OnBrioResource
Agency & Freelancer Glossary
30 essential terms every agency owner and freelancer should know.
A
- Approval Workflow
- A defined process for reviewing and approving deliverables before they are finalized. It specifies who reviews work, in what order, and what constitutes an approved state. OnBrio's built-in approval tools let you send work directly inside the client portal and capture timestamped sign-offs.
- ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue)
- MRR × 12 — the annualized recurring revenue of a business. ARR gives a yearly view of predictable income from retainers and subscriptions, and is commonly used when reporting growth to investors or benchmarking against industry peers. See also: MRR.
B
- Billable Hours
- Hours spent on client work that can be invoiced. Billable hours are tracked against a specific client or project and converted into invoice line items at the agreed rate. OnBrio's time tracking tool logs hours per task and generates invoices from those entries in one click. Contrast with non-billable hours.
C
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
- The total cost of winning a new client — including marketing spend, sales time, and any tools or events involved. Formula: total sales & marketing spend ÷ number of new clients acquired in the same period. Tracking CAC alongside LTV reveals whether your growth is profitable.
- Change Order
- A formal document that modifies the agreed scope, timeline, or cost of a project. A change order should describe the additional work, the cost impact, and the revised timeline — and must be signed before extra work begins. It is the primary defense against scope creep.
- Churn
- The percentage of clients who stop working with you in a given period. Monthly churn = clients lost ÷ clients at start of period × 100. High churn signals problems in onboarding, delivery quality, or value communication. Lower churn directly increases ARR and LTV.
- Client Onboarding
- The structured process of welcoming a new client after they sign — covering portal access, kickoff meeting, information gathering, and template setup. Strong onboarding reduces early churn and sets clear expectations. See the full guide: How to Onboard Clients as an Agency.
- Client Portal
- A secure online workspace where a client can view project status, access shared files, review and approve deliverables, sign documents, and pay invoices — without needing access to internal tools. OnBrio's client portal can be white-labeled with your own domain and branding.
- Contract
- A legally binding agreement that defines the terms of an engagement — scope, payment, IP rights, revision limits, confidentiality, and termination conditions. Learn how to create one from scratch: How to Create a Freelance Contract.
- CRM (Client Relationship Management)
- A system for managing relationships and interactions with clients and prospects — tracking contacts, deal stages, communications, and follow-ups. See: Best CRM for Agencies.
D
- Deliverable
- A specific output or work product agreed upon in a contract or SOW. Deliverables should be named precisely, with explicit acceptance criteria (format, revision rounds, sign-off process) to prevent disputes. Managed in OnBrio through the client portal approval workflow.
- Discovery Call
- An early conversation with a prospective client to understand their goals, challenges, budget, and timeline before preparing a proposal. A structured discovery process prevents wasted proposals and sets clearer scope. See: How to Run a Discovery Call.
E
- E-Signature
- A legally binding digital signature applied without printing or scanning. Under the ESIGN Act (US) and eIDAS (EU), an e-signature carries the same legal weight as a handwritten signature when captured with a timestamp, IP address, and identity verification. OnBrio's proposals include built-in e-signature.
G
- Gantt Chart
- A timeline-based project plan showing tasks, durations, start/end dates, and dependencies — making it easy to visualize what is happening when and what blocks what. Commonly used in project management alongside Kanban boards.
I
- Invoice
- A document sent to a client requesting payment for services rendered — listing the work performed, amounts owed, payment terms, and due date. OnBrio's invoicing tool generates invoices from time entries or fixed-price projects and collects payment in the client portal.
K
- Kanban
- A visual project management system using columns (e.g., To Do, In Progress, Done) and cards to represent tasks and their current status. Kanban makes work-in-progress visible and highlights bottlenecks. Often paired with a Gantt chart for deadline tracking.
L
- LTV (Lifetime Value)
- The total revenue a client generates over the entire relationship. LTV ÷ CAC is one of the most important ratios for evaluating business health — a ratio above 3:1 is generally considered healthy for service businesses.
M
- Milestone Billing
- A billing structure where invoices are tied to the completion of specific project phases or deliverables, rather than a fixed calendar date. Common milestone structures: 50% on signing, 25% at midpoint, 25% on final delivery. Reduces cash flow risk compared to billing entirely on completion.
N
- Net-30 / Net-15
- Payment terms specifying that an invoice is due 30 or 15 days after the invoice date or date of delivery. Net-30 is the most common standard; shorter terms like Net-15 or Due on Receipt improve cash flow. Late fee clauses (e.g., 1.5% per month) are typically added to encourage timely payment.
- Non-Billable Hours
- Internal time — admin, pitches, internal meetings, professional development — that cannot be charged to clients. Tracking non-billable hours reveals the true cost of running the business and helps improve billable hour ratios. Use OnBrio's time tracking to separate the two automatically.
P
- Project Brief
- A short document outlining a project's goals, audience, deliverables, timeline, and constraints. Produced before a SOW is written, a brief aligns the client and team on what success looks like — preventing costly misalignment once work begins.
- Proposal
- A sales document sent to a prospective client presenting the recommended approach, scope, timeline, and pricing for a specific engagement. A proposal is not a contract by itself, but becomes binding when signed. Build and send proposals with e-signature via OnBrio Proposals. See also: How to Write a Freelance Proposal.
R
- Retainer
- A recurring fee — typically monthly — paid by a client in exchange for a defined set of services or a committed block of time. Retainers provide revenue predictability (they contribute directly to MRR) and budget certainty for clients. Unlike project billing, retainer hours are often "use it or lose it" unless rollover terms are agreed.
S
- Scope Creep
- The gradual expansion of a project's scope beyond what was originally agreed — usually without additional compensation. The primary defenses: a detailed out-of-scope list in the SOW, a defined revision round limit, and a change order process. See: How to Prevent Scope Creep.
- Statement of Work (SOW)
- A document attached to or referenced in a contract that defines the specific work to be done — deliverables, timeline, milestones, payment schedule, roles, assumptions, exclusions, and acceptance criteria. The SOW is the primary document used to judge whether the agreed work was delivered. Download a free template at /templates/sow-template or read the guide: How to Write a Statement of Work.
T
- Time Tracking
- The practice of recording how much time is spent on specific tasks, projects, or clients. Time tracking enables billable hour invoicing, reveals which clients or project types are most profitable, and helps identify time lost to non-billable work. See OnBrio's time tracking feature.
W
- White-Label
- A product or service created by one company that another rebrands and presents as their own. In agency software, a white-label client portalruns under your own domain, logo, and colors — clients see your brand, not the vendor's. Explore OnBrio's white-label feature or read: White-Label Client Portal Guide.
Put these terms into practice.
OnBrio brings proposals, contracts, SOWs, retainers, time tracking, and client portals into one workspace.