Company:
Griffith Phillips Creative
Dallas, Texas

Business:
Traditional and interactive advertising and design

Staff:
28

System:
Clients & Profits Classic 4

Macintosh
Windows
AppleShare

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allas-based Griffith Phillips Creative replaced a menagerie of software with Clients & Profits Classic in 1998. Since then, the shop has more than doubled in staff to nearly 30 staffers. It has expanded its services to meet their clients' evolving high-tech demands, adding Web development and e-collateral to their mix of traditional agency services.

Marjorie Garrick, Griffith Phillips' office manager and accountant, was involved in the software-selection process. "We were growing so fast and had many small jobs to track," she said. "We had never missed a deadline and were proud of that, and we didn't want to mess that up." The agency knew it needed an integrated agency management system for Macintosh--and they needed it fast. "We evaluated Adman, Clients & Profits and another package," she said. They chose Clients & Profits Classic.

Before Clients & Profits, Griffith Phillips was juggling Simply Accounting, Microsoft Excel, a custom time tracker and other custom applications. The combination was inefficient at best. "You had to use different systems to put together what Clients & Profits does," said Marjorie. They now use the software for both Macintosh and Windows, tracking about 150 active jobs for clients such as GTE, Nortel Networks and BenefitMall.com.

As a fully integrated system, Clients & Profits "works a full circle," providing up-to-the-minute information in real time to everyone in the shop who needs it.

"We now know whether jobs are profitable or not--while we're working on them," Marjorie said. "Clients & Profits tells us a lot about our business. It's easier to track time, job costs and billings."

The agency started using Clients & Profits Classic for job tracking features first, then added accounting a year or so later, after they got a handle on the agency's growth. "It would have been better if we had done it all at once," Marjorie said, since billing flows from jobs and tasks. She spent two or three days setting up the accounting portion of the program, which included consolidating task codes into profit centers and revenue accounts. "I was the Wicked Witch of the West for a few days," Marjorie laughed. "I wouldn't let them change any of the task codes because they needed to flow into my billing."

Now Griffith Phillips is using Clients & Profits company-wide, from estimating to traffic to financial accounting. "Everyone who uses Clients & Profits loves it," she said. Sometimes new employees resist it simply because they are used to doing things manually. "But once they learn to use it, they love it too." Using Clients & Profits "makes life a lot simpler and a lot easier," Marjorie said.

"There are a lot of reports that I like," Marjorie said. With the "Ready to Bill" report, which replaced a weekly staff meeting, she now prepares billings daily instead of weekly. "I like the program," Marjorie said. "And I'm so tight with a dollar, I won't buy anything I don't like."