ERP for Agencies
Run creative projects, keep budgets in view and bill clients, in one place.
In Numbers
What the switch means day to day
What consultancies and IT service providers measure with QUANTICAL.ERP day to day.
What project time tracking has to do in an agency
Agencies live off two kinds of clients at once. The retainer client pays monthly for a fixed quota, the project client for a relaunch with a budget and an end date. Both are served by the same team, often on the same day, and both want an invoice at month end that matches their contract.
Time tracking is only the start. What matters is what becomes of the hours: how much of the retainer quota is used? Does the relaunch still carry its budget, or has the team already invested more hours than the fixed price allows? These questions decide an agency's margin, and they cannot be answered in hindsight.
QUANTICAL.ERP runs retainers and projects side by side in one system. Every project carries its budget, its hourly rates and its billing rule. The income statement per client and project moves with every booking.
How agencies work with QUANTICAL.ERP
Retainer and project as two kinds of budget
A retainer is stored on the project as a sequence of monthly budgets, a relaunch as one budget with a term. In both cases controlling shows how much is used and when it gets tight. Non-billable work, such as an internal pitch project, runs as an internal project and stays out of billing.
Rates per role and client
Creative, consulting and project management have different rates, and a key account has different terms from a new client. The hourly rate therefore sits on the assignment of a person to a project, with a validity period. A rate adjustment at the turn of the year changes no old bookings.
Invoices from the bookings
The monthly invoice run produces for each client the invoice their project prescribes: individually per project or grouped across all of the client's projects, with the stored payment terms and in your agency's branding. Billed hours are locked so nothing is charged twice. The record of hours is attached if you wish.
Income statement per client
Bookings times rate produce revenue, salaries produce cost, and the difference is the margin per client, project and employee. You see which retainer pays for itself and which client gets more hours than they pay for.
Vacation and capacity in the team calendar
Vacation requests are submitted and approved in the platform, remaining days and public holidays are calculated by the system. The calendar shows who is out and when. Together with planned hours per project this answers whether the team can still carry the next pitch.
Where Excel and creative tools fail agencies at billing
Many agencies track time in their project or task tool because the team works there anyway. Those tools know neither hourly rates nor invoices. At month end someone exports hours to Excel, recalculates quotas and types totals into an invoicing program.
The retainer is the classic case: the quota is quietly exceeded because nobody looks during the month, and at the end the agency has to choose between giving the extra hours away and writing an awkward message.
On fixed-price projects the comparison of hours invested against the fixed price is missing, and with it the margin. An agency that sees this number only with the annual accounts has been quoting without it for twelve months.
Frequently asked questions from agencies
Can we run retainer clients and project clients side by side?
Yes. Both are projects with their own budget and their own billing rules. A retainer gets monthly budgets, a relaunch gets one budget with a term. The team books on both, and the invoice run treats each by its rules.
How do we see whether a retainer quota is used up?
In controlling, continuously. Consumption comes from bookings times rate and is shown against the monthly budget and the projection to month end, not only after an export.
Can employees have different rates per client?
Yes. The rate sits on the assignment of a person to a project, with a validity period. The same person can book at two rates for two clients.
How do we handle internal work such as pitches or own projects?
As an internal project. The hours are recorded and count towards utilization, but not towards invoices or revenue. That shows you how much capacity goes into non-billable work.
What does QUANTICAL.ERP cost for an agency?
12.90 euros per user per month, cancellable monthly, all features included. Before that, 90 days free with the full feature set and no payment details required. Seats can be activated and released per person, for instance for freelancers who only book occasionally.