Key work happened by hand.
Proposals got put together by hand. Projects, invoices, and payment status were tracked in tools that never connected.
Building and Zoning Consulting · Salesforce Revenue Cloud
How William Vitacco Associates Brought Proposals, Projects and Billing Into Salesforce
WVA's work runs project by project, with scopes that grow and fees that pass straight through. Now every proposal, invoice, and payment lives in one place, and the books stay in sync with QuickBooks Online.
Outcome Highlights
Everything ties back to the project
opportunities, quotes, orders, and invoices
Proposals straight from the quote
branded, approved, and signed through DocuSign
Invoices when the work is ready
milestone billing, with filing fees and retainers kept separate
Payments and QuickBooks in step
status flows back into Salesforce automatically
Project at a Glance
- Client
- William Vitacco Associates (WVA)
- Industry
- Building and zoning law consulting in New York City, in business since 1969
- Salesforce products used
- Sales Cloud and Revenue Cloud Advanced handle selling and quoting, and Revenue Cloud Billing handles invoices, with Salesforce Payments for ACH and card
- Integrations
- Proposals get signed in DocuSign, and email comes in from Outlook. QuickBooks Online stays in sync by way of Tally
- Users
- Around 30 people use it, from the folks doing the daily work up to managers and the exec team
- Services
- Our team did it end to end, from discovery and the build to training, go-live, and the support that came after
- Timeline
- Go-live comes 18 to 20 weeks in. Two weeks of hypercare follow.
Summary
If you build in New York City, you deal with codes, zoning, and more city agencies than most people can name. William Vitacco Associates walks developers and owners through that process. Their projects tend to run long, and scope changes along the way. One invoice can mix professional services, filing fees billed at cost, and a retainer. Before Salesforce, proposals sat in one place, project tracking in another, and invoices and payment status somewhere else. People filled the gaps by hand.
Stack Intelligence set up Sales Cloud, Revenue Cloud Advanced, and Revenue Cloud Billing as one connected flow, from the first opportunity to the final payment. QuickBooks Online stays the accounting system of record, and it's kept in sync through the Tally connector.
The Challenge
WVA's engagements are project-based and rarely stand still. A client signs for one scope, then adds services, filing fees come up as the work moves through city agencies, and retainers get billed up front.
Our Approach
First job: the data model. With projects in the middle, every quote, order, and invoice has somewhere to hang.
How the project ran:
Discovery and solution design
WVA showed us how sales, projects, quotes, and billing actually worked day to day. We agreed on the project model, the catalog, billing events and reports, and nothing got built until then.
Build and configuration
Sales Cloud came first. Revenue Cloud Advanced followed for quotes, then Revenue Cloud Billing for invoices and payments. DocuSign, Salesforce Payments, and the QuickBooks connector were wired in along the way.
Testing, UAT and training
We pushed test deals all the way from opportunity to invoice. Then WVA's own people tested it over two rounds. Four live training sessions followed, split by role and recorded for later.
Deployment and go-live
A short change freeze came before launch, and both teams gave the go-ahead together. Once it was live, we walked a deal through quote, order, and invoice, then checked payments and the QuickBooks sync.
Hypercare
We stuck around for two weeks after launch, working off a shared issue log with regular check-ins.
What we built
- 01
Projects at the center.
Developers sit as parent accounts, with their LLCs and buildings as child accounts underneath. A custom Project object ties everything together. Starting a new engagement creates a project, and returning clients pick their existing one, so repeat work stays connected.
- 02
Sales Cloud basics, done cleanly.
Leads get captured, and opportunities move through stages that mirror WVA's sales process. Emails sync from Outlook. Tasks cover follow-ups and flag when something's ready to invoice, and Chatter keeps internal notes on the record.
- 03
A catalog built for services.
There are four kinds of items. Base services usually go in the first proposal. Additional services get added later and can be billed more than once. Filing fees pass through at cost, and retainers are billed up front. A single price book keeps pricing simple, and reps can still tweak a price on the quote.
- 04
Options A, B, and C.
Reps can clone a quote to offer options A, B, and C, keep every version, and mark one as accepted. Quotes go to a manager or director for approval, and they're approved automatically when a director builds them.
- 05
Proposals and DocuSign.
One branded template fills itself in from the quote and project. Proposals go out for signature through DocuSign right from Salesforce. Status updates on its own, and the signed copy is saved on the opportunity, quote, order, and project.
- 06
Orders and mid-project changes.
An accepted quote becomes an order that represents the approved scope. Adding services or filing fees mid-project creates an amendment linked to the same project, and new lines can be added without a new signature when one isn't needed.
- 07
Milestone billing.
Invoices are created when the project team marks work ready, when a filing fee comes in, or when a retainer is due. Service and filing fee invoices stay separate, and every invoice can be previewed before it's posted. Teams add details like application numbers and dates at billing time, without touching the original proposal.
- 08
Payments.
Clients pay by ACH or card through Salesforce Payments and choose the method on each invoice. Checks and wire transfers are applied by hand, and payment status shows on every invoice. Manual credits handle corrections like filing fee fixes.
- 09
QuickBooks Online through Tally.
Accounts sync to QuickBooks customers without duplicates. Posted orders and invoices push across with journal entries, payment status comes back, and filing fees and retainers land in the right categories.
- 10
Reports and dashboards.
There are up to 20 reports, plus dashboards for the exec team, finance and billing, and sales. At a glance, people see what's ready to bill and what's invoiced vs. unbilled on each project. Open invoices and retainer balances show up too, and filing fees stay apart from service revenue.
Before vs. After
| Area | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Proposals | Built by hand | Generated from the quote with one branded template, signed through DocuSign |
| Project and billing details | Captured outside the quote | Linked to a Project record from opportunity to invoice |
| Scope changes and filing fees | Hard to manage the same way across projects | Amendments tied to the original project |
| Invoicing | Manual | Milestone invoices created when work is marked ready |
| Payment status | Tracked in disconnected systems | Synced from Salesforce Payments and QuickBooks Online |
| Visibility | Limited for finance and leadership | Dashboards for executives, finance and sales |
| Accounting | QuickBooks Online | Still QuickBooks Online, now kept in sync through Tally |
Tech Stack
FAQs
Think of it in two halves. Revenue Cloud Advanced is the selling side, where products, pricing, quotes, approvals and orders live. Revenue Cloud Billing takes over once an order exists and runs invoices, billing schedules and payments. At William Vitacco Associates, a signed proposal becomes an order, and that order gets billed in milestone invoices.
Yes. WVA treats filing fees as pass-through, non-revenue items, and retainers get billed up front against a project. Filing fees are billed on a separate invoice from services. In QuickBooks Online they post to their own category, so reports never mix them in with service revenue.
Yes. WVA links them with the Tally connector. Each account becomes a QuickBooks customer, and posted orders and invoices go across with journal entries. Payment status flows back into Salesforce, while the accounting itself stays in QuickBooks Online.
Billing Around Projects and Milestones?
How do proposals, invoices and payments get handled on your team right now? We'll show you what a connected setup in Salesforce could look like.