Hoyne Design was a rapidly expanding creative agency looking for a more effective way to manage and track its jobs, expenses and revenue when it was referred to Particle Systems and their Streamline product. Melanie Clarke, the company’s Project Director was anxious to find a system that would both meet her administrative needs and be a tool that the creative team would get value out of and find easy to use.
After extensive research and consultation with Particle Systems, Melanie was confident that Streamline would be the ideal single program. She explained, “One of the most important factors was quoting and estimates. It was a huge selling point and bonus that we were able to work closely with Particle Systems to do extensive customisation of the Streamline product to ensure we could generate client estimates – no matter how complicated – quickly and accurately.”
Melanie continued, “For example, using Streamline the tender and order process has been simplified immensely. It’s even very easy to generate print quotes from competitive suppliers in order to give our customers multiple options quickly.”
Because the Streamline product was created in close consultation with a creative agency, it has a natural affinity with the needs of the industry, which was an additional plus for Hoyne Design. Melanie said, “Streamline intuitively understands the needs of our business. It’s set up correctly for the creative team so they genuinely don’t mind entering data and filling out timesheets. The only information they see is what’s relevant to them. It’s even customised to give them the correct role and charge out rate for each project.”
One of Melanie’s favourite features is the live reporting function, which Hoyne has also customised to easily see the information like sales figures by account manager, against total cost to the business, against the invoiced total and the percentage profitability. Melanie commented, “The constant updates mean we can flag where we are about to go over budget and raise the issue with the client. Our over servicing was reduced immediately and we continue to gain efficiency. The broad reporting capabilities also allow us to justify requests for additional budget with client.”
“The number one change I’ve seen in the business is efficiency. Streamline has unburdened us from administration and allowed us to speed up our processes,” Melanie concluded.
