How ZooMedia Cut Time on Invoicing by 80%

Invoicing and billing should be an awesome experience-- getting paid for all that hard work, building on the thrill of winning the deal, the pressure of delivering the project, the excitement of the launch and the appreciation of a happy client. But it never is. Unfortunately, invoicing your clients can be a hassle.

Of course, this doesn't make it any less important. Without billing your clients, you're not in business. So while we can't avoid it, there are ways to make it less painful. Here's a story of how one client was able to use Accelo to dramatically cut the time and energy wasted on invoicing, allowing them to focus on better serving their clients with creativity instead of slaving over spreadsheets.

ZooMedia, a leading digital agency based in San Francisco, has been using Accelo to run their business for about a year. When Zoomedia's CEO Rebecca Angelos shared the benefits and lessons learned in moving to Accelo, one of the stories that lept out the most was how they were able to cut the time wasted by senior staff in invoicing by 80%. Here's Rebecca's story - if any of it resonates for you, don't hesitate to contact us today and see how Accelo can benefit you.

The problem: multi-handling scattered, incomplete data

ZooMedia had been using a range of rules to manage their business: AtTask for project and time tracking, Salesforce for sales and QuickBooks for accounting. There was also manual tracking of support requests and adhoc work because the AtTask system wasn't fit to handle the smaller, yet urgent content/technical changes Zoomedia's clients demanded.

To get a picture of the work done for their clients each month, Rebecca and her team would need to export data out of two or three systems, always into spreadsheets. From there, they manually lined up work by client. Because this was so error-prone, they'd have to do a lot of work correlating the raw data with project plans, estimates and contracts. When entering timesheets, the finance department was using Microsoft Access to manipulate data in order to run the invoices, which were then uploaded to QuickBooks - all manually.

Error prone, manual and exhaustive - no wonder it took 10 days each month. 

Working outside of the system made it so there was inconsistency in reporting. There was also a lack of communication and knowledge-sharing between the different departments. Communications between the clients and account managers were often hard to share and sometimes lost when turning the project over to the production team. These pain points didn't even factor into the time cost of invoicing each month. Unfortunately, they'd often only rear their heads when clients raised discrepancies or problems.

The solution: having it all in one place

ZooMedia implemented Accelo as of January 2012 and took advantage of our then-new QuickBooks accounting integration. After setting up and configuring their business processes from sale to final invoice, they were able to cycle clients fluidly while keeping all of their team in the loop. 

In her interview with our CEO Geoff McQueen, Rebecca shares a few of the key lessons learned from implementing Accelo, including:

• "The integration is a big productivity benefit. Our designers felt like they never really knew what the sales team was doing. We now have sales reports that are visible."
• "We don’t do anything on spreadsheets anymore. We use task lists instead. We put together projects that feed into the schedule and allow people to own their schedule and task list."
• "The great thing about Accelo is that right from the system when the client emails, the email chain is actually in the system. Because they’re already in the system, they can log their time, pick up ticket, close ticket, and put notes in the system."
• "Email capturing is really big. It helps when people call in sick or go on vacation so that you don’t lose any communication."

From 10 to 2 days of Invoicing

"From the invoicing standpoint, it was taking us 10 days to get out our maintenance invoices. Now it only takes two days. They’re getting out quicker because the employees are entering time, approving time and generating the invoices in one system, which are then automatically pushed to QuickBooks," Rebecca explains. 

• No exporting saves time.
• Timesheets and integration allow everyone to work within the system.
• It’s a constant tool that people are in all day long. 

Getting through the menial task of invoicing and billing is a matter of connecting all moving parts. When the data is one place, the reporting becomes easier. Rebecca's honest and candid points make this story a true success. For the extra curious, watch the full-length webinar provided below. Click here to flip through a slideshare version.