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Testimonials
"As for your product... love it! It is changing the way we do business for the better!"
Korey Korfiatis
Saggezza Marketing Group
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"The software is fantastic – it's been a tremendous improvement over what we were using originally and we're happy to be your customer!"
Teresa Maslonka
Third Mind, Inc.
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"We love the system and it has saved our butt's several times this year!"
Michael Dickerman
Genesis Internet
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"Artists and craftsmen tend to love their tools and strive to master each nuance. I see Fox as a powerful new tool for my business that will allow me to run the company more profitably and efficiently. This in turn will leave me more time to do the fun stuff of the business (video and multimedia development) It seems that every new feature I discover about Fox directly relates to time or money or both saved.
Also, I love how new features, like Download Data, just suddenly appear one day. Very cool.
Keep up the good work and excellent support."
Tracy Evans
Tracy Evans Productions
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FunctionFox
provides a simple time and project tracking tool designed to help smaller advertising, design,
marketing and PR firms manage their business, and do more with their valuable time.
This newsletter speaks specifically to current issues affecting the creative service industry,
and includes advice that is not limited just to FunctionFox customers. Enjoy.
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Feature Article: Curing What Ails Us by David C. Baker
Talk to the Fox: Suggested Ways of Monitoring Retainers in TimeFox
Customer Profile: Hollinden Professional Services Marketing
Advertising and Design News
Contact FunctionFox
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Curing What Ails Us
By David C. Baker, principal of creative-business consultancy ReCourses, Inc.
and co-presenter of the Mind Your Own Business Conference
I've had the privilege of working with hundreds of design firms and ad agencies over the years.
It's stimulating to be around their energy, creativity, independence, humor and "otherness."
While many people might consider you folks strange, I think you're passionate.
And a little confused, too. That's because I think you're looking for the wrong things from your job.
Let's face it: You only have clients because you haven't yet figured out how to do your work without them.
You live for your work and crave the outlet it provides for your creativity.
In your ideal scenario, it wouldn't matter that a design project has to meet specific business
criteria or be finished by a certain date. Instead, you'd be an artist,
lavishly supported by a patron so you'd be free to create, without regard to practicality and usefulness.
But you are NOT an artist. That's not your job. Your job is to apply an unbelievably valuable skill to business problems.
Businesses desperately need your creativity, but you're only a tool to help them market their product or service.
The world is not about design. These businesses are not your benefactors.
And they don't want to spend a single dollar more than they have to merely to be "design sensitive."
Each of you would nod your head and agree with this perspective on design's role.
But after you finish reading this, you'll go right back to the endless chase for creative stimulation.
Is that bad? After all, what's wrong with a stimulating job, especially if you get rich in the process?
That's a good question, but there are several reasons why it's dangerous to expect too much creative stimulation from your work.
For one, your quest for creative stimulation often leads you to make poor business decisions,
choosing projects or, worse, clients simply because they sound like fun.
And it often leads to burnout, as you expend time and money chasing design solutions that "hit" you personally.
Remember what you used to do for creative stimulation outside your current vocation?
Maybe it was flying, photography, painting, travel, reading or surfing.
Whatever it was, you'd have a much healthier business and personal life if you separated the two.
Of course, there's no future whatsoever in a job that you don't enjoy.
But demanding that your job be enjoyable, and then making decisions to protect that aspect of it, may very well backfire.
Sometimes hard work that's just good, honest, grinding hard work is good for the soul.
It teaches us discipline, appropriateness and measured contribution.
Best of all, it can fund a very fun personal life apart from work.
Isn't it time for you to treat your business more like a business and your personal life more like
something you'd never trade for anything?
Reprinted with permission from HOW June 2005;
www.howdesign.com
If you have an article that you would like to share, please contact us at 1.866.369.8463 or email
info@functionfox.com.
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Question Regarding Retainers:
I love using the estimating feature in TimeFox to monitor estimated to actual time and costs on projects – it's been absolutely invaluable to my business, as well as to my clients.
A couple of my larger clients however are billed on a monthly retainer amount, and I've had a harder time keeping on top of when the retainer amount has been used up. I'd love to be able to make better use of the budget to actual feature on projects that don't necessarily require an estimate. Any suggestions?
Answer:
The Client Report in TimeFox is always a good one for quickly seeing how much time has been spent on any client for a given date range. The hourly cost column on this report provides an average of various billable and non-billable tasks, to show what your time is effectively billing out at:
As for monitoring budgeted to actual time for retainer clients, setting up an estimate in TimeFox equal to your retainer amount can be a great way to manage time / fees versus your retainer budget. By setting up monthly (or quarterly, or whatever time period) retainers as projects in TimeFox, you can allocate a retainer budget in the same way that you would estimate a fixed bid project.
By simply entering in your retainer time / amount as an estimate, you'll be able to see how much of your retainer has been used up from the estimate page in TimeFox, or even right from project pop-up on your timesheet. At a higher level, the Estimate Report will show you how accurate your retainers really are (which are profitable, and which are compromising).
Do you have a TimeFox question? Email us at
info@functionfox.com.
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Goodbye Painful Number Crunching
TimeFox helps Hollinden, a professional services marketing firm located in Houston, Texas spends more time with Clients, less with Accounting.
Hollinden deals with numerous clients in a variety of professional services. With business growth came a problem: monthly billing started to become a time-consuming process.
"We wanted to spend more time strategically assisting our clients with their marketing needs and less time on accounting," explains Christine Hollinden.
"We needed a way to track our time by client, project, task and employee. TimeFox was the way."
TimeFox has become a valuable tool to track billing for monthly retainer clients to ensure they are staying on track with allotted time. TimeFox is extremely helpful in measuring both profitability and productivity.
More...
If you would like your company to be featured in a TimeFox newsletter,
on our website or in our promotional package,
please send your request to
info@functionfox.com.
For more articles and resources, see www.functionfox.com/resources.html.
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2005 Mind Your Own Business Conference
October 6–9 at The Phoenician in Scottsdale, AZ.
Presented by HOW magazine and ReCourses, Inc., the Mind Your Own Business Conference is a business retreat tailored exclusively for principals of small- to medium-sized design and creative-service firms.
Sponsored in part by FunctionFox, MYOB delivers real-world solutions to the challenges faced by creative-business owners—from staffing and strategy issues to winning new business and dealing more successfully with clients.
As a subscriber of FunctionFox's About Time Newsletter, you're entitled to receive $100 off the registration fee. If you register by August 15, you can combine this discount with the $200 Early-Bird discount to save a total of $300 off your regular registration fee.
For complete information, visit the
Mind Your Own Business Conference web site.
If registering for the conference, enter coupon code, FF5, to receive FunctionFox's discounted rate.
All prices are in US Dollars, unless otherwise noted. This special discount cannot be combined with any other discount offers.
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Interested in learning what TimeFox can do for your business?
Call 1.866.369.8463 to speak with a TimeFox Expert.
Or, sign up for a your own TimeFox Demo account at
www.functionfox.com/demo.
You can opt out of the About Time Newsletter at
www.functionfox.com/newsletter/no_thanks.asp.
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