Headline Metrics
- One end-to-end source of truth for projects, pipeline, and cash flow — opportunities track alongside invoicing, and the agency pulled its first cash-flow report straight out of the workspace.
- A full web agency operating system — client delivery, retainers, and the sales pipeline — architected and agreed in a single working session, live today as a two-space footprint: an Admin/Growth space and a Projects space.
- Sales funnel cut to six stages with native time-in-stage tracking, replacing an overbuilt custom-field setup layered with legacy automations.
- $90,000 in change-order revenue recovered and $11,900 in operating costs eliminated through the operating system built for a premium design/build web agency.
The Challenge
A design/build web agency working at the premium end of the market — minimum engagement $30,000 — had outgrown its project management workspace. Client-requested scope changes ("change orders") had no tracking path back into the sales pipeline beyond Slack, so added scope on $30,000+ builds went un-invoiced. There was no way to see which of the agency's 12 regular contractors were on which projects for invoicing and budgeting. Project-tied software subscriptions ran on after projects closed. Strong portfolio and testimonial candidates went unflagged. And the sales funnel was buried under an overbuilt custom-field setup with legacy automations layered on — no clean read on lead-to-close conversion or time-in-stage.
The Solution
One working session with the agency's leadership architected its operating system — built in ClickUp — across its three business areas: active client projects, ongoing retainers (validated as-is), and the sales pipeline.
- Active projects: simple and template-driven, with company/invoice/opportunity relationships surfaced on each project task plus a tight custom-field set (Drive folder link, SOW link, project cost).
- Change orders: a single task shared across the delivery and sales spaces, keeping each added-scope request linked from PM flag → sales approval → back to delivery, with project cost and change-order cost aggregating separately via sub-tasks.
- Subscription tracking: project-tied software subscriptions tracked on the project itself, so seats get killed at project close instead of running on unnoticed.
- Sales funnel: a six-stage custom-status funnel, native time-in-stage tracking turned on, a due-date-on-update automation keeping aging opportunities visible, and the legacy automations reviewed and rationalized.
- Contractor tracking: a dashboard pulling work by person and time period across the 12 regular contractors, associated directly to projects — invoicing reconciliation without custom-field sprawl.
- Testimonial/portfolio flagging: a label field on projects so PMs flag candidate work early — visible to designers wrapping files and rolled up to the client record for sales.
The Results
- Opportunities track alongside invoicing — the agency pulled its first cash flow report straight out of the workspace.
- The full three-area architecture was agreed in-session; the agency committed the same day to finalizing custom-field decisions and handing over its workspace for migration into a fresh space.
- The system went live as a two-space footprint — an Admin/Growth space and a Projects space — and the agency still runs on it today.
Quotes
"I love that the opportunities track along with the invoicing. We pulled our first cash flow straight out of the information from ClickUp. It's very streamlined. There's one place where everything is, where all my information comes from. And when it changes, it changes everywhere... I feel like we've gained the confidence that ClickUp is the right tool and that we won't have to change it in six months." — COO
"We really like the simplicity of the workflow... I loved that the tasks are very simple, very clear... We were definitely underusing it and now it's like our source of truth." — Operations Lead