How Build in Amsterdam Gained Control Over Projects With Productive
Build in Amsterdam is a digital design agency that operates within the pillars of strategy, branding and e-commerce. As a full service agency, it aims to bridge the gap between on- and offline, and set the industry benchmark with every project.
For an agency that produces a lot of different output, effective project management is crucial. We spoke with Karla Vincheva, Head of Production at Build in Amsterdam about how Productive gave them control over projects and saved them time with invoicing.
Related: 11 Top Project Management Software for Designers in 2023
Can you tell us a bit about your role at Build at Amsterdam and how you found Productive?
I’ve been part of the Build in Amsterdam team for five years now. Currently, as Head of Production, I’m leading a product team with three project managers.
When I started working here, we didn’t really have a project management tool implemented, projects were mostly managed through Excel. That motivated us to do some research and we ended up getting a tool that we really liked. But as we grew, our needs were changing, too.
Through the years we started to work on more and more retainer projects so time tracking became essential. At one point, we reached the cap of the former tool’s possibilities, so we decided to go with a more scalable solution—and that’s how we found Productive.
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What benefits did you see once you started using Productive?
Well, I’d say the first thing were the budgets. Budget management possibilities were rather limited with our old tool, but Productive is very budget-oriented. It made us more aware of overall productivity and project health.
This ties in well with the invoicing process. We used to work mainly with Excel for creating invoices and then we had to send them separately to our accountants. Now the direct connection between Exact and Productive, and the available invoice template make this process much more automatic and less error-prone.
We’re also very pleased with the time approvals feature. Since we do a lot of retainer work, we have to provide weekly reports to our clients. In the past we had errors due to late time entries or adjusted time entries without project manager’s approval. Having this kind of check is really helpful and removes the risk of such errors.
The team also really enjoys the Google Calendar integration since the calendar bookings makes it easier to track time on projects in Productive.
Everyone in Productive’s Support and Success team is quite responsive and we feel that all of our comments and suggestions are heard, which is great.
Can you tell us a bit about your onboarding process?
I’d say we managed the onboarding quite well. The steps were smooth and for any questions we had, we knew Gabrijela or Luka were there for us.
The whole onboarding was really informative. Everyone in Productive’s Support and Success team is quite responsive and we feel that all of our comments and suggestions are heard, which is great.
Is there a feature that was a game-changer for you?
I’d say it’s a tie between invoicing and collaboration. The invoicing process has become much more automatic and less error-prone since we switched to Productive.
We also collaborate amongst ourselves a lot, so having the option to collaborate in real time and get feedback in a short amount of time is great.
There’s also a few things that we’d like to start using more. We’re using Reports to provide reporting to clients and see if everyone is tracking their time, but we’d really like to get more into the general business reports.
Before using Productive, we had less clarity and control over projects and time tracking.
What would you say Productive brought to your agency?
Clarity. And control. Before using Productive, we had less clarity and control over projects and time tracking. Our collaboration has improved a lot as well, which makes our jobs a lot more pleasant. There are still things within Productive that we want to try out or integrate into our processes more, so I’m sure things will get even easier with time.
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