Marketing agencies, web studios and IT service companies share the same basic business: people’s time, sold to clients. That makes the path from a first conversation to a paid invoice the heart of the company — and the place where most money leaks. Here’s a complete workflow for agencies, and how to run it in one tool instead of five.
1. Lead: keep every conversation in a CRM
Every client starts as a lead. Record the company, the people you talk to, and every call, meeting and email. Set a follow-up with a due date so no promising lead goes cold. In Clocknico’s CRM you can import your existing list from Excel, assign leads to colleagues and get reminders before follow-ups are due.
2. Client: convert the lead without retyping
When the deal is signed, convert the CRM company into a client. The details carry over, and the CRM history stays linked — useful when someone new joins the account.
3. Billing setup: choose how this client pays
Set the client’s billing method — hourly, fixed price or retainer — the currency, the rate and the payment terms. Doing it once, at the start, prevents arguments at invoice time.
4. Project: plan the work
Create a project with an hours budget and a money budget. Split larger engagements into sub-projects (“Website › Design”, “Website › Development”), and break the work into tasks on a kanban board with one or more assignees.
5. Delivery: track time and expenses
The team tracks time with the timer, against the project and task, and logs expenses with receipts. Managers watch budget usage during the project — not after it.
6. Invoice: generate it from tracked work
At the end of the month, generate an invoice from unbilled billable hours and re-billable expenses, grouped by project, task, employee or as one line. Issue it as a PDF; invoiced hours are locked so they can’t be billed twice.
7. Profit: learn from every client
Compare revenue with labour cost and expenses — by project and by client. Use it to adjust rates, improve estimates and decide which kinds of work to pursue. See how to calculate project profitability.
8. Team: keep people healthy and available
Agencies run on people. Clock-in/clock-out, leave requests, sick leave and a team calendar sit in the same app, so planning projects and planning holidays use the same information.
Why one tool?
A typical agency runs a CRM, a task tool, a time tracker, an invoicing tool and an HR spreadsheet. Each hand-off between them is a chance to lose information: a client name spelled differently, hours not exported, an expense forgotten. Clocknico covers the whole path — lead → client → project → time → invoice → profit — in one place, with one login and one team list.
Pricing that suits agencies
Clocknico is free for teams of up to 5 users with all features. Larger agencies pay per user — €2.50 a month, or €1.50 a month on the yearly plan — and every new company starts with a 14-day Pro trial with unlimited users.