The Problem: Winning Clients That Cost Money
A digital marketing agency with 60 employees had a painful blind spot. They knew total revenue and total expenses but had no idea which clients were actually profitable. Some clients demanded endless revisions, tying up senior designers for hours, while paying a flat retainer. The CEO suspected two of their biggest accounts were actually losing money, but Excel couldn’t capture the true costs per project.
How ERPNext Solved It
The agency adopted ERPNext’s project management and time-tracking modules integrated with invoicing. The solution included:
- Timesheet costing – every employee logged hours against a specific project, and ERPNext applied their loaded hourly rate automatically.
- Expense tracking by project – ad spend, software subscriptions, and travel costs were linked to the same client project.
- Project profitability reports – a live dashboard compared total project revenue against total costs (labour + expenses) for every client.
- Budget vs actuals – before starting a project, the team set a budget; ERPNext flagged when actual costs exceeded 90% of the budget.
The Improved Result
The agency renegotiated contracts with the two loss-making clients: one agreed to a higher retainer, the other switched to a time-and-materials model. Overall client profitability improved by 22% in six months. “We used to celebrate every new client win,” says the CEO. “Now we celebrate only when ERPNext shows the client is actually making us money.”