Agency life has a familiar rhythm. A retainer that promised twelve posts a month has become twenty, a weekend pitch deck went to a brand that then went quiet, a designer is on leave the week a campaign launches, and an invoice goes out late because nobody was sure what was delivered. The creative work is the fun part; keeping track of it is where agencies leak money.
This guide covers the business side of a small marketing agency: retainers, projects, time, pitches, people and cash. It also says plainly what Saauzi is not: a social media scheduler or a campaign tool.
What software a marketing agency actually needs
Your content calendar, design tools and ad accounts already live in their own products. The gap is the operating layer underneath them:
- Retainers and one-off projects in one list, each with its fee and dates.
- Deliverables as tasks with owners, so account managers stop chasing status in the group chat.
- Honest time records that show which retainer is being overserviced.
- A new-business pipeline for pitches and referrals.
- Your team, their leave and your hiring.
- A cash view that includes money you front for clients, such as ad spend.
Several apps sharing one set of records is what an ERP means for a small business; our plain-English guide to ERP explains it.
How Saauzi covers it: Projects, CRM, HRM and Cashbook
Pick Marketing Agency at sign-up and Saauzi switches on four apps; the Saauzi page for marketing agencies shows the set. You can install other apps later from the hub.
Projects: retainers and campaigns
A monthly retainer works well as a fixed-price project: one per client per month, such as "Tea brand: social retainer, October", with the fee as its budget. A website build or launch campaign can be its own project, fixed-price or hourly. Status shows active, on hold (waiting on client feedback) or done.
The task board holds the deliverables, such as twelve posts, one reel and the monthly report, each assigned to a designer, copywriter or strategist with a due date. Timesheets record the hours behind them, billable or non-billable, so pitch prep stays visible without reaching an invoice. At month-end you build a numbered invoice from the project, with taxes and any discount, and track it from draft to sent to paid. Our guide to Saauzi Projects has the detail.
CRM: pitches and new business
Every enquiry becomes a lead with contact, company, source (referral, website, an event), deal value, owner and expected close date. The stages are yours: brief received, pitch, negotiation, then won or lost. Log the pitch meeting and follow-up calls as activities, and use the board view to see every open pitch. More in our simple sales pipeline guide.
HRM: a team that changes shape
Set up departments such as creative, content and client servicing. Profiles hold job title, employment type (full-time, part-time, contract or intern), join date, emergency contact, salary on record and status. Leave requests go to a manager to approve, which matters around Dashain and Tihar, when many brands run their biggest campaigns. A junior designer opening goes on your public careers page, where applicants move through interview and offer to hired or rejected.
Cashbook: fees in, costs out
Record retainer payments, freelancer fees, subscriptions and money you front for clients across cash, bank and wallet accounts. Give ad spend its own category, and income against expense by category shows what went out and what came back. Cashbook is not full accounting; its exports go to your accountant.
A hypothetical month at an eight-person agency
- Week 1: You create October's six retainer projects and load each board with the month's deliverables.
- Week 2: A café chain's brief arrives by referral. It becomes a lead worth NPR 60,000 a month, with the pitch meeting logged.
- Week 3: The fashion retainer was planned at 50 hours for the month, and its timesheet already shows 48. You raise scope with the client before extra work becomes a habit.
- Week 4: The café pitch is won, so you open its project. One designer's Tihar leave is approved; another's moves a week. You invoice all six retainers, mark them paid as money arrives and check the ad spend category in Cashbook.
A short checklist for choosing agency software
- Can a retainer be a fixed fee while you still log time against it?
- Can pitch and internal time stay non-billable?
- Can each deliverable be a task with an owner and due date?
- Do invoices carry your PAN/VAT, taxes and a draft, sent or paid status?
Where Saauzi fits and where it doesn't
Saauzi fits a small agency that wants retainers, time, pitches, people and cash in one place, alongside its creative tools. It does not replace those tools:
- No social media scheduling, publishing or campaign management. Keep your scheduler and ad platforms.
- No marketing or SMS campaigns and no analytics app, so client performance reports still come from your ad and social platforms.
- No client portal or document management. Clients review and approve work where they do today.
- No integrations, email or calendar sync, or automations. Nothing pulls in from ad accounts, and you create each retainer period yourself.
- No payroll or attendance.
What it costs
Your first app is free forever. One flat subscription unlocks every Saauzi app: NPR 1,500 per user/month or NPR 12,000 per user/year, or internationally US$20 per user/month or US$200 per user/year. A hypothetical eight-person agency on annual billing pays 8 × NPR 12,000 = NPR 96,000 a year (US$1,600). See the Saauzi pricing page for current plans.
FAQ
Can Saauzi schedule social media posts?
No. Saauzi runs the agency's projects, time, pipeline, team and cash. Scheduling and campaigns stay in your social and ad tools.
How should I set up a monthly retainer?
Create a fixed-price project for each client and period, with the retainer fee as the budget, then invoice it from the project.
Can I see whether a retainer is profitable?
Timesheets show the hours each retainer actually took. Set against the fee, that tells you which clients are overserviced.
If your agency's real bottleneck is knowing what was delivered and what was billed, start with Projects. Your first app is free forever, so you can set up Saauzi for your marketing agency and switch on CRM, HRM and Cashbook as you grow.
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