Digital & Creative Agencies — Real Engagement Margins, in Real Time

An agency of 15–40 people manages dozens of projects for different clients in parallel. Each project has a budget, assigned resources, external costs, and payment milestones. The central question is always the same: what is the real margin on this engagement?

In most agencies, the answer arrives too late. Hours are tracked in one tool, the budget lives in a spreadsheet, invoices in a third system. At project close, everything is reconciled in Excel — and by then the margin is already set. If it is negative, there is nothing left to do.

With RevasOS the margin is visible in real time, from mid-project onwards. Hours logged by the team automatically update the budget. Issued invoices and external costs feed the Financial Report. If the client adds unplanned revisions, the system shows it — and the PM can decide how to act before it is too late.

This guide follows a typical agency project — a €25,000 rebranding — from start to invoicing, demonstrating the complete workflow on RevasOS.

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Structure the project

Milestones, tasks, and resources: the anatomy of an agency project.

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Configure the budget

Hours by role, external costs, milestone payments: the financial map.

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Manage scope creep

Read the Financial Report, spot the overrun, decide how to act.

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Invoice from the project

Invoices linked to payment milestones, export for the accountant.

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• Structure an agency project
  • The example: a rebranding project
  • Create the project
  • Define the milestones
  • Create tasks and assign resources
• Configure the budget — Time and external costs
  • Create the budget lines
  • Hourly cost by role
  • External costs
• Daily tracking by the team
  • How the team logs hours
  • How to log production expenses
• Monitor the project — The scope creep scenario
  • Read the Financial Report at mid-project
  • Identify the problem
  • Decide how to act
• Manage retainers and ongoing contracts
  • Structure a retainer as a project
  • Monitor hours consumption
  • Renew the retainer
• Invoice from the project
  • Invoices linked to payment milestones
  • Record external costs as purchase invoices
  • Export for the accountant
• Multi-project view — Agency health
  • Dashboard of all active projects
  • Identify critical projects
  • Team workload
• Weekly checklist for the agency PM
• Quick reference
  • Related guides
  • Key concepts
  • Roles and permissions

Plan availability

This guide requires at least the PM Standard plan, which includes budget with live data, real-time Financial Report, and project-linked invoicing.

Before you begin:

To follow this guide you need the Project admin, Budget admin, and Invoice manager roles. If you do not see the sections described below, contact your Admin.

• Projects roles and permissions

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Structure an agency project

The example: a rebranding project

To keep this guide concrete, we follow a real project: a rebranding sold at €25,000 with an estimate of 400 hours.

The client: a mid-size company that needs a new brand, guidelines, website, and launch materials.

Create the project

1. Open the Projects app in RevasOS.
2. Click + New project.
3. Fill in: title ("Rebranding — CompanyName"), description, client (selecting the contact from the directory).
4. Select the budget type: Fixed price (€25,000 for the entire project) or Time-based (if you bill by the hour).
5. Enter the expected start and end dates.
6. Click Save.

• Create a project

Define the milestones

Milestones represent the agency's production phases. For a typical rebranding:

Milestone	Duration	Estimated hours	Payment milestone
Discovery	2 weeks	40 hours	30% at signing (€7,500)
Concept	3 weeks	80 hours	—
Design	4 weeks	160 hours	40% at design delivery (€10,000)
Delivery	2 weeks	80 hours	—
Post-launch	2 weeks	40 hours	30% at close (€7,500)

For each phase, create a milestone with title, description, and dates.

• Create a milestone

Create tasks and assign resources

Under each milestone, create the necessary tasks and assign them to team resources:

Milestone "Discovery":

• Brief analysis → PM (8 hours)
• Competitive audit → Strategist (16 hours)
• Brand workshop → PM + Strategist (16 hours)

Milestone "Concept":

• Moodboard → Art Director (16 hours)
• Logo exploration → Senior Designer (40 hours)
• Naming proposal → Copywriter (24 hours)

Milestone "Design":

• Logo refinement → Senior Designer (32 hours)
• Brand guidelines → Junior Designer (48 hours)
• Visual identity system → Art Director (40 hours)
• Website mockup → UI Designer (40 hours)

Every task must have: assigned resource, start and end dates, hour estimate. Without the hour estimate, the Financial Report cannot calculate planned costs.

• Create a task
• View and manage workloads

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Configure the budget — Time and external costs

Create the budget lines

For an agency project, budget lines mirror the production phases and external costs:

1. In the project dashboard, go to Budget lines and click Activate budgeting.
2. Create one line per phase with planned costs and revenue.
3. Create dedicated lines for external costs.

Example budget lines for the rebranding:

Budget line	Planned cost	Planned price
Discovery	€2,400 (40h × €60/h avg)	€5,000
Concept	€5,200 (80h × €65/h avg)	€5,000
Design	€9,600 (160h × €60/h avg)	€8,000
Delivery	€4,000 (80h × €50/h avg)	€4,000
Post-launch	€2,000 (40h × €50/h avg)	€3,000
External — Photography	€1,500	—
External — Font licenses	€400	—
External — Print	€800	—

• Set up a project budget
• Manage a project's budget

Hourly cost by role

The hourly cost varies by role. In RevasOS the cost is defined in the collaborator's profile (Humans app) and used by the system to automatically calculate the cost of logged time.

Role	Typical hourly cost
Junior Designer	€35–45/h
Senior Designer / Art Director	€55–70/h
Copywriter	€45–55/h
Developer	€50–65/h
PM / Strategist	€60–75/h

Note:

The values above are indicative. Every agency defines its own hourly costs based on salary structure, overheads, and target margin. These values are configured once in the collaborator's profile.

External costs

For each anticipated external cost (photographer, print, licenses), log an expense in the corresponding budget line or create a purchase invoice linked to the project.

• Budget line concept
• Budget types

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Daily tracking by the team

The quality of the Financial Report depends on how consistently the team logs hours. The target is for at least 70% of the team to log their hours every day.

How the team logs hours

Every team member — designer, copywriter, developer — logs their hours by task at the end of the day:

1. Open the Timesheets app.
2. Click + Add → Add hours.
3. Select the task they worked on (the project is associated automatically).
4. Enter the hours and a brief description.
5. Click Save.

Alternatively, from the Quick task reporting view, the team can enter hours directly on the daily board with a single click.

• Create a new time entry
• Quick task reporting

How to log production expenses

If production costs arise (stock photo purchases, print proofs, client travel), the team can log them from the Reimbursements app and link them to the appropriate budget line.

• Create an expense

Advice for the PM:

During the first week of adoption, check every evening that the team has logged their hours. After the first week, it becomes habit. The Project Contributor guide is the document to share with the team.

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Monitor the project — The scope creep scenario

This is where RevasOS demonstrates its value. Mid-project, the client requested 3 unplanned revision rounds on the Design phase. How does this look in the Financial Report?

Read the Financial Report at mid-project

1. Open the Projects app and select the project.
2. Go to Report → Financial Report.
3. Set the period and click Generate report.

After 6 weeks of work, the report shows:

	Planned	Actual	Remaining
Time (hours)	400	310	90
Costs	€25,900	€22,100	€3,800
Revenue	€25,000	€17,500	€7,500
Profit	−€900	−€4,600	—

Identify the problem

Hours on the Design phase have exceeded the plan: 220 actual hours against 160 planned (+37%). The 3 unplanned revision rounds consumed 60 additional hours. The planned margin for the phase was −€1,600, but the actual margin is −€5,400.

Decide how to act

The PM has three options:

Option	When to use	Impact
Renegotiate with the client	The revisions are out of scope and the client acknowledges it	Issue a supplementary invoice or renegotiate the fee
Absorb the cost	The client relationship is strategic and you prefer to maintain it	The engagement margin decreases, but should be documented for future estimates
Cut from later phases	The Delivery and Post-launch phases have sufficient margin	Redistribute planned hours to compensate for the overrun

In every case, the data is certified and visible now — not at project close. This allows the decision to be made at the right time.

• View a project report

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Manage retainers and ongoing contracts

Many agencies work with retainer contracts: a monthly hours allowance (e.g. 40 hours/month) for maintenance, optimization, or support activities.

Structure a retainer as a project

1. Create a project with the title "Retainer — CompanyName — Q1 2026".
2. Create a single milestone for the period (e.g. January–March).
3. Create tasks for recurring activities (e.g. "Content updates", "Monthly SEO check", "Social management").
4. Configure the budget with planned hours (120 hours for the quarter) and the agreed fee.

Monitor hours consumption

The Financial Report shows in real time how many hours have been consumed against the agreed allowance. If at mid-quarter the team has already used 70% of the hours, it is time to flag it to the client or slow down.

Renew the retainer

When the period ends:

1. In the project dashboard, use Duplicate project.
2. The system creates a copy with the same structure: milestones, tasks, budget.
3. Update the dates to the new period.
4. Update the budget if conditions have changed.
5. Reassign tasks if the team has changed.

• Manage projects

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Invoice from the project

In RevasOS, invoices are directly linked to the project budget. Every issued invoice feeds Actual Revenue in the Financial Report.

Invoices linked to payment milestones

For the rebranding project:

Payment milestone	Amount	When to issue
30% at signing	€7,500	At contract signature
40% at design delivery	€10,000	At Design phase approval
30% at close	€7,500	At final delivery

For each milestone:

1. Open Invoices → Sales → All documents.
2. Click New invoice.
3. Fill in the details (amount, description, client).
4. Select the budget line of the project.
5. Click Save.

• Create a sales invoice

Record external costs as purchase invoices

When you receive the invoice from the photographer, printer, or license vendor:

1. Open Invoices → Expenses → All documents.
2. Click New invoice.
3. Fill in the details and select the budget line of the project.
4. Click Save.

The invoice feeds into Actual Costs in the Financial Report.

• Create an expense invoice

Export for the accountant

Invoicing data (sales and purchases) can be exported as CSV, Excel, or JSON from the Invoices app for transmission to the accountant.

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Multi-project view — Agency health

An agency with 10–15 active projects in parallel needs an overview: which projects are on track, which are overrunning, where resources are available.

Dashboard of all active projects

1. Open the Projects app.
2. In the Dashboard you see the list of all projects with status, progress, and dates.
3. For each project you can open the Financial Report and check the margin.

Identify critical projects

Check regularly:

Signal	What it indicates	Action
Negative Remaining Margin	The project is losing money	Renegotiate, cut, or document
Actual Hours > 80% of Planned with 50% project completion	Hours consumption rate too high	Investigate scope creep or inefficiencies
Actual Revenue = 0 with high Actual Costs	Invoicing is behind	Issue invoices for completed milestones

Team workload

The Workload view across all projects shows resource distribution:

• Red: resource overloaded — redistribute tasks or push back deadlines.

• Green: resource on track.

• Grey: resource with availability — consider assigning new projects.

• View a project workload

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Weekly checklist for the agency PM

✓Monday — reviewed the Financial Report for active projects✓Monday — verified that no project has a negative Remaining Margin✓Tuesday — confirmed the team has logged hours for the previous days✓Wednesday — checked the workload for the coming week✓Friday — reviewed the hours consumed on retainer contracts✓Friday — issued invoices for completed milestones

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Quick reference

Related guides

• Create a project
• Create a milestone
• Create a task
• Set up a project budget
• Manage a project's budget
• View a project report
• View and manage workloads
• Project planning
• Create a sales invoice
• Create an expense invoice
• Navigating the interface
• The Project Manager on RevasOS — Complete guide
• Project Contributor — Your 3 daily actions

Key concepts

• Project concept
• Budget line concept
• Budget types

Roles and permissions

• Projects roles
• Timesheets roles