your own phases, named your own way

Studios with a house process worth protecting. Enterprise plan.

Whichever shape you pick, the gate behaves the same way. A phase cannot be marked complete while a required deliverable is still unsubmitted or waiting on the client.

Learning the platform

Every seat gets the track for the job it actually does

A platform this wide is worth nothing if the team quietly carries on in the old tools. Coligna ships with its own curriculum: 28 short written walkthroughs across three tracks, about 3 hours end to end, in the sidebar of every workspace on every plan including the free one.

Owner16 modules

You are setting the workspace up and you own the numbers. The longest track, and the one that runs the whole lifecycle end to end.

About 115 minutes of reading

Admin6 modules

You run the day to day: the team, the inbound briefs, the estimates and the proposals that go out.

About 41 minutes of reading

Team6 modules

You do the work. Find what is assigned to you, submit it, log the time against it, and move on.

About 30 minutes of reading

Nothing to buy and nothing to schedule. Progress is tracked per person, so a new hire in month nine gets the same onboarding the founder did.

Start at the stage that hurts most

You do not have to run the whole lifecycle on day one. Most studios start by pointing their brief link at a live enquiry and work forward from there.

Join the waitlistBrowse the brief templates

Win the work. Deliver it.
Know what it made you.

Join the waitlistSee how it works