Agency operations software: a buyer's guide
What agency operations software covers after the sale: handover, projects, client requests, billing and the team, and how to tell a suite from a PSA.
Spodus team
Published 3 min read
Key takeaways
- Agency operations software runs the work after the sale, on one record per client.
- The jobs are handover, delivery, client requests, billing and the team.
- A PSA goes deep on time, budgets and capacity; a suite goes wide across the client.
- Choose by the job that hurts most today, then check the rest are good enough.
Agency operations software runs the work an agency does after a client signs: the handover to the team, projects and milestones, the client's requests, time, invoices and the people doing the work. The point is one record per client that every part of the agency reads, instead of a project tool, a help desk, a billing tool and a spreadsheet that each hold their own copy.
The five jobs of agency operations
Every agency does these, in some tool or in someone's head.
- Handover. The account moves from whoever sold it to whoever delivers it, with the scope, the contacts and the promises attached.
- Delivery. Projects, milestones, tasks and the time logged against them.
- Client requests. Questions, changes and fixes arriving by email, chat and calls, each needing an owner and an answer.
- Billing. Project fees, retainers, hours and extras turned into invoices, and the money chased.
- The team. Who is working on what, who is away, and who is about to run out of hours.
Agency operations software is any tool that does several of these on the same client record.
Suite or PSA
There are two shapes, and the choice matters more than any single feature.
| A PSA | An operations suite | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts from | Time | The client record |
| Strong at | Budgets, capacity plans, utilisation, profit | Handover, requests, billing, the client's view |
| Typical buyer | Agencies with dozens of billable people | Agencies of roughly five to forty |
| Setup | Weeks, often with help | Days, usually yourself |
| Weak at | Client requests and support | Deep resource forecasting |
The agency management software comparison says which tools sit on each side.
How to choose
Start with the job that costs you most today. If requests go unanswered, that is the client request queue. If invoices go out late, that is billing. If people are booked twice, that is capacity. Pick the tools that are strongest at that job, then check the other four are good enough.
Then check these on a trial:
- One client record. Does the request, the project and the invoice show on the same client, or in three apps with a link between them?
- Handover. When a deal is won, what is created for the delivery team without retyping?
- The client's view. Can clients see their invoices, approvals and requests without a paid seat?
- What runs on its own. Which invoices draft themselves, which reminders send themselves, on a schedule rather than a person remembering?
- Leaving. Can you export everything if it does not work out?
How Spodus does it
Spodus is agency operations software for agencies of roughly five to forty people. When a client accepts a quote, the deal can move to won, the project opens with the quote as its budget, deposit and milestone invoices are set up, and a retainer contract starts. Projects carry milestones, budgets, hours sold and a margin. Client requests arrive in one queue from email, your help portal and a website widget, each with an owner, a priority and response targets. Team chat, time tracking, time off and onboarding checklists sit in the same workspace, and clients follow their invoices, contracts and projects in the client portal.
On the Growth plan, people are booked onto projects week by week against their capacity, twelve weeks ahead. It is not a deep PSA: if forecasting capacity across fifty or more billable people is your main job, buy one.
See Spodus for agencies, or read about agency reporting software.
Questions, answered
- What is agency operations software?
- Agency operations software runs the day-to-day of an agency after a client signs: the handover to the team, projects and milestones, the client's requests, time, invoices, and the people doing the work. It sits next to, or includes, the CRM that wins the work, and it keeps all of it on one record per client.
- What is the difference between agency operations software and agency management software?
- In practice, very little. Vendors use both names for the same kind of tool. When there is a difference, agency management software includes winning the work, the pipeline and proposals, and agency operations software starts at the signed client. Read the feature list, not the category name.
- Is agency operations software the same as a PSA?
- A PSA, professional services automation, is one kind of agency operations software. It starts from time: hours become budgets, utilisation, capacity plans and profit. Other operations tools start from the client: projects, requests and invoices on one record. Larger agencies with many billable people usually need a PSA; small ones often do not.
