Synergist frequently asked questions

Synergist is the UK's leading all-in-one agency and project management system, designed for agencies that want to improve performance and profitability.

From CRM, job costing, project management, resource scheduling and capacity planning to timesheets, expenses, billing and reporting, Synergist gives you everything you need to manage your agency’s projects, retainers, resources, clients, and reporting - all in one highly customisable system.

Synergist is a cloud-based SaaS system designed for creative, design, digital, marketing, PR and professional services – 10 or 500 people.

You can add as many trading companies as you like on the Professional and Enterprise tiers*. For example, if you have a UK head office and registered offices in New York and Dubai, you could set these up as different companies in your Synergist system.

Users have one login - you only pay for one user subscription - but can be granted access to multiple companies and navigate between them if needed.

Each company will have its own base currency, reporting and accounts link. 

You can run reports at a company level, plus multi-company consolidated reports.

You can also choose to share your resources across multiple companies and use the scheduling calendar to book people for jobs from your selected companies.

*Small additional fee on the Professional tier.

Yes, you can download our mobile app from either the Apple App Store or Google Play. Using the app, you can access client and project info on the go, add tasks when you're out and about, and easily track time and expenses, including uploading pictures of receipts.

Synergist seamlessly integrates with leading accounting software systems, removing the need for manual re-entry and preventing errors when transferring sales, purchase and expense data from one system to another.

Your finance team can continue to use the accounting software they’re familiar with, at the same time gaining improved financial visibility and control through Synergist.

Integrations include Sage, Xero, Access, Sun Systems, Epicor, Exchequer, KashFlow, MYOB, Microsoft Dynamics-GP, QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online and Pegasus Opera. 

See more on integrations

Synergist offers numerous productivity and security-enhancing integrations with Microsoft and Google tools. These include:

• SSO (single sign-on) and MFA (multi-factor authentication) to enhance security, ease of use, and administration
• Email integration lets you send emails, quotes and invoices directly from Synergist. You can also send emails to Synergist and it will store them against the relevant client, job or phase
• Two-way Calendar integration ensures your team calendar app and Synergist work bookings automatically synchronise to give appropriate visibility of your team's calendars in both systems.
• Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox integration to allow you to link to shared cloud files.

See our integrations page for more details.

Synergist's extensive REST API lets you share all your core data with other systems and automate the creation of new records in Synergist. In addition, users can create custom fields and views in Synergist, and our API immediately makes these available for your chosen integrations.

Please see our dedicated site for our Synergist API documentation

Synergist is certified to ISO 27001, the global information security management (ISMS) standard demonstrating our ongoing commitment to the security of customer information. 

It is subject to audit by the British Assessment Bureau.

Our onboarding experts, Agency Works, will help you design your perfect Synergist set-up, train your teams, and help you get the data insights you need to grow.

They’ve helped hundreds of agencies shape leaner processes and better business reporting. Some of the team have spent years working in agencies in senior ops and finance roles. Others have spent years helping agencies improve performance. So they know how to make an agency work.

Learn more about implementation services

Synergist comes with hundreds of features and offers extensive configuration options to cater for the needs of each individual agency.

Synergist experts will work with you to achieve a best practices configuration that ensures Synergist works exactly as you need it and that you gain maximum benefit as soon as possible.

This also ensures that as you grow or your business changes, you can easily modify your system to meet your changing needs, so it's highly unlikely that you'll outgrow Synergist.

We recognise that each agency is unique, so the Agency Works’ consultants will design an onboarding plan customised to your business needs.

For small agencies who want to move to the next level, Agency Works can quickly set up your system based on best practice processes and reporting you need to scale smoothly.

For more established agencies, they'll review your current processes, determine what's working well and where improvements can be made, and then work with you to design your new system to meet your needs and growth plans. They also offer project management to make everything run smoothly.

Once your requirements are understood, they'll create a tailored onboarding plan and any associated costs will be agreed prior to implementation.

Typically, the whole process of designing your set-up, training your teams, and helping you launch smoothly takes around 8-12 weeks. However, it can vary depending on the complexity of your configuration and your preferred timescales. The Agency Works will work with you to create a project plan to help implementation run smoothly and manage change effectively.

Yes, Synergist cloud subscriptions include ongoing access to the Synergist Helpdesk, plus free training resources and agency management insights from Synergist partners, Agency Works.

The Synergist helpdesk is available to help with any Synergist queries or issues. Our team is made up of experienced Synergist experts, who resolve over 95% of queries on the initial call or email. There's also an extensive library of help articles and videos that you can access at any time.

You'll also receive ongoing support from our implementation partner, Agency Works. They offer regular Synergist training and agency management advice to help you get the most out of Synergist and drive your agency performance. 

If you have any questions related to your system setup or wish to change your working procedures, we may refer you to The Agency Works. Their in-depth understanding of your specific working practices alongside their expertise, make them ideally placed to present the various options available and make recommendations. This approach ensures you get immediate support for any day-to-day issues from Synergist while also benefiting from the agency operations specialists' expertise at The Agency Works.

The Synergist helpdesk is based in our main UK office. 

Monday-Thursday: 9am - 5:30pm

Fridays: 9am - 5pm

We are closed on English public holidays.

With Synergist, your monthly subscription is made up of a core hosting fee, plus the number of full and timesheet users you need:

• Full users are the people in charge of your clients, projects, people or finances. They will have access to all features, including time and expense entry.
• Timesheet users are the people who do the work. They will have access to enter time and expenses and view job-related information.

As the number of users increases, the cost per user decreases.

Pricing per user is the same across all Synergist tiers.

See more info on Pricing

We have three tiers, each designed to provide more advanced functionality when you need it:

• Foundation offers everything you need to manage and grow your agency
• Professional is for agencies needing more advanced options and customisation
• and Enterprise is for those looking for Enterprise-grade features.  

All tiers include a one-to-one UK-based helpdesk, access to free training resources and safe and secure hosting.

Pricing per user is the same across all tiers, but each tier has a minimum subscription value. The tiers are designed to automatically provide the functionality you are likely to need at each stage in your growth journey. If you need one of the advanced features from the higher tier before your current subscription value qualifies you for that tier, you can add certain additional features for a small monthly fee.

During the sales process, we’ll explore your needs and work out which tier is the best fit for you as you start your Synergist journey.

No. We'll always be upfront with you. 

You pay for your core hosting, plus the number of full users and timesheet users you need and any optional add-ons you choose. There are no nasty usage limits or surprises. All subscription costs are displayed on our pricing page, and we disclose all possible future costs up front on the proposal you will receive. 

Our implementation partner, Agency Works, will design an onboarding plan tailored to your unique business needs. This includes configuring Synergist to work exactly as you want it to, training your teams on how to use it to its fullest potential, and supporting you to ensure you get the most out of it. Learn more about implementing Synergist.

Synergist Helpdesk telephone and email support is free and ongoing.

We have designed Synergist to be configurable to meet the particular needs of each agency we work with. Without assessing your needs and configuring a system, a trial is not representative of a correctly implemented system.

In our experience, a more effective approach is for our implementation partners, Agency Works, to arrange an initial discovery call to understand what you're looking for. They'll then prepare a bespoke demo of Synergist ensuring you can see first-hand the interface and procedures your team will be using, along with the control and visibility Synergist will deliver.

Implementing any business management system requires commitment from both sides to achieve its full potential. We therefore have a minimum subscription period of 12 months. If, for any reason you need to end your Synergist subscription, you can do so by giving 3 months' notice.

Typically, a contractor will be assigned a licence in the same way as an employee. Once a contractor leaves, this individual can be deactivated, which frees up their licence. You can then re-allocate the licence to another individual or remove it from your subscription.

You can change the number of each at any time, and we’ll recalculate the charges from the day the change is made.

Synergist is certified as compliant with ISO/IEC 27001:2013, which is globally recognised as the premier information security management system (ISMS) standard. Find out more about Synergist’s commitment to security. 

We're committed to the security of your data and provide multiple layers of protection for the personal and financial information you trust to Synergist. Find out more about Synergist’s commitments to data protection and data security.

You can also find our privacy notice on our website.

Yes. Synergist has implemented data protection into our systems and processes and maintains compliance with all UK data protection regulations, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Each Synergist Cloud account has its own Synergist software instance hosted on a top-tier Amazon Web Services (AWS) in either the UK or the EU (your choice). Data is processed and stored solely in that location to support GDPR and data privacy requirements.

Read about Synergist's compliance with GDPR

Since it went live in 2015, the entire Synergist Cloud has not been unavailable. This page shows the latest from our Synergist Cloud Uptime monitoring tool. 

Each customer has a Synergist instance running within the Synergist Cloud. We regularly update these in the early hours of the morning (or at another agreed-upon time) to ensure users are not affected. 

Yes, you can export data from the Synergist Cloud at any time using the standard reporting tools built into Synergist that offer data export options.

If you cancel your subscription, you will continue to have access in the normal manner until the contract termination date. You can use the data export options within the standard Synergist reports to download your data prior to the contract termination. The contract termination triggers a data deletion process that will permanently delete your data within 3 calendar months of the contract termination date.