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Because the retainer is agreed once and consumed invisibly. Nobody tracks the draw-down against it until somebody notices a client has had double their hours for three months.
Meanwhile new business is tracked in one place, delivery in another, and utilisation in a third — so the question "is this client worth it" cannot be answered without an afternoon's work.
The client is one record from pitch to retainer to project. Retainer draw-down reads logged hours in Loop, so the balance is current rather than reconstructed.
Over-servicing shows as it happens, with the specific hours behind it, while there is still a conversation to be had.
It will not stop over-servicing. It makes it visible early and attributable, so the decision to absorb it is a decision.
It also will not price your retainers.
The renewal conversation has evidence: what was agreed, what was used, what it cost to deliver.
New business and delivery capacity are visible together, so pitching for work the team cannot staff becomes a deliberate risk rather than an accident.
Products, not integrations. Each one reads the same record, so a join is a permission rather than a sync job with a mapping screen behind it.
Yes, or expire, per contract — and the balance is visible to both sides.
Yes, from Loop, against real availability.
Yes, where you expose it in the portal.
Half an hour on your own numbers is usually enough to say whether Flow is the right place to start.