See where a job really goes between brief and invoice
In a small studio, everyone knows their part of a job and nobody can see the whole thing. We sit with you and map how a job moves from enquiry and brief, through creative and approvals, to delivery and the invoice. Then we mark the steps that eat unbilled hours. It's usually the writing and chasing around the creative work, which is where AI helps without touching the part clients pay for.
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What we map in a small agency
Enquiry to signed proposal
Discovery calls, proposals, and follow-ups, with how long each one takes and who writes them.
Brief to first draft
How a client's brief reaches your designer or writer, and how many times it gets clarified on the way.
Approvals and revisions
Where work waits on clients, how often it's chased, and where scope quietly grows.
Reporting and invoicing
Monthly reports, timesheets, and retainer invoices, and the hours they take at month end.
Where the unbilled hours hide
Ask a studio how long a logo project takes and you’ll hear about the design time. Ask how long the whole job took, from the first enquiry to the paid invoice, and the number is much bigger. Proposals, briefing calls, clarifying emails, approval chasing, revisions, the handover pack, the invoice reminder. Most of those hours never reach a timesheet, so nobody knows how many there are.
How we map it
Mapping how you work (the industry calls it process mapping) means writing down each step of a job, who does it, which tool it happens in, and how long it really takes. For an agency, we follow one typical job from enquiry to invoice. We look at your project board in Asana or monday.com, your inbox, and how proposals get made. Then we draw it out in plain words and mark three kinds of step. Ones that repeat, ones that wait on someone, and ones that only your creative team should touch.
What maps found in two agencies
We work with Saltbush Studio, a six-person design agency in Fremantle, where the costly step was writing Friday updates for twelve retainer clients. An AI helper now drafts them from Asana, and all twelve take the director under an hour. We also work with a four-person social media agency where the costly step was 18 monthly reports that took two full days. They now take about half a day, and the account lead still writes the strategy notes. Both jobs sat outside the creative work, which is why a map found them.
Where mapping falls short
A map shows today, and it won’t fix anything by itself. It also depends on honest answers. If the map shows how jobs are meant to run rather than how they run on a busy week, AI gets pointed at the wrong step.
If you’re not sure where your studio’s hours go, get your AI Starter Plan. It’s the quickest first map.
Related
Read about our Mapping how you work service, and how we help small teams in marketing and creative agencies.
Common questions
We're only five people. Do we need a map?
How long does it take?
Do we keep the map?
What does it cost?
Will it try to automate the creative work?
Start with a map of one job
Talk us through your last project from enquiry to invoice. Get your AI Starter Plan and you'll see where the unbilled hours went.
Get your AI Starter Plan