"Work Smarter: Add internal charges" (06/29/09)
"To track the true cost of producing work, you need to track all costs. Sure you're adding time and vendor invoices; but are you tracking your shop's in-house output? (Choose Accounting > Internal Charges. Click the Internal Charge Items table.) Add items, e.g., film output, slides, zip disks, color copies, and their prices. Add many different size/price combinations. When your production people produce, they can easily add an internal charge by picking it from the table, adding a job and task, and posting it. Your jobs are costed instantly! Smart." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Everyone loves job types!" (06/22/09)
"Job types are a great short cut to use when adding new jobs. Instead of having to recreate basic information regarding the work your shop does on a regular basis, job types contain all the basic info; so you can select one when adding new jobs. Let C&P do the basic work for you automatically, every time. News Flash: Work Orders are now part of job types. Up to 15 user-definable headings can be added, so that all jobs of the same type have the same work order topics. Read more about it in the Clients & Profits Online User Guide." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Days until due?" (06/15/09)
"You've always been able to print Vendor and Client aging reports to see invoices sorted by their due dates--listed in columns usually aged for current, 30, 60 and 90 days. You can now see the number of days until due prominently displayed on each invoice itself. Whether you're looking at an A/R or A/P invoice, the Days until due graphic instantly shows you the exact number of days until due (in black numbers.) If overdue, the exact number of days appears in red. If paid in full or unposted, the display shows zero. And if partially paid, the days until due still shows in black." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Quick calendar views" (06/08/09)
"When is one calendar many? When it's your Clients & Profits calendar! (Choose My > My Calendar.) It opens to your personal calendar: see start and due dates of your scheduled tasks as well as any company holidays. Add any additional notes or appointments by date. It's a multi-year calendar; plan ahead. Also available, a company calendar where company meetings, events and holidays appear; a cash calendar with expected cash in flows and out flows to help better plan cash flow; and every client has its own calendar--a great AE tool." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Automated repeat billings" (06/01/09)
"Recurring billings are a real time saver. They allow repetitive weekly, monthly or quarterly billings to be scheduled up to a year in advance. They are added for one job and up to six different job tasks. Any number of client jobs can have routine billings to be invoiced automatically. (Choose My > My Clients. Click the Recurring Billings link.) Charges like web hosting and account management fee billings once set up, are triggered by date when a user chooses Accounting > A/R. Keep track of recurring billings pending by printing the Recurring Billings Pending report. (Find it in A/R Lists' reports.)" -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Empower AEs" (05/25/09)
"Work in progress reports are easy for account executives to use during your shop's billing process. AEs simply add their initials and a status code range of jobs to review. Important amounts for each job are printed: estimates and change orders, billings, open orders and unbilled. The Job Billing Worksheet can be printed two ways: as a summary or with every task listed. (Choose Snapshots > Work in Progress.) Click the include overbilled jobs checkbox to include jobs that many currently have more billings than costs. To show tasks, click the one job per page checkbox. This report has an area for AEs to write instructions for the billing department. Read more about it in the C&P Online User Guide." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Faster cash now" (05/18/09)
"We could all do with a little extra cash. (Make that--a lot!) Speed up your collections and keep it all organized with the Collection Manager. Use it to track what you've done to get an invoice paid. The different statuses follow the collection process until the invoice is paid. (Choose Accounting > Collection Manager.) It lists every posted, unpaid invoice. Receivables are color-coded by age, highlighting problem invoice so that they can get top priority by the billing department." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Update client address" (05/11/09)
"If a client changes their address, you'll need to update existing job tickets whose estimates haven't yet been sent to the client. (Choose Production > Job Tickets. Find a job. Choose Edit > Edit Job > Estimate Options.) Click the Copy button in the lower-left corner. The original client address is replaced by the new one. No rekeying of information! Go ahead and get those estimates sent." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Rev up scheduling" (05/04/09)
"Has your shop fallen behind in marking scheduled tasks as finished? Luckily it is easily fixed. (Choose Production > Work to do. Click Unfinished and Overdue. Click Find.) Any scheduled task with a due date prior to today appears in the Work to do window. Highlight as many tasks as needed. Click the "mark as finished" button. Each highlighted task is finished with the current day's date. Scheduling reports are back on track." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Income statement two ways" (04/27/09)
"The standard income statement sub-totals income, job cost, and expense accounts. Gross profit is calculated as billings minus job costs. A gross profit percentage is calculated showing job costs as a fraction of the total billings. The expense percentage for each overhead account is calculated as a percent of billings, as well. This calculation shows your ratio of overhead to total billings. The AGI income statement combines billing and job cost accounts in the same section. The expense percentage for each overhead account is calculated as a percent of gross profit, not billings. This calculation shows the ratio of overhead to gross profit -- the agency's gross income. (Choose Snapshots > Financials. Select Income Statement. Select AGI checkbox or not.)" -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Profitability two ways" (04/20/09)
"Profitability reports are designed to show how much money you're making by job, task, client, division, profit center, or AE. You should use these reports specifically to see if your jobs are achieving their estimated profits both during production and after closing. Each job needs to make enough money to fund the agency's overhead and profit. Use income statements to see the agency's net income from a strict accounting perspective, taking into account all job costs and expenses." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Fast Cash: No bills mailed" (04/13/09)
"You know how quickly C&P handles billing clients: prebilling media, estimate billing, autobilling. Add even more speed to your billing process—not to mention saving on stamps—by emailing A/R invoices directly to clients. Add client contacts with their email addresses in the client file. When you're ready to send an invoice, find it in A/R. (Choose File > Print Destination > E-mail. Click the Print Invoices button. Click the Print button. The Send E-mail window opens. Select the right contact. Click Send.) Billing process over in record time!" -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Fast Cash: Prebill media" (04/06/09)
"Bill media orders instead of waiting until a media vendor invoice is received. You'll increase your shop's cash flow and be in a position to pay vendor bills on time. A media billing quickly bills many buys at one time for a client. Choose the type of order to bill, then add a run date through which are the orders you want to consider billing. All the unbilled orders within your parameters are listed. You select the orders you want to bill. With no rekeying of information, you've almost instantly produced a media billing. This is the quickest way to bill multiple media orders." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"What's best for backups?" (03/30/09)
"It depends on the size of your database, as well as how many files are being backed up. Tapes and external drives work best for backing up your entire file server, since they can store lots of information. Disks (CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, or DVD-RW) are better for quick backups of single files, like the Clients & Profits database. They're easier to use because they don't require a backup program like Retrospect; however, they can't be automated. The risks are that disks are delicate and drives can crash. Tapes suffer neither of those disadvantages, though the drives to read them can be expensive and the transfer rate is much slower than a hard drive (thus making the backup take much longer)." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Budget, budget, budget" (03/23/09)
"It's more important than ever to keep a close watch on expenditures. If you've never had a yearly budget, now is the time to start. If you've have closed the year at least one time in your Clients & Profits database, you can create an instant budget for your shop. (Here's how: Choose Setup > Chart of Accounts. Click the Budget Worksheet link. Click the Auto-calc button. A dialog box appears. Click the Yes button.) You've just created an entire budget based on last year's actual financials. You are free to edit the amounts as needed." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"One stop money management" (03/16/09)
"Wish there was just one place to see important cash balances? Proceed directly to Snapshots > Cash>Flash. Click Update. Today's beginning cash balance plus today's payments minus today's checks and plus or minus any journal entries made directly to the G/L that affect any cash accounts (labeled Other) equals the current ending balance. You'll also see current, 60-day, 90-day, and over 90-day balances from your client and vendor agings. Print a report or email directly to someone who needs to know this information." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Closing the year in C&P X Classic" (03/09/09)
"If your shop's accounting is based on a calendar year and uses C&P X Classic, you're coming to the end of accounting period 15. You'll need to close the year to continue working in 2009. When you close the year, accounting periods 1 through 12 (2008) are closed; periods 13, 14, and 15 become period 1, 2, and 3 for 2009. To read more about closing, check out the Clients & Profits X on-line Close Year Guided Tour. It's an easy-to-use illustrated timeline of what leads up to and follows a successful year—end close. Every step is here so you won't forgot anything! It takes about  20 minutes—time well spent." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Yours, mine and ours: Job tickets" (03/02/09)
"So many jobs in your shop; sometimes it's hard to know who are the key staffers on each one. There are a few easy ways to find out. 1) Choose My > My Jobs. Jobs appear if you are a job's AE or are one of a job's traffic assignments (e.g., copywriter, creative director, etc.). 2) Choose Lookup > Job Tickets. It displays all jobs within a certain production status code range whether you are assigned to them or not. 3) Choose Production > Production Planner. It displays all jobs that are not closed jobs. If you're an AE or a traffic assignment, you'll find My Jobs the quickest way to lookup your jobs." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Add logos easily" (02/23/09)
"Any 300-dpi PNG graphic file can be pasted onto estimates, invoices, POs, and IOs. Clients & Profits X can't handle EPS, JPEG, or other proprietary formats. Since the logo field does not support Postscript, any small type in your logo may not print well. The overall dimensions of each logo is 795 pixels wide by 300 pixels high. Any type or graphic must fit within these dimensions. If not, the graphic will automatically be scaled to fit the logo area. Your logo will appear in full-color when printed on a color inkjet or laser printer." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Creative Dashboard drives your day" (02/16/09)
"The Creative Dashboard lets all staffers see their important day-to-day information at one time. The Dashboard lists a staffer's time for the day and even displays how many hours they still have to account for. The job hot sheet list shows every job on which a staffer is assigned (either as the AE or as one of the traffic assignments.) And the deadlines section shows all of a staff member's unfinished tasks, both due today and overdue. (Choose My > My Creative Dashboard.) Make it the window everyone first sees when they open C&P. (Choose Setup > Users, Access & Passwords.)" -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Organize the job development process" (02/09/09)
"A creative brief defines a job’s objectives, strategy, and execution — in writing — so that you and your client are of one mind from the start, reducing costly misunderstandings later. Each job type/spec sheet can have up to 15 different creative brief headings that are copied to each job ticket added referring to that job type. Work on a creative brief with a client and key staffers. Make it your go-to document for every aspect of a job. A good set of creative brief questions and/or headings can ensure that each job's goals are completely thought through before the work begins!" -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Too many clients, vendors, staff, tasks!" (02/02/09)
"Sure you have too many clients, vendors, staff and tasks; but that's a good thing, right? Not if you have to look at each of them every time you work. Reduce those long, long lookup lists easily; keep handy only the ones that are currently useful. (Choose My > My Clients. Find a client. Click the Edit button. There's a Status pop-up menu. Select Inactive.) For vendors, staff and tasks, find each in the Setup menu. Find a record. Click the Edit button. Deselect the Active checkbox. The next time you open C&P X, lookup lists keep you focused on what's current." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Organize the job development process" (01/26/09)
"A creative brief defines a job’s objectives, strategy, and execution — in writing — so that you and your client are of one mind from the start, reducing costly misunderstandings later. Each job type/spec sheet can have up to 15 different creative brief headings that are copied to each job ticket added referring to that job type. Work on a creative brief with a client and key staffers. Make it your go-to document for every aspect of a job. A good set of creative brief questions and/or headings can ensure that each job's goals are completely thought through before the work begins!" -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Take the money quick" (01/19/09)
"What do you do if a client sends you money at the end of the year to fulfill their budget? Take the money quick! Add it as a client retainer payment and deposit it in the bank. Retainer payments are posted as a liability G/L account (you haven't earned the money yet) and increase a client's unused retainer balance. You'll be able to apply any or all of a client's unused retainer balance to any unposted A/R invoice for that client." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"Retainers in the New Year" (01/12/09)
"A new year begins! It's time to bill your January retainers. But you find a client's retainer schedule is filled with last year's retainer information. What you need to do is clear the schedule. But before doing that, be sure to print a client's retainer schedule for your records. You can save it as a pdf or print a hard copy. It's up to you. (Choose My > My Clients. Find a client. Click the Retainer link.) Once you clear it, you can add retainer information for a new year." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk

"How profitable were we?" (01/05/09)
"C&P X calculates profitability more ways than you ever thought possible! Of course client profitability reports are numerous in C&P and that's one way to think about profitability; which clients yield the most profits for your shop. But what about what type of work is most profitable? Print the Job Profitability Gross Margin by Job report. And how about each account exec's profitability? Print the AE/Team Gross Margin report. (Choose Snapshots > Profitability.) You'll find many different perspectives on profitability in these reports." -- Mindy Williams Clients & Profits Helpdesk