There are three different project types. Together with your business units, this creates a simple and powerful controlling system:

The project types are used to classify projects into value-adding (Client Services) and overhead from investment (New Business) and internal expenditure (Internal). The overarching logic is that the money that the agency can invest in new business or internal projects is earned in client services projects.

The project type is suggested automatically and can be adjusted after the project has been created. The individual project types in detail:

Client Services

Regular, paid client services project, possibly project pitches.

👉 This is where your agency earns money.

New Business

New business projects such as tenders or acquisitions.

👉 Customer-oriented overhead. This is where you invest in future business.

Intern

Internal projects such as back office or management.

👉 Internal company overhead.

Together with the type of business unit, this creates a simple pattern for viewing value creation, investments and overheads from the customer and company perspective.

The Doe Co. agency works for the client Musterfirma. Doe Co. has three business divisions: Administration, New Business and Client Services.

The following exemplary projects can be created:

Doe Co. designs a social media campaign for Musterfirma. The project manager creates the project as a social media campaign for the client Musterfirma in the Client Services division.

The project type is automatically Client Services.

Doe Co. would like to track its labor and external costs for financial accounting and consulting. The project manager creates the project for the customer Doe Co. GmbH - i.e. the agency itself - in the Administration business area.

The project type is automatically Internal.

Jane is an Account Manager at Doe Co. and is responsible for the client Musterfirma. For her client, she has expenses that cannot be specifically allocated to a client project, such as annual meetings on site at the client's premises, including travel and entertainment expenses, as well as occasional coordination and planning meetings.

To cover these costs, Jane creates the Account Management model company project in the New Business division.

Set the project type to New Business.

In general, there are two types of pitches: pitches for framework or agency contracts and pitches for projects.

While the agency has to generate the pitch costs for framework agreements over the duration of the collaboration, the costs for a project pitch are ideally covered by the corresponding project.

We therefore recommend creating pitches for framework agreements in the New Business division and project pitches in the Client Services division.

Sample company puts its framework agreement out to tender. The project manager creates the project pitch framework agreement for the customer sample company as a new business project in the New Business division.

Over time, for example, you can compare the revenue from operational customer projects with your pitch costs (simply filter by customer) or analyze your total new business expenditure (simply filter by project type and customer or by department).

Sample company pitches its summer campaign. The project manager creates the summer campaign pitch project for the client Musterfirma as a new business project in the Client Services division.

If you unfortunately lose the pitch, you can cancel the project and know exactly how much money you have spent on pitches (simply filter by project type New Business). Or you can see how much money you earned with Sample Company and spent on pitches again (simply filter by Sample Company).

The colleagues at Doe Co. not only perform project work time, but also coordinate and administer many projects for Musterfirma.

We recommend critically examining whether this is not project working time after all - regardless of whether the client pays for the specific service (e.g. art direction) or not (e.g. resource planning, quality assurance). After all, without a specific project, there would be no quality assurance.

The Account Manager creates the Internal expenses sample company project as an internal project in the Client Services division for all customer expenses that cannot be calculated further. Without operational client projects, there would be no internal expenses for the client.

This allows you to see easily and at a glance what (internal) administrative expenses are incurred for a customer and how they are covered by operational customer projects.

In almost every agency, part of the working time is considered non-billable.

We recommend creating specific projects for this - e.g. for maintaining your own website or developing proactive ideas. Alternatively, you can create a general project to record unused working time.

With just one click, you can determine whether you are staying within your target workload or what unused working time is costing you - e.g. in the time-invest report or in the project evaluation.