Also known as: retainer agreement, recurring engagement, service retainer
A retainer is a recurring commercial agreement where a client pays a fixed fee at a regular interval (monthly or quarterly) for a defined scope of ongoing work: a block of hours, a set of deliverables, or access to the team at an agreed priority. Retainers provide predictable revenue to the provider and predictable access to the client.
Where you'll see retainer in day-to-day work inside Helm.
Helm handles retainers as recurring invoices with associated hour allocations. Tracked time against the client consumes the retainer balance, and the Operations Manager agent surfaces over- or under-consumption before invoice time. When a retainer is trending over-consumed, the Sales Representative or Account Manager agent can draft a conversation about scope or rate. Closed-won retainer deals auto-create the recurring invoice schedule.
Concepts that show up in the same workflows and reports.
Common questions and honest answers.
Link the retainer to a project, track time as normal, and Helm accumulates consumed hours against the retainer's allocated pool. Under- and over-consumption are visible at a glance and agent-reported monthly.
Depends on the agreement. Common patterns: additional hours bill at a higher hourly rate, a change order re-sizes the retainer, or over-consumption is absorbed with a clear conversation about scope. Helm supports all three. The key is visibility before month-end.
Yes. Retainer configurations support carry-over, expiration of unused hours, or strict use-it-or-lose-it depending on how you've structured the engagement.
Helm is the AI work platform where these concepts stop being theory and start being your Monday morning.