About the company
- Yellow Cherry
- Industry: Creative & Design
- Employees: 11
- Location: Inverness, Scotland
Before and After Scoro
Before Scoro, Yellow Cherry were using a range of systems to run their daily operations:
- Studio Whiteboard for project management
- iCal for time tracking
- Spreadsheets for reporting
- Quickbooks for accounting
- Mailchimp for CRM
This meant that project management, time tracking, and billing were in separate systems, creating inefficiency and a lack of transparency.
In 2018, Yellow Cherry moved to Scoro to improve their workflow and create visibility. Here’s a summary of what they were able to achieve:
| Before | After | |
| Time Tracking & Utilization | Time logs were inaccurate and non-billable time wasn’t tracked. There was no clear understanding of how time was spent or the workload capacity. | Time-tracking is accurate, and reporting is automated. Business decisions can be made based on real-time reports, saving time and money. |
| Quoting & Payment | Previously, only the Managing Director was able to issue quotes and invoices. This caused delays in creating quotes, late payments and a lack of visibility on their pipeline. | Access and visibility across the entire team on quote creation and payment status. This has sped up payments and resulted in positive cash flow. |
| Project Management | Project information was often missing and time was wasted searching for it. Project management was inconsistent making reporting difficult. | With control over required fields, data is consistently captured, enabling easy reporting. Client expectations are better managed with real-time insights. |
Time Tracking & Utilization
Before: Inaccurate and manual time logging
Previously, time was recorded in iCal, then filtered by client, and copied to an excel spreadsheet. This manual process was inefficient and inaccurate since granular time wasn’t recorded. Additionally, only billable time was tracked which made it impossible to get a clear picture of how people’s time was being spent, or the workload capacity for the team.
Our time is money but we were spending more time managing it than being able to charge it out.
After: Accurate time tracking and clear business insights
Now, Yellow Cherry can easily log both billable and non-billable time. Time tracking is highly accurate with the use of the stopwatch feature in Scoro. They can also track utilization rates and access real-time utilization reports with the click of a button.
Utilization reports clearly show Yellow Cherry the portion of their time spent on billable vs. non-billable tasks. This allows them to easily review their priorities and pause internal projects, like their own advertising, when necessary.
Utilization reports have also given Yellow Cherry clear insights into the resources needed for service delivery. For example, after a staff member left, they used team utilization reports to discover that the time spent on personal development across the team equaled a part-time role. This allowed Yellow Cherry to delegate the work internally, saving time and the cost of hiring. While personal development hasn’t been eliminated, the data provided valuable perspective on how time was being used.
We work on a time and materials model, so every minute matters as each adds up to chargeable time.
Quoting & Payment
Before: Lack of visibility on pipeline and late payments
Yellow Cherry didn’t have clear visibility on their quote status, since quotes were processed via QuickBooks and disconnected from projects. This meant they didn’t have a clear pipeline and forecasting was difficult, which took around an hour of manual work each week.
Late payments were also a problem due to delays in invoicing. Only the Managing Director could create quotes and not all account managers were able to create invoices, contributing to delays in issuing invoices and collecting payment.
After: Streamlined quoting and clear insights on payment
Now, account managers can build project quotes in Scoro and easily create invoices from quotes. This means that invoices are issued sooner. They can also see the payment status of a project, showing them when to follow up on late payment. This streamlined process has greatly increased Yellow Cherry’s cash flow and improved the rate of invoice collection.
Our cash flow has increased by at least 66% with Scoro. Mainly because all team members can invoice work immediately upon completion. By issuing invoices faster, we spend less time addressing invoice queries since the work is fresh in our clients’ minds. This has also had a positive impact on our customer relationships.
Forecasting revenue only takes a few minutes in Scoro. Reporting is simple and accurate thanks to the Pipeline, Revenue Recognition and Forecasting reports. These reports show Yellow Cherry if they have enough business lined up for the next quarter and whether they’re hitting growth targets. It also helps determine if additional freelance support is needed, or if they should cut back on people.
Project Management
Before: Time wasted due to missing information
Project management was very inconsistent. Data and information was often missing, forcing team members to spend time searching and constantly updating each other. This was a drain on business time and was a frustrating way of working.
After: Consistent data provides real-time insight and a better experience for clients
Yellow Cherry has streamlined project management, boosting team productivity and efficiency. With many of their projects following a similar structure and activities, they’ve been able to create templates in Scoro to easily replicate projects and tasks. This has saved time and created consistency within the team.
Yellow Cherry have set up specific ‘mandatory fields’ in Scoro that team members must complete for each project. For example, the client name and start date of the project. This ensures that relevant information is available within Scoro, saving back and forth between the team. By saving countless hours of time, Yellow Cherry has created more capacity for billable work.
With a transparent project management system, Yellow Cherry are also able to better manage their client’s expectations.
The ability to provide real-time project status and time usage to clients enhances our transparency. This helps avoid unrealistic expectations for project delivery, and enables a proactive approach to managing projects that are creeping in time estimated. By doing so, we can preempt overspending before it occurs.
Yellow Cherry’s clients are happier since the team has become more proactive, helping them avoid unexpected costs. Clients now have the option to decide whether additional time should be spent on a project.
Onboarding
Back in 2018, as a small-scale agency, Yellow Cherry onboarded with Scoro. They were able to easily import existing products and client contacts.
Due to the intuitive nature of how Scoro is set up, we were able to easily set up existing client projects which meant we instantly had a full picture of the project status.
The team soon adapted to using Scoro and immediately recognized the benefits of an easier and more accurate process.
The Scoro help center was a big time saver in their onboarding process. Team members could go through the relevant documents at their own pace, saving time for managers. This meant more time could be put towards chargeable work.
