5 Features to get you started with Function Point

Project managers at creative agencies usually have more tasks than time. They’re planning, tracking time, managing expectations, and ensuring timely project delivery—all while keeping clients happy.

Which is why an all-in-one agency project management software is the answer to juggling multiple responsibilities successfully.

Picking the right software solution, however, is overwhelming for most decision-makers. Implementation time, prioritizing configurations, and managing the transition are common concerns when evaluating new software.

Universally, agencies want a product that is quick and efficient. Importantly, they want to be up and running in a relatively short period of time.

We’ve rounded up Function Point’s top features that will provide you the most value in the first month-and-a-half of implementation, a crucial period for agency software solutions. Here are 5 key features that help your agency’s business goals of growth, profit, and a productive team.

#1. Creating Standardized and Accurate Estimates

Time to implement: 15 days

With Function Point, you can standardize your agency’s rate cards, add a discount rate for ‘friends and family’ or a special rate for “high-maintenance” clients (we know every agency has at least one!)

Speaking of challenging clients, our revision tracking feature is great for tracking any changes to a client’s deliverables, keeping scope creep in check. An added treat for project managers is the ability to track jobs by role, staff, and blended rates.

Once you have this in place, you can confidently estimate a job’s profit margin—a big win when assessing the overall financial potential of a client.

Pro tip: You can generate customizable client facing estimates with just a simple click of a button to save time!

#2. Time Tracking and Invoicing

Time to implement: 15 days

Whether you’re a boutique studio or a full-service creative agency, time-tracking should be an essential component of your workflow. Even if some of the creatives disagree, proper time-tracking allows for accurate reporting and provides a look at the profitability of projects.

Our users love the ability to track billable vs. non-billable staff. It’s an important metric that feeds into the Adjusted Gross Income of your agency, and ultimately, into overall profitability.

You can track billable hours against both jobs and staff. How you set this up is completely up to you! You can customize and automate rate calculation of your team to ensure uniformity and accuracy across the organization.

Lastly, we automatically pull all your timesheets and expenses to ensure your hard-working hours are recognized!

Pro tip: Function Point’s time-tracking module is fully accessible via our mobile app, so there’s no excuse to not track time!

#3. Task Management and Scheduling

Time to implement: 20 days

Who loves GANTT charts? Well, we do at least.

No project management software is complete without a robust GANTT chart and task dependencies that gives you a bird’s eye view of your projects’ progress.

The task dependencies built into our GANTT charts automate project flows with desired alerts and triggers. All agency staff want visibility into cross-functional teams when collaborating on projects. The project management module allows you to do exactly that, so you never miss a beat.

#4. Resource Management

Time to implement: 30 days

If resources are planned and managed well, teams see an increase to their productivity. Most agency owners recognize this and so do we.

Within Function Point’s resource management module, you can view the workload breakdown by individual staff and by teams. You can also project how potential upcoming work impacts your workload. This information is available to you in real-time, as teams successively complete tasks and a project progresses to the next phase.

#5. Financials Reporting

Time to implement: 30 – 45 days

In most instances, it’s difficult to single out specific areas of your business that are choking profitability. It could be because someone on your team is over-burdened with tasks while others might be slacking. It’s also possible that your estimates don’t match your billables and you can’t really say why.

Either way, it boils down to how much visibility you have into where you’re making and/or losing money. Function Point is set up to give you real-time visibility into common bottlenecks such as client over-servicing. The ability to see estimates vs. billables vs. costs vs. invoiced allows you to determine if your jobs are a problem area or if your retainers need a face-lift. You can look at estimates/billables/costs by staff, client, service, job type…or in other words, any way you like!
Final Thoughts

After selecting an agency management software, you want to be up and running as soon as possible. A long setup process hurts productivity and leaves a poor first impression. With these five features, all easily implemented within the first two months of using Function Point, your agency will continue to grow—without the growing pains.