An engineering firm where a won RFP becomes a running project, mirrored in Xero

The challenge

The firm designs mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems for residential and commercial buildings. Sales already ran smoothly through an RFP pipeline in ClickUp. The firm wanted to remove the manual setup and double entry between winning a project, delivering it and billing for it.

What was in the way

• Every won deal had to be rebuilt by hand as a ClickUp project.
• The same details were entered again in Xero.
• Time estimates could be changed by mistake anywhere in the project.
• Leadership had no live view of estimated against actual hours.

The system we designed

An approved RFP now creates a row on the Master Project List. Project type is a multi-select, so one project can cover several disciplines, and the scope, rate and charge type are captured there. Setting the status to Ready for Launch builds the ClickUp folder, the phase lists for each discipline (schematic design, design development and construction documents at 50, 90 and 100 percent) and the default tasks, then creates a matching Xero project with billable rates. When everything is built, the status switches to Active on its own, confirming the launch worked.

Key automations and integrations

• RFP to project: approved RFPs move straight onto the master list.
• One-step launch: the project is built in ClickUp and Xero together.
• Estimates roll up: from sub-item to phase, phase to project, and project to Xero.
• Protected estimates: an estimate edited outside the master list is reverted within seconds, and the change is logged.
• Time to Xero: tracked time becomes Xero time entries, ready for invoicing.
• Live phase status: the active phase updates from task status, and new clients are added to a client directory linked to their projects.

The impact

• About 5 times faster from a won deal to a running, billable project.
• Leadership monitors every project’s phase, estimates and hours from one master list, without going into the weeds of each task.
• No double entry between ClickUp and Xero.
• Finance invoices from data that is always current.
• Overruns show immediately: in testing, a phase estimated at 50 hours that logged 60 surfaced at project level, and in Xero, as 120 percent of budget.

Why it scales

Templates handle any mix of disciplines, and ClickUp and Xero always agree because neither is updated by hand. Protected estimates keep billing accurate as more people log time.