Agency project management software: how to choose it

What does agency project management software do?

Agency project management software gives every client's work one home, so you can see who's doing what and when it's due. It also gives clients a way to review and approve work without long email chains.

Here's what it does day to day:

• Breaks work down into clients, projects and tasks.
• Gives each task an owner and a due date.
• Shows what's waiting on a client's review.
• Keeps files and comments with the task they belong to.

Picking the tool is one job, and setting it up is another. For setting the project tool up, see setting up a project tool for a marketing agency.

What should project management software for a small agency track?

For retainer and campaign work, it should track hours against each fee, the budget left on each project and where each client review stands. Put these questions to each tool you compare:

• Can it show hours logged against a monthly retainer?
• Can it warn you when a project's budget is running low?
• Can it show which deliverables are waiting on the client?
• Can it repeat the same set of tasks each month for a retainer client?
• Can it show results for each client, and not only for each project?

A tool that can't answer the first two will leave you guessing whether a retainer still pays. That gap matters on a retainer, because the work can quietly take more hours than the fee covers.

Can agency project management tools plan who works on what?

Some can. Some project tools show who's booked on what each week, while others only show tasks and due dates. If planning people's time matters to you, ask to see a view of each person's week before you buy.

Planning the week is a job of its own, with its own steps. For the weekly resource plan, see weekly resource management.

How is advertising agency project management software different?

An ad agency asks more of the software around campaign dates and review rounds on creative. On top of the tracking questions earlier, ask these:

• Can it tie tasks to a campaign's start and end dates?
• Can it handle several review rounds on one piece of creative and keep every version?
• Can a client approve creative inside the tool?
• Can it store the size and spec for each ad placement?

If you run campaigns for clients, ask closely about version control. An approval on the wrong version of an ad can cost a client money and cost you trust.

Is all-in-one agency management software worth it?

One all-in-one agency system is worth it when your separate tools no longer talk to each other and you spend time copying data between them. Separate tools are fine when each job is covered and your team already knows them.

How the price is charged matters too. Ask whether you pay per person or one flat fee, what happens to the price as you add help, and whether clients who log in count as paid users.

DeskTeam360's founder's view is that software comes once leads, revenue and some help are steady, and each tool has to earn its place by saving hours on tasks you do over and over.

If you're mapping every tool your agency runs, step back and look at the full set first. For the whole set of software, see the software a marketing agency needs.

If an outside team will take on part of the work, check that it can work in the tool you choose. DeskTeam360's team works inside your project tool or in DeskTeam360's own, and you make the call. Nothing has to move, so no time goes into switching, and tasks still come in through DeskTeam360's request form or by email.