Farotech is a comprehensive, growth-driven digital marketing agency that implements a systematic approach to lead generation, nurturing, and conversion by utilizing scalable web design, cutting-edge inbound strategies, and creative video development. They are located outside of Philadelphia (USA), but they serve clients all over the country. In this case study, we spoke with Scott Harris, Director of Digital Marketing, about why Farotech chose Teamwork Projects after struggling to find accessible project management software that delivered the features they needed. Today, they’re using Projects to improve team transparency and simplify time-consuming tasks like time tracking and invoicing.

“Teamwork Projects is an effective tool for managing a company within any job sector. I have personally recommended it to companies in industries completely unrelated to digital marketing.”

In 2015, Farotech was managing projects and production through an in-house system that was functioning well, but was gated by a sole programmer who had left the company. Updates and improvements needed to be made, but teams were stuck because no other employees could manage the backend of the custom software.

“When we used our in-house developer to create our system, we didn’t think about the consequences of one person holding the access to our entire process. It really slowed down our workflows and momentum when that person wasn’t here to keep everything going.”

Before designing their own system, the Farotech team depended on a pieced-together collection of complicated spreadsheets and an awkward project management platform that wasn’t capable of handling the large volume of tasks in their production schedule. Not only did Farotech need completely new agency project management tools, but they needed a way to allow anyone, from top management to entry-level team members, to make necessary changes without a gatekeeper. In order for that to happen, they knew the software had to be easy to learn so anyone could be proficient with it in a matter of days.

“We knew we couldn’t afford to be stuck without the project management tools we needed, so we focused on finding software anyone could use. Easy onboarding and whole-team access were just as important as advanced features.”

 

After evaluating several different project management software solutions, Farotech selected Teamwork Projects for its training support materials, intuitive user interface, and the flexibility to adapt workflows and processes to their needs. They could put away their spreadsheets and limited organizational tools and have all of their documents, tasks, reference materials, and processes contained in one platform.

“Teamwork Projects was an obvious choice due to its easy learning curve and the ability for anyone in the company to pick up the reins and manage the backend or production flow within the software.”

Internally, Farotech uses Teamwork Projects to input a recurring monthly production schedule that guides many of their projects. Projects’ template features allows the team to reduce their setup time for each new project-and it standardizes the processes needed for custom projects. Using the bulk import features, the team was also able to save time creating task lists. They could input all of them on spreadsheets and then transfer them to Projects, complete with assignments for necessary tasks.

“With this shortcut, we have an easy way to create and assign a massive amount of deliverables without repeating a lot of tedious data entry. Now everyone knows exactly what they need to do, and our planning has been simplified. “

Invoicing also used to consume a lot of time as the billing department had to collect and tabulate all of the hours invested in the project from each team member. With Teamwork Project’s built-in time tracking tools, time entries are calculated automatically for tasks and subtasks in any part of a project. Billing has been reduced to a few clicks, and it’s far more accurate as well.

“Now we can accurately bill and pay vendors, and time tracking has also improved the accuracy of quotes that we give customers. Teamwork Projects helps us save money and bring in more money.”

 

When Farotech started seeing the savings from utilizing Teamwork Projects in their billing process, they decided to take an extra step to completely restructure their quotation process. Time tracking tools allowed them to discover how much time they were actually investing in projects and then adjust rates to more accurately reflect the value of their work.

“Before Projects, we were doing too much guesswork around invoicing. Now we have data that allows us to quote and bill jobs directly and let us develop an effective pricing structure for our services.”

Other automated or simplified inputs have also reduced the busywork that Farotech team members need to complete in order to exchange information or keep projects moving forward. Now that everyone in the company has been onboarded to Teamwork Projects, they’re seeing significant improvements in streamlining workflows and reducing bottlenecks.

“We have reclaimed so much time from our workweek. We finally have a system that’s capable of managing our task volume and production schedule. The ability to import a large quantity of tasks eliminates the need for manual task creation and allows us to keep a rolling production schedule.”