You keep the file. Let it answer the hard questions.
The books are already right. What is missing is the cut your client runs the business by, whether by project, by client or by department, and a way to show where each figure came from when they ask. That is all Kamino does.
A worked margin on one client file
One client file · illustrative demo data, a fictional agency
Company line
31.4%
Gross margin, year to date
- Scope
- One Step Ahead · all projects · 1 Jan – 8 Aug 2026
- Derivation
- ($453,250 revenue − $310,929 direct cost) ÷ $453,250 = 31.4%. Direct cost is the four cost-of-delivery accounts below; overhead is excluded.
Records behind the figure · illustrative demo data
- 5000$148,600Subcontracted deliveryProduction partners billed to a job
- 5100$96,220Venue & production hireSpace, rigging, AV, power
- 5200$34,109Travel & accommodationCrew movement on client jobsException$4,180 of this sits on no project. It is in this total and on no job, so no project carries it.
- 5300$32,000Freelance crewDay-rate staff, on-site only
| Account | What it holds | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 5000 | Subcontracted deliveryProduction partners billed to a job | $148,600 |
| 5100 | Venue & production hireSpace, rigging, AV, power | $96,220 |
| 5200 | Travel & accommodationCrew movement on client jobsException$4,180 of this sits on no project. It is in this total and on no job, so no project carries it. | $34,109 |
| 5300 | Freelance crewDay-rate staff, on-site only | $32,000 |
Margin $142,321. The subtraction is shown, not asserted.
Demo extract · corrected to QuickBooks Online, 8 Aug 2026, 07:15
The answer survives being questioned
When a client pushes back on a figure, you do not rebuild the workpaper. You open the figure and the invoices are there, with the arithmetic and the scope written out. The conversation ends in a minute instead of an evening.
You are not the reporting department
Clients ask operator questions: which job made money, which client is expensive, where the hours went. Kamino answers those from the file you already maintain, so the questions stop arriving as ad-hoc requests to you.
Same question, same answer
Determinism matters most to the person whose name is on the pack. Run it in the morning and at month-end and you get the same figure unless a record changed, and the service note says the picture is corrected on every sync.
Several client files
Practices running more than one file are priced by conversation, not by a published per-entity multiplier. That multiplier is exactly what makes report packs expensive at scale. Email info@kamino.app with how many files you carry and what you need out of them.
Corrected on every sync with your accounting platform.
For most files it takes an afternoon: connect QuickBooks Online, and your client’s profit by project, client and department is there, with the invoice behind every figure one click away.