Marketing & Creative Agencies

See which clients actually make you money.

Agencies run on billable time, but the numbers live in a PM tool, a time tracker, a spreadsheet and QuickBooks that never reconcile. Odoo puts projects, timesheets, invoicing and the books in one database, so utilization, per-client margin and retainer burn are visible in real time. The screens below run on sample data built to reflect how a business like yours works; in a free trial we rebuild it on your own numbers, so you see your business in it before you decide.

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One system, running as one

Project

Timesheets

Sales

Invoicing

Accounting

CRM

The Odoo apps that run an agency, sharing one set of accounts, hours and books.

See it running

Watch a week flow through Odoo, from logged hours to the books.

Every screen below is a live Odoo build on sample data made to reflect how an agency like yours actually runs - retainers, fixed-fee projects, T&M accounts, a costed team and a month of timesheets. It is a stand-in for your business, not a real client. In the free trial we rebuild it on your own numbers, so you see your own business running in it.

Every client in one system.

Retainers, fixed-fee projects and time-and-materials all run as tracked projects with an hours budget behind the fee. The red chips flag the work that has run past the hours the fee bought, so an over-serviced account shows up on the list instead of hiding until month-end.

On screen: the client book, each engagement carrying its hours budget, red chips marking the accounts already over the line.

Odoo project list of agency clients: retainer, fixed-fee and time-and-materials engagements, each with an hours budget and red chips flagging accounts over their budgeted hours — Every client as a tracked project, red chips flagging the over-serviced accounts

Log time once. It becomes the invoice.

A billable hour logged against a task lands in the sales order's Delivered column at the client's rate. One click turns the week's timesheets into a customer invoice, and it posts to Accounting on its own. The hours never get re-typed into QuickBooks and never silently fall out of billing.

On screen: Elbow River's week of timesheets, 54 hours delivered, turned into a $9,990 invoice in a single step.

Odoo timesheet-to-invoice: 54 billable hours logged against tasks for the Elbow River account turned into a 9,990 dollar customer invoice — A week of timesheets, 54 hours, becoming a $9,990 invoice in one click

Utilization you can trust.

Every hour is tagged billable or non-billable, so the split is the real number, not a vanity 100 percent. Here it reads 414 billable against 154 non-billable, about 73 percent. Healthy agencies target 65 to 80 percent, and honest non-billable logging is what makes the figure worth acting on.

On screen: billable versus non-billable hours across the team, 414 to 154, the utilization landing near 73 percent.

Odoo timesheet analysis split billable versus non-billable: 414 billable hours against 154 non-billable, utilization around 73 percent — Billable vs non-billable, 414 to 154, a real ~73% not a vanity 100%

Catch an over-serviced retainer before it eats the margin.

A prepaid retainer sold at 40 hours, 46 delivered. The moment delivered passes the block the account bought, Odoo raises an Upsell activity, so the scope conversation happens mid-month while you can still act on it, not at renewal after the margin is already gone.

On screen: a 40-hour retainer burned to 46 delivered, the Upsell activity raised as delivered crossed the block.

Odoo retainer burn-down: a prepaid 40-hour block at 46 hours delivered, with an Upsell activity raised because delivered passed the block — A 40-hour retainer at 46 delivered, Odoo raising the Upsell flag mid-month

The whole book, and the revenue, in one place.

Recurring retainers, fixed-fee projects, time-and-materials and pass-through media on one screen. Retainer prepay is recognized as deferred revenue over the month it is earned, so the revenue line reflects the work delivered rather than the day you happened to bill.

On screen: the order book across all three models plus pass-through media, retainer prepay recognized over the month as deferred revenue.

Odoo order book across recurring retainers, fixed-fee projects, time-and-materials and pass-through media, with retainer prepay recognized as deferred revenue over the month — Retainers, fixed-fee, T&M and pass-through media, revenue recognized over the month

Live margin per client, not a year-end surprise.

Per-client and per-project margin, revenue against the cost of the hours actually logged, is visible as the work happens. You fix pricing or scope while the account is still open, not after the year-end review tells you which clients quietly lost money. We build it on your own accounts, retainers and timesheets, so you watch your agency run first.

Why Odoo

The operating core an agency runs on. Without a six-figure PSA.

You outgrew a PM tool plus a time tracker plus a spreadsheet plus QuickBooks, but a Workamajig or Kantata build is a heavy, admin-hungry commitment for a 10 to 60-person business. Odoo covers the work a services agency actually needs, on one database at SMB pricing, with a modern interface your team will use. Four things do most of it:

Projects + TimesheetsOne project per client or engagement, hours logged against tasks, billable and non-billable tagged on every line. That single input feeds utilization and true margin, not a vanity number.

Three billing models, nativeRetainer as a recurring block with deferred revenue, fixed-fee billed by milestone, and time-and-materials invoiced straight off the timesheets. The whole money model in three service products.

One databaseCRM, Project, Timesheets, Invoicing and Accounting share one record. The timesheet, the invoice and the ledger entry are the same data, so nothing gets re-keyed into QuickBooks.

A UI your team will useThe all-in-one PSAs are loved for their data model and hit for dated, clunky screens that need a dedicated admin. Time only turns into truth if people actually log it, so a modern interface is the point.

Compare

From a patchwork to one system.

Most agencies are not choosing between two PSAs. You are running a PM tool for the work, a separate tracker for the hours, a capacity spreadsheet on the side, and QuickBooks for the books, then fighting the seams where they never reconcile. Here is what one Odoo database replaces.

What you run today	Covered by Odoo
A PM tool for the work (Asana, Monday, ClickUp)	Project: one project per client or engagement, tasks, hours budget
A separate time tracker (Harvest, Toggl)	Timesheets: hours logged against the task, billable or non-billable
A capacity spreadsheet for who is booked	Planning: allocated versus available hours per person
Manual invoicing, hours re-typed into QuickBooks	Invoicing straight from timesheets or a milestone, posted to the books
QuickBooks for the books, disconnected from delivery	Accounting, with each timesheet and invoice the same record

Honest scope: real-time utilization and realization dashboards are custom or BI on top of native Timesheets and Planning data, and managed ad-spend-plus-fee billing (the percentage markup on media) is a manual or custom line rather than native at-cost pass-through. We scope those in the fit rather than pretend they ship out of the box.

Questions

What agencies ask us.

Can Odoo handle monthly retainers and recognize the revenue over the month?

Yes. Model the retainer as a recurring prepaid hour-block: the client buys, say, 40 hours a month, and delivered timesheets burn it down. Pair it with deferred revenue so the prepaid fee is recognized over the service month rather than the day you invoice. The block resets each month, so you are not spinning up a brand new project every renewal.

Can it invoice time-and-materials straight from the timesheets?

Yes, natively. Set the service product's invoicing policy to Based on Timesheets. Logged hours land in the sales order's Delivered column at the client's bill rate, and one click turns the week's timesheets into a customer invoice that posts to Accounting on its own. No re-keying hours into QuickBooks.

Will it show me profit per client and per project?

Yes, once one setup rule is done. Odoo creates an analytic account per billable project, and each employee's timesheet cost posts every logged hour as a cost while the client rate posts as revenue. That gives you true margin per project and, rolled up, per client, in real time as work happens. The one gotcha: fill in Timesheet Cost on every employee or the cost side reads zero and margins look fake-perfect.

Can it flag when we over-service a retainer?

Yes, when the retainer is modelled as a prepaid hour-block. As delivered timesheet hours pass the hours the block bought, Odoo raises an Upsell activity on the order. The scope conversation happens mid-month, while you can still act on it, instead of at renewal after the margin is already gone.

Can it show utilization by person?

The raw data is native. Every timesheet line is billable or non-billable, and Planning holds allocated versus available hours per person, so Timesheets and Planning together give you utilization by person out of the pivot. A polished, always-on utilization or realization KPI dashboard is a custom or BI build on top of that data, and we scope it in the fit rather than pretend it ships that way.

How does it handle client ad spend?

At-cost pass-through is native: reinvoice the media vendor bill to the client through analytic distribution, kept segregated from your agency fee so the two never blur. If you add a percentage management fee or a markup on top of spend, that markup line is a manual or custom setup rather than native, and we build it into the configuration honestly instead of implying it is out of the box.

How does the free personalized trial work?

We build Odoo on a slice of your real accounts, retainers and timesheets, and hand you a working system to click through: hours logged against a task, the week's timesheets turned into an invoice, utilization split billable versus non-billable, a retainer burning down, and margin per client. You see your own agency running before you decide, on a booked call, at no cost.