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Setting up Tasks Without Overkill

We are a small graphic design firm with billing of $500,000 a year. We are in the process of setting up and using C&P Classic. We set up groups with tasks associated with each group. We think we may have overkill with the amount of detail. How do we reach a balance of getting the detail we need for estimating purposes, etc. and the functionality of using this task-based driven program. We are finding that we have too many tasks and are overwhelmed.

For instance, we have group 1 which is project administration and in this group are the following tasks: delivery, estimate, project administration, proposal, scheduling and specifications. We have another group called meetings and consultations which includes the following tasks: design presentation, email, fax, meeting client, meeting staff, meeting design, meeting vendor and telephone conversation. Our design group includes these tasks: design 1, design 2, design 3, design final, design mockups and design over time.

How are other small design firms handling this?

User

We are a firm of 22 employees. Rather than setting up each "task" involved in doing a project, our tasks are really our resources e.g. Art Director, Account Executive, Production Artist, Creative Direction, etc. This makes is easier for all concerned. Whoever performs a particular task, puts their time in under the same task (If an Art director is presenting to a client, their time goes under AD...) On a occasion if the Production Artist is acting as AD, they will put their time under AD. We use these same tasks on our estimates to our clients. Hope this helps.

Donna

Currently we have the following groups: design fees, expenses, in house costs, and advances. But I did this specifically to look at revenue with just design fees.

This grouping also places the charges and subtotals of each group on the invoice in the order I prefer them to read. (Strictly a personal preference.)

Unfortunately, we did this with our existing task set, which we need to revamp. Our challenge will be to create a new set of tasks which reflect the way we structure our proposals and invoices, and still maintain those groups.

Ann Marie Tullo Bookkeeper, Ph.D

It is easy to get too detailed with tasks. Your transition to C&P will be much smoother if you err on the side of simplicity.

For production scheduling, my advice would be to break down your production tasks to reflect how you want your scheduling function in C&P to work. For example: write down the key functions that you want to track in the order that you would schedule them, i.e.; meeting, concepting, mechanical, revisions, approval, date due, etc. Set these up as scheduling tasks and if you don't need them to show up on invoices, don't enter them on timesheets or put them under a "group" called "schedule." If you don't plan on using C&P's production scheduling you can skip this; if you change your mind, you can add it later. We use the scheduling and find it indispensable.

For billing, remember that your tasks are rolled up into "group" headings on the invoices. Decide what you want your client to see on their invoice then decide how much of a breakdown you really need to track under these headings and make those your tasks. Use these tasks that you want to track on time sheets. For everyone's sanity and to keep your data consistent make these tasks as few and as general as possible. It is fine to use the same task for both scheduling and timesheets as long as its "group" heading reads the way that you want it to appear on invoices.

Most agencies are interested in separate analysis of account servicing, creative, and expenses. It would be helpful to plan your group headings along how you want to analyze your costs because these group headings are also used in many C&P snapshot reports as well as estimates and invoices.

It takes some planning to get the set up to reflect how you do business but the extra time will paid off in increased efficiency through C&P. Also keep in mind that if you set something up and it's not working for you it can always be tweaked or changed entirely.

Lane Brafford, Marketing Support Specialist Marketing Services Organization North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center

We're currently attempting to set-up our Clients and Profits so that we can use it easily between all departments. What I would love to be able to do is have a basic job ticket with the essential tasks (like design, copy writingg, project management, etc) and be able to roll other tasks that fall under these categories into the major tasks. It would be great if I could have a basic 7 on the job ticket but group the other tasks into those 7 on the daily time sheets. For example, is there a way that I can have Design on the job ticket (so that on scheduling and estimates it's one entity), but allow other tasks that relate to Design, like web design etc..., to be entered into daily time sheets, automatically rolled into total design time but not have to be present on the job ticket (we're trying to cut down on clutter). On our estimates, we have one entry for agency costs and others for vendorcosts... butut we still would like to internally determine what time is spent on other tasks that may fall into the scope of Designetc. Soo, if anyone has any suggestions on how I can simplify theII & P pIIcess, I'd really appreciate it.

Meghan Malmstadt Client Services Coordinator

I would like to roll-up the litany of detailed tasks into broader "milestone-like, scheduling tasks" - have others done this? does it work?

Rob Brockman

We are in the set up mode with clients and profits and was wondering if anyone would be able to share their data base of Status Codes and Task Table with us. Our thinking is that if someone has set this up already we would like to use that as a beginning point to build our Codes and Table. We are looking for this as opposed to starting from scratch. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Gary Miller