How an agency uses data to be accurate in the planning and budgeting of projects

AC Coppens is Founder of Berlin based THE CATALYSTS. Working across the globe, the agency works at the intersection of digital media innovation and creative content, specifically in the audio visual field. In addition, the agency includes a consulting and business development service and curates conferences. AC is also a speaker and moderator.

The challenge: seeing an accurate comparison of estimations vs actual time taken

The agency always has lots of different projects on the go and it’s important for the team to be able to see an exact breakdown of their work and how it compares to the budgets they have set.

“You think you know how much time you spend on stuff, but this is absolutely not true.”

The team tried a few solutions but found them too complicated trying to categorize what they were working on. They were keen to learn about what they were spending their time on to allow them to improve how they made offers and proposals to clients.

The solution: using Timeular to stay on top of the workload

AC and the team started using Timeular as an agency time management software and found that it worked perfectly for tracking their billable hours and helped them stay on top of their workload.

“You need to track for a while to have a representative sample of what kind of projects you’re working on. It’s an investment, but it’s a good one as if you commit to tracking then you can easily see exactly how many hours you’ve spent on something. Using the breakdown of the tasks, you can then write accurate proposals using perfect estimations.”

Describing themselves as perfectionists, the team often finds themselves over delivering on projects and spending more time on projects than they projected.

The outcome: being prepared and strategic with time

By consistently adding their time entries, the team was able to easily see how they were spending their time. This means they are more able to prepare the load and be more strategic with their goals or investments.