Accurate agency estimating and quoting

Estimate projects quickly and accurately

Create estimates from previous project ‘actual’ data or job templates to keep them realistic and consistent.

• In Synergist, estimates and quotes serve different purposes. An estimate is your internal time and cost. The quote is what you charge the client. This helps you accurately plan the amount of time/resource you need, regardless of how much you ultimately charge.
• Estimate the number of hours or days by role and see the estimated cost, recommended charge (based on standard or client-specific rates) and expected profit margin
• Add purchase estimates (with recommended mark-up) and manage supplier tenders
• Break down complex jobs into phases. These could be stages of a job, such as scoping, design, development, or could be deliverables. Estimate each phase separately, so you can track your time, costs and profit against each one
• Add percentage weightings/probability of opportunities going ahead to help with forecasting. Automated task reminders help you keep on top of your agency's pipeline
• Create documents to be populated and store all related docs and comms together in one place

Create professional client-facing quotes

Quote different types of jobs, including multi-option quotes, retainers, recurring work, multi-phase projects and managed sales orders.

• Get an instant profit estimate when you generate a quote to make sure your target profit margins are met before you send the quote to the client
• Build branded, client-facing quotes from estimates, fixed fees or value-based pricing
• Use client-specific rates cards, mark-ups, discounts and invoicing terms and work with multiple currencies
• Create simple or detailed quotes and add descriptions, comments, purchase/expense costs and options
• See client investment - how much you've over or under-recovered across all their jobs, making sure each client meets your profit targets
• Set up workflows to make sure quotes are approved internally before sending.
• Email a PDF straight to your client, mark a quote as accepted and save quote revisions for highly accurate billing
• Convert quotes into billing plans and invoices

Track estimated, quoted and actual time

At-a-glance traffic light systems quickly highlight if you’re going over budget, allowing you to identify problems early enough to rectify them.

• The estimate becomes your internal budget for each job and drives the tracking of its financial health as you deliver it
• Book time based on budget. The resource schedule shows you the estimated vs remaining time on each job, so you can keep bookings within budget
• See the financial health of your projects and phases on the job tracking dashboards
• Track quoted, invoiced, or recognised values vs actual time and costs - with a live view of percentage completion, potential overrun and profit
• Receive email alerts to flag potential issues — for example, a job reaching a certain percentage of its budget
• Raise POs against a job using purchase management, and control mark-up rates and approvals
• Analyse estimates vs actuals to inform future project costings

Improve your agency's forecasting and reporting

Keep track of all your jobs and opportunities in one system, for complete visibility of revenue and capacity.

• See your client and prospect pipeline based on percentage probability and see how winning new work would impact your resources
• Forecast actual revenue and profit vs planned billings and targets
• Track account handler financial performance against targets
• See where you have hours to be sold, so you can look to fill gaps, or identify resourcing issues
• Create accurate financial reports and management insights at the click of a button. You can even automatically schedule and email them to the right people

See more on agency management dashboards and reports