Did I Catch You at a Bad Time?

Did I Catch You at a Bad Time?

If you’ve ever worked in an ad agency, you know there’s one person who seems to hold the whole financial universe together. She’s not just doing “the books.” She’s running client accounting, chasing down media invoices, making sure time gets billed, projects get reconciled, and revenue actually shows up in the right month. In short, she’s the nerve center where operations and accounting collide.

So when I pick up the phone and ask, “Did I catch you at a bad time?”, I always get the same answer: “Nope. It’s always a good time.”

Why? Because she’s not buried in month-end reporting hell. She delegated that.

The Workhorse of Agency Accounting. Let’s lay it out. This role is far more than just “finance.” It’s the glue between account management, project management, and the executive team. Here’s what’s on her desk:

• Media billing and vendor reconciliations. Did the invoice from the publisher match the client's billing? Did the credits get applied?

• Advance billing and revenue recognition: Prebilling the client, issuing internal invoices, and making sure revenue is recognized properly (and on time).

• The reconciliation gauntlet: Credit cards, banks, and the occasional “mystery transaction” that nobody wants to own up to.

• Project-level write-ups and write-offs: Adjusting margins where reality didn’t match the forecast.

• Unbilled time and deferred revenue: Hunting down the phantom hours and costs so projects don’t bleed profit in silence.

• Income statement ownership: Keeping the P&L accurate and current.

And that’s before she steps into the daily sparring match between account management and project management over “why the numbers look the way they do.”

The Smartest Delegation She Ever Made

Here’s the twist: she doesn’t do everything. She made the call to subcontract the financial reporting, the part that lives in spreadsheets, gets packaged for the board, and rears its head once a month.

Month-end reporting is important, sure. But it’s backward-looking. It tells the story after the fact. Meanwhile, she’s running the live play-by-play: clients, projects, and cash flow.

By splitting off reporting, she freed herself to stay in the middle of the agency action, solving problems as they happen, keeping relationships warm, and making sure the money keeps moving.

Why It Matters

Because now, when I reach out, she’s not hiding under a pile of month-end binders or
scrambling to tie out deferred revenue schedules. She’s available. She’s responsive. She’s the one person in the agency who can always say:
“It’s a good time. What do you need?”

And that makes her not just the accountant. She’s the heartbeat of the agency.