Running a Successful Creative Agency: The Accountant

At Function Point we’ve worked with creative firms, advertising agencies and digital agencies for the past 20 years. We help define internal processes and workflow, and in doing this we have come up with 6 personas that interact within the typical creative agency.

Helping people in this role work more efficiently and effectively together will help the agency become much more profitable.

The 6 Personas

1. 1. New Business
   2. Creative
   3. Client Services
   4. Traffic Manager
   5. Accountant
   6. Owner
   AccountantJob DescriptionThe agency accountant or bookkeeper is responsible for maintaining General Ledger accounts, invoicing clients and preparing monthly, quarterly and annual financial reports. In addition to processing payments to vendors and comparing actual expenses to budgeted costs, the accountant is responsible for investigating and resolving any errors posted to the General Ledger, as well as reconciling accounts each month.The bottom line is that the accountant manages the agency’s money. Ranging from lower-level data entry to more advanced responsibilities such as financial analysis, the agency accountant is the backbone of the financial success of the company. The accountant’s main responsibility is to account for the financial assets and liabilities of the agency. This means that the accountant will keep track of what the agency is earning and spending.A Typical Day
   1. • Create invoices and send to clients
      • Pull and analyze financial/status reports on work in progress
      • Present financial reports to management
      • Look after agency payroll
      • General ledger entries and other bookkeeping.
   A Typical Interaction with FP
   1. • FP is used to look at the job, verify and create invoice(s)
      • FP is used to enter and track expenses to jobs
      • Function Point’s QuickBooks Integration is used to transfer invoices and expenses to QuickBooks or a manual export is done to export to other accounting solutions
      • FP reports are used to analyze job and client profitability as well as revenue and cash-flow forecasting
      • FP timesheet and payroll reports are used to verify staff effort, efficiency and payroll hours.
   A Perfect Day
   1. • Invoices are created and sent out to clients, and through FP’s QuickBooks integration all the information is sent through to QuickBooks. Also, reports pull up and show that the agency is profitable based on time and expenses, and payroll is met.
   Top of Mind Issues
   1. • Getting invoices out on time and ensuring that all time and expenses are tracked properly
      • Management reporting and analysis
      • Getting paid by clients
      • Ensuring everything is up-to-date in QuickBooks or the agency’s accounting software
   This article was written by former Function Point employee, Tate Lillies