Synergist makes it so much easier, my month-end has been cut in half. If Synergist was somehow taken away from us, it would be worse than having a fire.
Taking the pain out of monthly accounting for Tayburn
Tayburn are a multi award-winning agency for both creativity and efficiency, Tayburn is a creative consultancy comprised of commercially minded professionals and brand/marketing evangelists.
With long, laborious accounting processes, Tayburn were relying on a huge amount of work and effort to keep track of everything. They desperately needed to get an accurate handle on their data... which is where Synergist came in.
Agency type: Branding and design
Services: Brand and marketing strategy, audience insight, activation planning, digital activations, project delivery
Size: 40+ people
Location: Edinburgh
Steven Clark
Finance Director at Tayburn
The problem
A lot of effort for little return
For Steven, sorting out data and billing was a laborious and time-consuming affair every month.
“In the old days we used a clunky, horrible job management system. I used to have to sit down with the account managers every month and ask questions like ‘Why is this job over?’ and ‘Why have we not billed this one?’ and it took an enormous amount of time to sort out each month. We only found out what was really happening after the event, when of course it was too late.”
“Everything took so long to do. It used to take me two weeks to do the month-end every month. It was laborious to do the billing, the accounting entries, create the reports and have many, many meetings to chase the information we needed."
“That wasn’t the only problem."
"Clients are cute, as every agency knows. They subtly ask for amendments here and there, which used to get nodded through for free. But the extra work really mounts up.”
The solution
Finding a system with clear visibility
It became clear that Tayburn needed a system which was more fit for purpose.
"Our system didn’t make it easy to track changes, causing big problems. It got to the point that we had to get a better solution. So I looked at lots of systems. We chose Synergist.”
“Synergist has really pulled everything together and given us company-wide transparency. This has dramatically reduced the amount of time I need to spend chasing the team for data and pulling together reports which I knew were based on questionable data.”
With Synergist, I know what’s going on in every job, and the great thing about it is that I know it as it’s happening.
Steven Clark
Finance Director, Tayburn
The return
Better processes across the whole agency
Visibility is now much clearer for Steven. “Costs are captured in real time. So there are no surprises. And the team sees how many hours are allocated to a job and how many hours are left.”
“And the WIP is so good. Most design agencies don’t have a clue about where they are on time spent and costs incurred for a job. They have a huge amount of money tied up, and they don’t know exactly where until it’s too late."
Billing processes have also been vastly improved. “We create draft invoices based on quotes, purchase orders and so on. We get monthly invoices sent out by the 2nd of the month, and others are sent directly at the end of a project. We never used to be able to do that."
The team also knows exactly where they are when it comes to pitches.
“Investment in doing a pitch is now completely visible. Time, travel, expenses, staff utilisation, it’s all in there. The team understand how it all fits together, so pitches are managed properly."