The Problem: Disorganised Invoicing and Inaccurate Time Tracking
A financial marketing agency was facing significant operational inefficiencies in its invoicing process. The manual reconciliation of freelancer invoices and project timesheets was labour-intensive, prone to errors, and involved cross-checking inaccurate time tracking data that the full-time team submitted via an old time planning piece of software.
The lack of an integrated, reliable system led to several issues:
- Inaccurate invoicing resulted in billing discrepancies.
- Teams had no clear visibility into the time spent on each project.
- The firm risked undercharging or overcommitting time to clients based on pre-agreed budgets.
As a result, both profitability and team productivity were compromised, as managers struggled to assess whether resources were being allocated effectively or whether clients were billed appropriately for the hours worked.
The Approach: Mapping the Process and Understanding Stakeholder Needs
Recognising the urgent need for change, I took the first step by mapping out the existing workflow to identify pain points. I conducted interviews with key stakeholders across different teams—finance, project management, and sales—to understand their challenges and priorities. One thing became clear: they wanted accurate, real-time data that they could trust, without overburdening freelancers and team members with complex, time-consuming systems.
The ideal solution needed to:
- Provide accurate project and time tracking.
- Allow both full-time employees and freelancers to easily log their hours.
- Integrate seamlessly with the agency's existing CRM system to streamline project creation and reduce administrative burden.
- Deliver comprehensive reporting on project profitability and time allocation.
The Solution: Implementing Harvest and Automating the Workflow
After extensive research into various time-tracking and project management systems, I identified Harvest as the optimal solution. Harvest’s easy to use interface and feature set allowed the agency to track both recurring and ad-hoc billable work with ease. Harvest could integrate within the agency's tech-stack while being simple enough for freelancers to use, which made it a perfect fit.
Key Features of the Harvest System Implementation:
- Project & Time Tracking: Harvest enabled the team to create and manage projects effortlessly, while freelancers could input their timesheets directly into the system. This eliminated the need for manual reconciliation, ensuring that the invoicing process was easy, accurate and streamlined.
- Sales Team Insights: The sales team could track the progress of ongoing projects and intervene when necessary to ensure that projects remained on budget. This enabled better client communication and the opportunity to negotiate additional time or resources when needed.
- Billable and Profitability Tracking: Harvest’s ‘billable hours’ feature made it easy to track the profitability of each project in real-time. This was instrumental in improving financial oversight and decision-making across the company.
- Automation through Zapier & HubSpot Integration: To further streamline the process, I implemented automation via Zapier, integrating Harvest with the company’s existing CRM system, HubSpot. Whenever a new project was signed off in HubSpot, it was automatically created in Harvest. This saved at least 15 minutes per project in administrative time, allowing the agency to handle a higher volume of work without additional administrative overhead, yet offering more accuracy.
- Training and Team Buy-In: One of the critical factors for success was securing team buy-in by clearly demonstrating the benefits of Harvest to those responsible for filling in time entries. Through a phased training approach, we successfully onboarded 40 full-time staff and over 150 remote freelancers, ensuring everyone felt confident using the system. This smooth adoption greatly contributed to improving accuracy and user satisfaction across the board.
The Results: Efficiency Gains and Business Growth
The implementation of Harvest brought transformative results across the agency:
- Time Savings: Automating the project creation and invoicing process freed up significant administrative time, allowing the agency to handle more projects without increasing the burden on the finance team.
- Increased Accuracy: With freelancers invoicing directly through their timesheets in Harvest, invoice accuracy improved significantly, reducing the risk of billing errors and disputes with clients. For full time employees, more accurate time tracking meant their managers could review their schedule and reallocate hours for training and development, or assist on other projects where required.
- Scalability: As a result of these efficiency improvements, the agency had the backend capability to double in size without the need to hire additional finance or administrative staff to manage the invoicing process or oversee project time tracking.
- Data-Driven Decisions: The data captured in Harvest provided a clear overview of how time and resources were being spent. This allowed for more informed decision-making regarding resource allocation and project management. Over time, the ability to generate detailed reports on internal and client hours opened up further opportunities to refine processes and improve profitability.
Conclusion: A System for Sustainable Growth
By implementing Harvest and integrating it with the agency’s existing CRM system, I was able to transform a disorganised, manual invoicing process into an efficient, scalable operation. The improved time tracking, automation, and profitability insights empowered the agency to grow sustainably while delivering a higher level of service to its clients.
This case study shows how a well-researched system, combined with thoughtful process improvements and automation, can enable businesses to overcome operational challenges without having to break the bank or be afraid of the pain points that come with huge growth.
If you want to find out how I can help optimise your processes and get your company doing more, for less, with less, reach out and book in a free consultation here.