Company:
Marketing By Design
Beverly, Massachusetts

Business:
Graphic design

Staff:
14 full-time

System:
Clients & Profits Classic
Macintosh
AppleShare

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Marketing By Design is one of the Northeast 's leading graphic design firms, with a staff of fourteen. The shop 's Business Manager, Cynthia Hobbs, has seen her firm undergo a metamorphosis transforming from a manual system to the streamlined efficiency of Clients & Profits. And that's made her one of Clients & Profits' biggest fans.

Founded in 1990,Marketing By Design specializes in packaging design, corporate identification, collateral,and brochures. Their client list features such recognizable names as Ocean Spray, The Scotts Co., Hasbro, and Garelick Farms, a division of Suiza Foods.

A one year payoff

Even though the firm 's president, Nick Fader, knew that Clients & Profits is a great management system, he put off the purchase for cost reasons,according to Cynthia. But after five years of steady agency growth, he made the decision in 1995 to invest in Clients & Profits Classic and replace several generic programs, including Microsoft Excel,Peachtree and MYOB.

"Clients & Profits has proven to be a wonderful investment," Cynthia says. It has streamlined their firm and increased their efficiency by better allocating resources, and they recouped the investment within a year.

They use the software for estimates, traffic, weekly time sheets, purchase orders, checkwriting, billing,financial accounting, and some media. "Everything that used to be done manually is now in one place - in Clients & Profits."

Clients & Profits has maximized her time "immeasurably," she says. Cynthia used to spend all day Friday entering time sheets for the firm. Now she spends just 30 minutes a day on the task.

"We rarely miss anything now"

"Clients & Profits has proven most useful in job cost tracking. We used to hand-post everything and some items got missed." Cynthia says. "Now we have immediate entry. Clients & Profits has tightened up our job costing and made it much more efficient. We rarely miss anything now."

She says the financials are moreaccurate, too. Their accountant rarely asks for any additional information,where before he frequently asked for additional figures. "Everything he needs," she says, "is right there in Clients & Profits."

Their clients like the way the invoices look, Cynthia says, noting that some clients want grand total-only invoices, others want summaries, while still others want subtotals."You can create almost any invoice the client wants with just the click of a button."

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