It will be clear where improvements can be made in efficiency, and how much new business you can take on with current staffing levels.  Good job management software will show you how busy people are, based on the work assigned to them and upcoming work in their schedules, and may even allow you to select who to allocate new work to depending on the requirements of the job and  current workloads.  Maximising billable time is key to developing a successful agency, and software can play an important role here if used well.

Software alone, however, is not the be all and end all of job management. It is only as good as the business processes that shape its’ development and use.  Before buying off-the-shelf software or talking to a developer about bespoke or semi-bespoke software, you should be sure that your business processes are efficient and up-to-date.  Rules don’t need to govern creativity, but the processes that allow creativity to happen – poject management, client liason, billing, credit control, etc.

In theory, not at all. FileMaker is easy to pick up and have a fiddle with, and I’m fairly confident that you could have a basic database together to record details of your jobs and customers in just a couple of hours, probably less.  But, if job management was as simple as just recording information, I wouldn’t be writing this, and I wouldn’t have been working with FileMaker for eight years!

 Probably before even buying FileMaker, the first exercise is to sit down and plan in details what you want to achieve – what ‘entities’ of information you have (clients, suppliers, subconractors, invoices, purchase orders, etc) and how they relate to each other.  You then need to consider the functionality you require from your solution, and at this point it’s often useful to get the input of everyone who will be using it – they will each have their own ‘wish list’ and ideas for how to become more efficient when it comes to non-creative tasks.  It is important to have a clear understanding of what your finished solution will do before you go anywhere near FileMaker to start creating something.  As they say, failing to plan is planning to fail.

As a professional FileMaker developer, I have been asked on a number of occasions to work with a solution that has been developed in-house to add functionality or just “tidy it up a bit”.  Working with someone else’s database is naturally more difficult than your own, as everyone’s style is different, but working with someone else’s database with no documentation whatsoever is incredibly difficult, especially if they haven’t followed any sort of naming convention for tables, fields and scripts.  When you’ve not looked at it from a developer’s perspective for a while, even your own work can be confusing, and for this reason I cannot stress enough the importance of documenting your work to a degree that it could be easily understood by anyone with an understanding of FileMaker.  A couple of useful resources are the ‘White Paper for FMP Novices‘ and ‘Database Design for FMP‘ white papers by Foundation Database Systems (scroll down the download page for the second one).

Consider carefully if you have the time available to learn the skills you will need to develop a fully-fledged agency management solution in FileMaker.  Bear in mind that a developer is likely to be reluctant to take a half-baked solution that you’ve been working on, and turn it into the fully-fledged solution you intended it to be – it is often easier for them to start from scratch.  That isn’t to say you won’t be able to find a developer happy to work with you, in a consulting role, but it pays to have that conversation before you start, if you are unsure as to the time you can commit to the project.

There are many good books that can teach you most of what you need to knoe, not to mention the FileMaker Pro 10 Bible, due to be published in April and FileMaker Pro 10: The Missing Manual due ot be published in February.

Your business comes first
When evaluating off-the-shelf software, remember that the software should fit your business, not the other way round.  Businesses that purchase software, then adapt their processes to fit that software are taking the wrong approach.

What makes you think you need bespoke software
Consider what you’re looking to achieve.  No point in buying software just for the sake of it.  Don’t buy software just to automate a single, possibly inefficient or unnecessary process.

Talking to a software developer:
Do they have experience in the creative industry?
A company whose experience is in general B2B are less like to have in-depth knowledge of the creative industry, and how creative agencies operate.

Set a realistic budget
Bespoke software is written solely for you, and should not be considered a cheap option.  Whilst an off-the-shelf solution may cost £500-600, it is developed for the mass market and won’t necessarily do everything you need it to do,and in the way you need to do it.

Dedicate time to your project
Almost every software development company will need to spend time interviewing your staff about their experiences and expectations of your existing software and the bespoke solution being developed.  A thorough developer will gather opinions of everyone in the company, not just one person from each department.  The input of everyone is important in developing workflow processes that the software will follow.

The developer needs to understand what the software needs to do from the user’s perspective as well as the perspective of management.

Be prepared to give additional input
Often, the development team working on your project will require further information from you as development goes on.  It should be considered a sign that good progress is being made, and that the developers place importance on getting things right first time.

BETA testing is an important step
When handed a BETA version of your software, it is advisable to give copies to several members of your team, to allow them to experiment with the new software and provide valuable feedback as to the real-life usability and efficiency.

The same could be said for buying software from smaller, lesser-known companies, but it requires a slightly different way of thinking.  How can software that you specify yourself be high-risk?  Unless, of course, you don’t know what you want the software to do – only that you’d know when something is “good”, because of the way it looks, or the write-ups it received in the press.  If you don’t know what you want, then the chances are that a few months after your bespoke software is implemented, you’ll find another product with some nice features that you think would be great in your solution – so you approach the developers, telling them you’ve thought of some great new features for your solution, and can they get to work straight-away.  Yes, they say, and the cost will be £X.  They also tell you that if you had included this requirement in the original specification, the additional cost would have been significantly less.

Of course, the original developers could not be around any more.  I’ve been approached by prospects who have had solutions developed in FileMaker, where the developers had gone out of business, moved to Afganistan (yes, really) or just “gone away”.  If you don’t know what you want your software to do, then bespoke software is likely to be a more risky purchase than pre-developed software, and the overall cost is also likely to be higher.

On the other hand, a company that has been around for a few years, is run by experienced, talented developers, presents you with an excellent opportunity to have software developed specifically for your business.  It is quite possible that they will have a series of “template” solutions on which to base your solution – with FileMaker developers, this is a fairly common occurrence.  So, what makes this low-risk?  You will get a feel for the company and its style of working during the conversations and meetings you have with them.  Whilst gut-feel isn’t a scientific process by any means, and business decisions should be made on solid research and understanding, gut-feel can act as an indication that you are heading in the right direction.  The proposal submitted to you, should include details of the company’s experience, both generally and specifically in your sector.  Ask for references, preferably where actual conversations take place between your and the client of the developer.  How do they handle support?  What happens if they do go out of business, or are no longer around for whatever reason?

Nothing will prepare you better than research and experience.  When you’ve looked at a number of solutions, and have perhaps reviewed evaluation versions, as well as carried out an analysis of your requirements and created a detailed “wish-list”, you should have a pretty good idea of what you want your software to do.

If you don’t know what you want, then bespoke software could well be a higher risk option.  On the other hand, if you’ve done your research, and have well-developed business processes, bespoke software can represent a solid investment.

Cost – Not the most important factor, but well worth a mention here.  Chances are that you’ll end up paying less to the smaller company, and at least some support is likely to be included in the basic price you pay.  Typically the larger the company, the greater their opportunity to generate a substantial amount of ongoing income through monthly support fees.  In-fact, most CRM software resellers make the majority of their money from support contracts & training – the “value added” services.  Creative agency software is different in that most developers sell directly to the client, so they make their money from the software itself.

Flexibility of your business processes – If you’ve worked hard, and perhaps spent money refining how your business operates, you should ensure any software solution you choose can handle them.  On the other hand, software develoepd by industry experts should be able to guide your process development, if you feel that you are not perhaps as efficient and effective as you could be.

Support & customisation – Often, but not always, the bigger the company, the more personal the service.  A smaller company could not be around next year – what if the lead developer gets hit by a bus (yes, I was asked this question recently!).  It is important to ensure your investment has a future with the company you work with.  As I said above, you’ll be more likely to be paying more for an annual support contract with a larger company.

Trust & risk – You will develop  a long-term relationship with the company you select to supply your software.  Do you feel you can trust the person you’ll be dealing with?  Is bespoke software a “high risk” option?

Ultimately, the decision is yours to make, but don’t write either option off just because they’re the “big London company”, or just because they’re the little guys.  Size isn’t everything, especially with FileMaker.

A popular method is to include estimates as a component of a job (in the same way as internal or bought-in time) – and whilst this is perfectly valid, many agencies, in my experience, prefer to treat an estimate as a separate entity, which can then be converted to a job when the client signs an order.

As for which is “best” – there is no right or wrong answer.  It is perfectly valid to have estimates as component of jobs, particularly when a single job is stretched over a long time frame, however, obviously, not every estimate results in an order, and non-invoicable jobs will start appearing in your system.  Then there is the question as to whether it is actually a job, when the only activity is estimating.  Where estimates are handled as entities in their own right, they should be referenced in the job bag that they become when converted.

When you buy software, don’t be fooled into thinking that you have to change your business processes to fit it.  Before automating a set of tasks, the critical factor to success is making sure that the existing processes are up to scratch – the result of not doing so is having flaws in your process exaggerated.  Business should always come first, software second.