How the right workflow management grows competitive advantage

For agencies, time is a double-edged sword. On one hand, time represents revenues earned and on the other, it signifies costs incurred. The wider the gap between revenues and costs, the greater an agency’s profitability. Agencies who manage time efficiently are in the driver’s seat to maximize profits. One powerful tool to improve how you manage time inside an agency is workflow management embedded in an agency management software solution. 

What is workflow management?

Workflow management uses software to streamline routine or repetitive business processes to improve efficiency. Workflow management simplifies and speeds up the completion of work by automatically guiding tasks through a series of sequential steps. As each task is completed, the workflow management software directs the owner to the next task in the workflow series for completion. This fast, automated routing of tasks to each relevant owner continues until all tasks in the workflow are complete. 

If the task owner does not complete it within the agreed timeframe, the workflow management system will automatically follow up with the owner and remind them to take action. For managers and agency owners, the workflow management system delivers a complete picture of the workflow against performance metrics providing agency leadership with actionable insights to improve how work moves across the agency. 

Benefits of workflow management for improving competitive advantage

Workflow management is a key component of growing an agency’s competitive advantage. Why? Because workflow management embedded in agency management software quickly and easily clarifies who needs to do what and when freeing up the most important agency resource—time. When utilizing time efficiently there is scope to optimize profitability and free up hours to spend proactively strategizing to stay ahead of the competition. 

Workflow management is an essential piece of agency software to increase productivity, reduce errors, and remove bottlenecks that slow work processes. In our experience with agencies, there are four clear benefits of workflow management that improve competitive advantage. 

Efficient Communication

Internal meetings are one of the biggest time sinks for agencies. Imagine communicating everything your account team needs to know about a new client without having multiple briefings to get everyone on the same page. That is exactly what Function Point’s workflow management provides: efficient communication by delivering key information automatically to all relevant stakeholders. For example, when you take a new client job, Function Point allows you to customize a single brief quickly and easily. The brief is automatically saved to the client’s folder and a pdf version can be sent to the client and account team for review with the click of a button. Once the client approves the brief, the document can be added to a proposal. Or, the workflow management system can be configured to pre-populate a workflow with inputs from the brief to allow rates to be applied, estimates to be developed and tasks to be allocated. 

Task management

Workflow management is fundamental to helping agencies save time by automating task movement between owners. Function Point’s workflow management allows you to keep track of work as it arrives, assign tasks to the relevant owners, and track key milestones for deliverables. Built-in alerts mean owners have a real-time view of the tasks they need to take action on, and dependencies can be added quickly and easily. While changes to a brief are inevitable, Function Point makes staying up-to-date a breeze with dynamic updates that cascade across the entire set of tasks relevant to that client’s requirements. Our pre-built scheduling templates and Gantt charts mean no task is overlooked and no deadline is missed. 

Time tracking

Workflow management to track time against key milestones and deliverables is invaluable to help agencies increase competitive advantage. Time tracking shows exactly where your valuable minutes are going and whether each minute is earning revenue or adding cost. This insight gives you the opportunity to refine workflow practices. Some tasks might be taking too long, unnecessarily involving too many people or delivering too many unbillable hours to a client. Whatever the insight, workflow management linked to time tracking gives you the information you need to streamline operations Function Point’s workflow management software features world class time management and tracking capabilities. Our solutions provide built-in time management tools integrated with billing systems delivering agencies a real-time view into revenue earned and cost incurred, client-by-client. Our mobile time tracking app means there are no excuses for losing track of time. 

Financial management

One of the most common pains we see across our agency clients surrounds financial management. As agencies grow, many don’t think to integrate their task management and time tracking systems with their financial management systems. The result is that month-end brings long hours and headaches from tedious double-entry of client data to the invoice management system. Integrating workflow management with financial management tools enables fast, simple invoice preparation and expense management. Function Point’s best-in-class QuickBooks® integration for agencies provides a complete, straightforward accounting solution with quick and easy invoice preparation, expense management and payment tracking. No more double entry to create invoices and no more late nights at month-end. 

Experience workflow management

The automation built into workflow management systems delivers countless efficiencies for agencies to help manage the revenue and cost implications of time. Request a demo to experience how the workflow management in Function Point’s agency management software could benefit your agency.