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ACCOUNTING Q&A
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GUARANTEED
GREAT IDEAS!
Six
Accounting Tips from Rebecca Cox, C&P expert trainer
These Clients & Profits
users share their tips on how they manage their client
accounts better:
Do it in writing and get it signed “Do not start any jobs
until you have a signed contract. Do change orders as soon as
the client requests something beyond the original contract. Make
sure the client signs the change order before doing the additional
work” says Laurie Wilkinson of Reed Sendecke Inc. “There
must be a purchase order for every outside cost incurred on a
job and it must be signed off by someone with the proper authority.”
Status codes mean business “On a daily basis, our AEs use
the production and billing status codes to produce reports that
enable them to take action,” says Donna Lipp of The Hemisphere
Group Inc. “They know what jobs are with clients, what jobs
need signed estimates, what jobs are at the vendor and what jobs
are closed and ready to bill.”
Document, document, document “Put everything that someone
may want to know, now and in the future, in the job and/or client
diaries,” says Tami Lester of Wilson Chapman. “Review
the information in the diaries often. You can learn a lot about
clients’ habits, as well as your shop’s.”
They bought it; so use it “Use Clients & Profits and
all of its features—they are an AE’s friend,” says
AnneMarie Greene of The MBC Group. “It’s so simple
to use areas like estimates and creative briefs. Plus, everything
is easy to find and monitor because it’s all in one database,
tracked by job number. I also like the billing windows and reports,
like the job snapshot and job summaries. They help monitor a
job’s profitability - examining both time spent and outside
costs.”
They bought it; so use it, pt. 2 “Use every resource available
to you provided by Clients & Profits,” says Felica Sparks
of Benton Newton & Partners Advertising. “Do not be
a lazy AE!”
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Q.
I’m an AE with over three dozen clients. How can I monitor
the status of hundreds of their jobs?
Monitor all your clients’ work through a nifty little field called
AE/Team. Your initials are entered on all your clients and copied to
each of their new jobs. Many job reports are printed for only your AE/Team
initials pinpointing the information you need to see. Print the Daily
Job Status report to review where each of your clients’ jobs are
at in their development based on your shop’s production status codes.
This provides a big picture overview.
Q. How can I get scheduling details for all my jobs without
tracking down our traffic manager?
Because all of your client’s jobs have your AE/Team initials, you
can print most of the scheduling reports for your initials only. This
provides a task by task breakout of scheduled work for all your clients.
You’ll see when the work starts and is due, as well as who is assigned
to do the work. One of many reports to print is the Work To Do. (Choose
View > Work To Do, select the “Due for AE/Team” option ,
enter your initials, then enter work date range.)
Q. I have many large corporate clients who have dozens of
billing contacts and different billing addresses. How can I keep
this all straight at billing time?
Use divisions to track accounts for large corporate clients. First add
a client that serves as the main client. Then, add each different billing
address with its corresponding contact as a separate client. In each
subsequent client’s division area, enter in the client code for
the main client.
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You’ll
always know which clients belong together by their division
information. And at billing time, the right billing address
and contact will be listed on the client’s invoices with
no rekeying of information. (In Clients & Profits Pro and
C&P SQL you’re also able to reunite clients that belong
to a single division when printing client account agings and
statements.)
Q. My production and creative co-workers constantly
asking about creative, production and marketing goals
of jobs. What can I do to inform everyone and keep from
having to repeat myself?
Use a job’s creative brief to provide staffers who need to know
about the work’s creative, production and marketing goals. Once
it’s written, it’s a permanent part of a job ticket and centrally
located, so anytime anyone needs to refer to it, there it is!
Q. I want to review on a weekly basis all of my client’s
outstanding invoices. What’s the easiest way?
Use a client account aging printed for your AE/Team initials only. The
subsequent aging has unpaid invoices for your clients only. It’s
a great way to stay informed on who’s paying and who’s not.
Cash flow for your shop is so important to its financial health. You
could call clients whos invoices are past due.
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