Reference

Glossary

Plain-language definitions of the terms used across Ventura.

Engagement

A unit of client work (a file). Belongs to one client; carries an owner, status, economics, and time. In the agency vertical, an engagement is a job/project.

Engagement Partner

The owner of an engagement. A per-engagement assignment, not a global role.

Pursuit (opportunity)

An open business-development deal moving through stages from lead to won or lost.

Relationship

A referral partner or centre of influence you nurture with give-first touches on a cadence.

Touch

A meaningful contact with a relationship or client — an intro, a resource, a meeting — logged manually or auto-captured from email/calendar.

Now / Next

Your daily task list: Now is the few things that matter today; Next is everything queued behind them.

File health

An engagement's status pill (Healthy / Watch / At risk / Setup needed / Paused), computed from flags like missing next action or slipping recovery.

Recovery

How much you realize versus the standard value of the work. The core money discipline; compared against a firm target and breakeven rate.

WIP

Work in progress — unbilled value sitting on a file, waiting for a billing review.

Engagement kind

Project (scoped/fixed), Retainer (ongoing monthly allotment), or Internal (non-billable internal work, excluded from recovery).

Retainer burn

For a retainer engagement, this month's logged hours versus the monthly hours allotment.

Rate tier

The rate-card tier a person bills and costs at (Partner / Manager / Senior / Staff). Snapshotted onto each time entry.

Utilization

Client hours divided by total tracked hours, against a firm target (often 80%).

Effective rate

Revenue divided by hours on a piece of work — the realized $/hr, compared to target and breakeven.

Firm cockpit

The partner-only Firm workspace: financials, forecast, monthly review, and firm-wide analytics.

RLS

Row-level security — the database boundary that isolates each firm's data and enforces who can read what.