Anonymised client engagement · Creative agency
Knowing on Wednesday whether a job is making money
A growing creative agency wanted to know, day by day, whether each job was making money. Six months of trying, in-house and with outside finance help, hadn't produced it.
01
The challenge
The agency has nineteen staff. Without a live view, it found out a job’s margin about a month after the job had finished. They had tried for six months to fix that. Their own team first, then an outside finance firm. Both could get to the numbers eventually; neither could get there while the job was still running, which is the only time the number is any use. By the time a project's position was clear, the work was done and the margin was whatever it was.
02
What we built
We connected the agency's accounting platform, time tracking and project tool, and built a dashboard that shows profitability for every live job, every day. It went live in June 2026.
03
The change
The senior leadership team can now see a job starting to drift over budget while there is still time to do something about it. Several jobs have been caught mid-way and pulled back, recovering around £3,000 of margin each. Delivery, resourcing and commercial calls get made mid-job, early enough to change the outcome, and the agency’s fractional CFO still makes the bigger financial calls, now with the numbers sooner. It’s the same agency whose invoice chasing we automated. More on how we work with creative agencies.
The system, in short
Daily P&LJob costMargin
Live jobs
Drift since Monday
Website build flagged on Wednesday, while it could still be pulled back
This is an anonymised Woodlark client engagement. Client identity, sensitive data and identifiable materials have been withheld.
A job that's drifting on Wednesday can still be pulled back. One you find out about at month-end can't.
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