Dennis en Michel of Webiteers about Combidesk

“We started in 2008 as a search engine marketing agency, but these days we also manage paid campaigns via Google and email marketing. Basically, we handle everything related to inbound marketing,” begins Dennis, owner of the marketing agency Webiteers. In 2008, he quit his job to start his own business with colleague Michel. “Back then, SEO was more of a ‘technical trick’. We saw an opportunity to improve by creating content that addressed customer needs.” This is how and why Dennis decided to connect his business software with his invoicing software.

Webiteers builds on Dennis’s background in office automation: “The combination of marketing and technology appeals to me — automating and optimizing (IT) processes. My interests come together perfectly in modern marketing.”

It’s no surprise that Webiteers doesn’t position itself as a purely creative agency, but as an advisor in marketing, sales, and technology: How do you deploy marketing effectively? How do you generate leads efficiently, and with which tools? And how do you get Sales involved in that process?”

“If Combidesk continues to develop the way they do now, we’ll definitely be using them more often.” Dennis Sievers, Founder of Webiteers

Project management and other tools

The transition from a search marketing agency to a full-fledged growth agency happened organically, but organizationally, it was quite a challenge. Dennis explains: “We work completely differently than we did a few years ago. Back then, everyone managed their own clients. Now, we work in project teams. That also means you need to be able to manage projects efficiently through software.”

“At the end of the day, we often bill by the hour, per month, or on a project basis. Some of our services or solutions have fixed prices. For registering assignments, planning capacity (hours), and managing project work with clients, we used several different tools. That eventually started working against us — we had to manage administration in multiple systems, including invoicing. A lot of manual work, in other words.”

The disconnected toolset:

• Time tracking: Harvest
• Project management: Basecamp, Asana, Trello, Slack, or even client systems
• Invoicing: SnelStart
• Bookkeeping: SnelStart
• CRM: HubSpot

Dozens of billable but unbilled hours

“With all those different tools, of course things occasionally went wrong. If we did extra work for a client outside of the initial agreement, it had to be billed separately. Those hours often slipped through the cracks. We definitely missed out on some revenue because of that.”

The solution: Simplicate and SnelStart

“The ultimate solution was Simplicate — software designed for professional service providers. And we connected it to our accounting software, SnelStart, using a Combidesk integration.”

Simplicate now holds all our clients and projects, tracks team hours and capacity, and handles invoicing — all from one environment. Thanks to the connection with SnelStart, the accounting data is always up to date, giving me real-time financial insight. That’s not a luxury for any entrepreneur.”

The result of connected software

“We don’t send hundreds of invoices each month, but when you have to manually check all completed tasks and hours, create and send invoices, that still eats up a lot of time. Before, I had to gather information from three or even four different tools — and that was just for invoicing, not for updating the bookkeeping. Now, my invoices are ready in Simplicate, and with the Combidesk integration, they’re automatically imported into SnelStart. This saves me 4–8 hours of work every invoicing cycle.”

“The great thing about the integration is that payments are also synced back into Simplicate. Follow-up is much more efficient now. If a client pays late, we see it immediately and can automatically send a reminder.”

The new, optimized, and connected toolset:

• CRM + invoicing + project management + time tracking: Simplicate
• Bookkeeping: SnelStart

“With the rise of APIs in modern software, connecting systems is becoming easier and more common. I can easily see us using Combidesk for other integrations in the future — because who wants to deal with duplicate (project) administration work?”

“We use HubSpot as our marketing automation tool. Synchronizing data between HubSpot and Simplicate could be valuable for us in the future. If Combidesk keeps evolving like this, we’ll definitely use it even more.”

Automating bookkeeping = instant time savings

Less manual work, fewer mistakes, more clarity. Especially when combined with automatic payment matching between Mollie, PayPal, Stripe, Pay., Rabo Smart Pay, or ING Checkout.