A bookkeeping nightmare

As new jobs poured in, administrative work followed. Jennifer found herself spending hours creating estimates, invoices, and financial reports instead of designing for clients. "It was awful," she says. "I wanted to be doing creative, but I spent most of my time doing paperwork." She soon realized that Quickbooks, which she'd had since starting the studio, was turning into more of a hassle than a help.

With Quickbooks, keeping track of job costs was a time-consuming process. And that affected how quickly she could bill her clients. Spot Color's staff used to write their time down on time slips which Jennifer collected and tallied by client, dividing the hours over individual jobs. She also had to track down receipts to add in postage and other job-related expenses. "Keeping files on that, then having to sort it all out each time we invoiced, was a nightmare!" Jennifer says.

Yearning to get back to creative work, Jennifer began searching for a system designed specifically for the design business in early 1999.

After evaluating several accounting programs, including Designsoft, Traffic Office Manager, and others, she chose Clients & Profits Classic. Jennifer was sold on Clients & Profits because it completely managed both the production and accounting sides of the business in one program. The knowledgeable Clients & Profits staff also influenced her decision. "We just got a better feeling from talking to the Clients & Profits staff," she says.

Sanity is priceless

As a small shop, the cost of Clients & Profits Classic was a big chunk to bite off, Jennifer admits, "but it paid for itself the first day by saving my sanity." She estimates that Clients & Profits Classic paid for itself the very first month because costs that were previously overlooked and unbilled, such as shipping, color proofs, and faxes, were captured accurately and billed quickly. "Once we got Clients & Profits," Jennifer says, "I was saving a couple thousand dollars a month. I found out we were eating a lot of billable costs." And since time is entered into Client & Profits every day, there have been no more lost time cards or forgotten billable time.

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