What system do you use to manage your Agency (CRM/Project Management/Accounting/etc)?

[PamG]

Greetings!
Our Agency is currently using several of the Zoho products to manage projects, track time (by project, Client, etc), categorize client expenses (billable or not) but it's not a perfect solution and their support doesn't seem to "get" Agency "stuff," they're more focused on software development and managing sales funnels. Before I came onboard, they had been using Asana and weren't happy with it.

We're particularly interested in being able to do a better job of tracking employee utilization, client profitability, etc. and are having a lot of trouble bending Zoho to our will and producing useful reports. We're also interested in the Agile/Sprint way of doing things, so bonus points if your solution has the capability of operating in that environment.

Any Agency out there using something that you love and seems geared towards the agency environment? Thanks for your input!

~Pam

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Pam,

We use Asana for PM and Harvest for team/client time tracking. They integrate with each other. I like them both.

 

[PamG]

Hi Pam,

We use Asana for PM and Harvest for team/client time tracking. They integrate with each other. I like them both.

Thank you! Do you track Client expenses in Asana or Harvest? Do you use Asana for billing Clients?

 

[PamG]

To clarify my previous question re: billing clients. This would be more for billing them for expenses, not time.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

For billing clients we use software from a company called Practice Ignition.

 

[Tim Colling]

We use Freedcamp for project management and developer time tracking. We use WaveApps for billing.

 

[Conor Treacy]

We use Accelo. Time tracking, project management, task management, employee scheduling and time allocation, retainers, invoices and individual tickets (which can be invoiced before or after completion). Asset management, software expenses, it has it all.

Clients can also log into the system to review status, communicate, submit new requests, upload files etc - we don't use the Client portal section.

The software has saved us thousands of dollars in lost billing. Now we time track phone calls, meetings, even opening an email - everything is tracked and billed.

We've been using it for about 3 years. Not perfect, there's still things we want, but we don't use any additional software (other than Quickbooks).

 

[rupalimittra]

Hi! We have been using asana for several years for project management
we also use WorkTime to track team productivity and working hours

 

[MonicaH]

We use monday.com for nearly everything, although invoices are sent from ZohoBooks. monday.com has an easy time tracking feature that can be used for team members, tasks, client activities, etc., as well as tons of options to track and view nearly anything you want. If you can measure it, you can track/view it. Even our customer support is managed through it (emails to support@ go directly into a monday board). We'd be lost without it!

 

[Digitaldar]

We use Teamwork.com and QuickBooks. I set my contractors up on a DriveTraffic (my domain) email address so it is easier for everyone to remember With Teamwork, I can decide if tasks are billable to the client or not (I don't use that feature but in a previous job we did) and you can indicate the date which you invoice the client so that it is easier to grab the next set of hours for invoicing. There is a degree of connection with QB but I have not explored it closely. What I find that I need right now is at a glance look of prospects. I am trying Streak for gmail but open to others! I'm going to look at Practice Ignition; I like the idea of using Monday for support - I could likely arrange that with Teamwork!

 

[robgardner]

I had the same problem with zoho as you, especially with their poor employee utilization module. In my case I was lucky enough to find a tool called Primetric that solves that problem shortly after I spotted it, it was 2 years ago and I use it to this day. It helped me not only with that, but also it improved our budget forecasting, time tracking, resource allocation. From what I know, teamwork also can work for you as it was mentioned in this thread already. Hope it helps