Accounting: The Silent Hero of Your Marketing Agency's Success

Agencies are experts at asking clients hard questions to create amazing creative campaigns, but they can be soft on themselves in ensuring they have purchased the right software and are using it effectively. As I’ve observed over the last 25 years of helping agencies progress along their technology modernization journey, it's time to shine a spotlight on the often-overlooked accounting functions in end-to-end agency management software.

Don’t Take a Frankenstein Approach to Technology Modernization

Agencies have a habit of cobbling together their own “innovative” custom end-to-end agency management solution. While it is ambitious, this approach usually does nothing to boost efficiency, save money, or improve business processes. It turns out that this approach is a never-ending cycle of staying in a fragmented business environment.

On the other hand, an end-to-end agency management system built from the ground up with this focus and with agencies in mind can do wonders for your business. These solutions integrate all key functions from the onset including accounting providing real-time data on clients, projects, and team performance that can ensure agencies succeed.

Accounting Features Agencies Are Missing Out On

Some of the most powerful accounting features available within end-to-end agency management platforms include financial metrics, project profitability reporting, employee productivity tracking, and insightful forecasting tools. Unfortunately, many agencies overlook these by focusing on capabilities in standalone internal and external accounting systems.

These standalone generalized accounting programs oftentimes do not align with the financial considerations that are unique to marketing agency operations.

It's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Maximizing the Value of Accounting Features in Agency Management Software

Change is the constant that almost every person tries to avoid. This is especially true when it comes to software usage. Tenured software programs usually have a hard time being displaced if it checks some of the key boxes that leaders believe are important.  When it comes to fully utilizing accounting functions in agency management software this is especially the case as companies are looking for the quickest and not the best means to manage their finances.

Asking employees to abandon their trusted accounting software requires engaging with users during the implementation, training, process development, and support stages.  If you’re an agency that does not have end-to-end agency management software already in place, then add the evaluation process for new software to the list of stages above where users should be engaged.

The Value of Real-Time Insights

With real-time data synchronization, employees can quickly see the impact of their time, tasks, and costs on project budgets.  

From a PM perspective, passing the responsibility of time entry and expense reporting to the end users eliminates the redundancy of either manually entering costs into a separate system, utilizing an import feature, or using an API.  This eliminates potential data errors and results in real-time data management and analysis. I’m sure you know how annoying it is to find and correct these types of errors, so this could be a major benefit for your agency.

Let’s give a realistic example to demonstrate the value of real-time data insights. An account executive (AE) is trying to pitch a big existing client on a new project. The client asks the AE how much budget is left and if there are adequate resources to execute the excellent idea. With a quick flip of the browser window the AE opens the end-to-end agency management system and gets the answers in real-time, wins the client’s approval, and strengthens the overall relationship.

This is just the tip of the iceberg showing how a well-run agency operates efficiently and in a fiscally responsible manner.

You Owe This One Step to Your Bottom Line

Look, I get it, I’m a CPA who fell in love with agency management software decades ago. Accounting isn't exciting to think or talk about. Without it, it's hard to pay employees, and vendors, and keep the lights on.

In essence, the biggest impact that an all-in-one solution provides is that it will shatter the silos that are generally created when an agency adopts a multi-software approach to managing the agency's operations.

Agencies should take a hard look at two things as we head to the last quarter of 2024. First, do you have a quality, purpose-built, end-to-end agency management system in place? Second, is your agency using the accounting features to its full potential?

You owe it to your bottom line to ask these questions now and adjust accordingly.