https://www.eisneramper.com⭐️ Placeholders for unfilled roles
⭐️ Tentative projects for pipeline forecasting
⭐️ Real-time utilization charts
✅ 3.1% increase in utilization = $7.6M in utilization savings in first 3 months of implementation
✅ 75% reduction in scheduling time for leadership
✅ Strategic resource planning aligned with business growth
EisnerAmper is one of the largest accounting and advisory firms in the U.S., with a rapidly expanding Advisory Services Line. As client demand grew and the firm accelerated through mergers and acquisitions, the team needed a more consistent way to manage delivery across practices.
Each group had its own delivery model, staffing method, and spreadsheet-based approach to resourcing. There was no unified view of capacity, no reliable way to forecast chargeable work or projected revenue, and limited visibility across teams.
The Advisory team had reached a point where its legacy model could no longer scale.
After reviewing existing internal tools and approaches, they looked externally – and chose Runn. It stood out for showing both people and project needs in one place, along with utilization charts that helped the team spot upcoming workload cliffs before they hit.
Runn was first introduced in EisnerAmper’s Advisory Services Line in early 2025. Adoption started at 30% – and within just two months, that number hit 100%, covering nearly 500 professionals.
The rollout began with a “listening tour,” a key change management step where EisnerAmper’s Senior Manager of Operations, Advisory Services, Jenna Lemmon, met with each practice leader to understand their delivery models, staffing rhythms, and pain points.
“They deeply get what they do,” she explains. “They know what’s going to work best for their teams. And it’s really up to us as resource managers to be skilled in taking that information and translating it into usable data.”
By emphasizing structured intake and clarity across delivery groups, Lemmon helped align resource management practices.
“You have to lead by listening,” she says – a mindset that helped make cross-team engagement easier and accelerated adoption.
She focused on connecting people, systems, and data across teams, and encouraged staff to embrace change. These efforts laid the groundwork for full Runn adoption across the Advisory Line.
Executive leadership was also involved from the outset.
“Our COO and CEO of Advisory believed in resource management. They believed in the tool and led a lot of the messaging to unify the practice,” Lemmon shares.
That alignment made a huge difference.
Once Runn was up and running, the team entered a focused post-launch phase to optimize use, known as “hypercare.” This included monthly check-ins to review scheduling accuracy, team-level variance, and 30-60-90 day forecasts.
Interest quickly spread as other parts of the firm heard of the software.
Today, Runn is used across four groups at EisnerAmper: Advisory, Outsourced Services, Assurance (specifically the Accounting and Technology Control Services group), and the Enterprise Transformation Office.
With Runn in place, the Advisory Services Line gained a forward-looking view of capacity and revenue. Teams could identify under- and over-utilization earlier, shift resources more strategically, and more informed decisions across groups.
These outcomes were not the result of software alone. They reflected the combined efforts of practice leaders, delivery teams, and resource managers working in sync – with Runn providing the visibility and structure to support that work.
From implementation through hypercare, the team saw a 3.1% lift in utilization. Using the Resource Management Institute’s calculator, the team estimated that shift could equate to as much as $7.6 million in annual utilization savings.
This estimate helped put a tangible frame around the value of greater visibility, alignment, and consistency in resource planning.
🎥 How EisnerAmper quantified Runn’s ROI using the Resource Management Institute’s model.
That visibility also gave leadership time back. Scheduling time dropped by nearly 75% as hour-long check-ins became 15-minute reviews focused on outcomes and forecasting.
This freed leaders to prioritize growth, not triage.
“We’ve reduced the time that our leaders are involved in scheduling with Runn,” she explains. “And these leaders that we're talking about – these practice leaders and partners – are some of the most billable professionals in our firm, with the most revenue-generating potential.”
Their time is now spent more efficiently. This shift has improved meeting quality and ensured resource management happens at the right level. It also allows them to focus on what they do best: developing the practice.
Runn also became a valuable part of executive decision-making.
Forecast data is now regularly shared with the C-suite, offering clear visibility into projected utilization and revenue. By connecting resource management with finance, FP&A, and strategic planning, Runn enables faster, more confident decisions across the firm.
This forecasting capability is especially critical for the Advisory Line, where demand is driven by new opportunities rather than repeatable work. With only 15% of the team’s work recurring year over year, there’s no reliable baseline to fall back on – next year’s projects haven’t been sold yet.
“Our forecast is very closely tied to our sales pipeline,” Lemmon explains, “and it’s critical that we understand how we're going to perform and what the leadership team can expect.”
That forward-looking insight has become a powerful enabler for leadership – especially amid rapid M&A. Executives now have a clear view of how Advisory is likely to perform over the next 30, 60, and 90 days, or even six months, allowing them to plan with clarity.
As Lemmon shares: “We’ve been very proud to achieve about 90% forecasting accuracy.”
That confidence elevated resource management from a tactical function to a strategic partner in firm-wide planning.
A new operational cadence followed: weekly meetings with Finance and FP&A, forecast reviews alongside pipeline data, and monthly contributions to executive reporting. This shifted the focus from reactive staffing to proactive planning.
What started as a scheduling solution became something bigger – a shared lens for planning across the business.
“We’re on the same page now with our finance team, our strategic growth team, and our executive leadership team. We’re now using Runn data and Runn forecasts, and presenting that on a monthly basis to firm executive leadership. And so being able to kind of pull that all together in one view – not just the people piece, but also the finance piece – has been huge. It’s been able to really take us to another level and make us more sophisticated as an organization.”
🎥 How Runn’s tentative planning and forecasts help EisnerAmper align across sales, finance, and leadership to turn scheduling into a strategic lever.
This shift improved coordination, planning accuracy, and communication across teams – helping resource managers respond to change and support cross-practice needs more effectively and efficiently.
As EisnerAmper’s advisory business evolved with new services, shifting demand, and rapid M&A, the resource management team focused on keeping momentum. Runn became a key tool for planning in motion, even when details were still unfolding.
To do that, the team leaned heavily on Runn’s placeholder feature – a way to represent unfilled roles during planning. Placeholders act as stand-ins for real people, allowing teams to scope work, estimate costs, and match future demand to the right roles and skills before staffing is finalized.
What used to be managed through scattered notes, emails, calls, and ad hoc conversations became a structured and visible part of the planning process.
“One of the features in Runn we use a lot is placeholders. So if we have someone resign, but that work is still planned, and we still have to execute it, we’ll shift that to a placeholder. We don’t wait. We feather in everything we know as far as dates and expectations, and we adjust later if needed.”
That real-time flexibility helps EisnerAmper stay agile when plans shift. It also supports fast, confident staffing when resourcing needs are already clear by providing visibility into capacity, skills, and future demand.
“We had a project where we had to staff 30 people, and it took us 30 minutes,” Lemmon says, “It used to take us days – sometimes weeks – to do that before Runn.”
Tentative projects also became a vital part of the team’s planning strategy. Instead of waiting for contracts to be signed, they began staffing against high-confidence deals in the pipeline. They treat these assignments as likely to close, mapping roles and capacity based on the likelihood of work closing, so they can stay ahead of demand.
As Lemmon explains: “Once that client signs the contract, we’re ready to deploy because we’ve already modelled out the workforce plan with Runn.”
This level of agility also helped new teams ramp quickly while maintaining delivery momentum.
As EisnerAmper continues to scale through mergers and acquisitions, the firm is prioritizing a unified delivery model. Every incoming team is now onboarded to Runn from the outset, establishing shared visibility and operational consistency from day one.
That foundation has already proven effective across a wide range of delivery models. In Advisory, Runn supports ad hoc client work. In Outsourced Services, it helps manage recurring monthly programs. The Assurance team uses it for technical accounting, and the Enterprise Transformation Office applies it to internal initiatives.
This diversity underscores both the platform’s flexibility and the firm’s broader recognition of resource management as a strategic discipline.
EisnerAmper has also made rapid progress on the Resource Management Institute’s maturity model. What began as a Level 1–2 operation has quickly advanced to somewhere between Level 2 and 3. The team is now focused on reaching Level 4 – with clear goals around forecast completeness, systems integration, and cross-functional process alignment.
Rather than simply patching gaps, Runn has helped bring them to light – bringing visibility to scalable delivery.
EisnerAmper’s story shows how the right visibility can turn resource management into a quantifiable, strategic advantage.
➡️ Watch the full webinar with Jenna Lemmon, Advisory Resource Manager at EisnerAmper, to see how the firm transformed resource management.
