Your agency's finances, handled the way creative work demands
Full financial management built for advertising agencies, design studios, and creative consultancies — where project revenue, billing cycles, and contractor costs follow their own logic.
Financial statements that reflect how your studio actually operates
Project-level clarity
Monthly reports show you exactly which engagements are performing well and which are quietly eroding margin — so pricing decisions have something solid to stand on.
Billing reconciled properly
Time-and-materials invoices, retainer agreements, milestone billing — each recognized correctly in your financials rather than lumped together at month-end.
Overhead you can allocate
Studio costs assigned to the teams and projects that generated them, giving leadership a true picture of what each part of the business costs to run.
Contractor costs tracked
Freelancer and vendor payments documented against the projects they supported — not sitting in a general expense line that tells you nothing about where the money went.
Generic accounting wasn't designed for how you bill
Most accounting frameworks are built around businesses that sell products or deliver a fixed service. Creative agencies don't fit either model. Your revenue arrives in multiple forms — retainers, project milestones, pass-through media, time-based billing — and the standard chart of accounts handles none of it gracefully.
You end up with monthly statements that show total revenue but tell you almost nothing about which clients are actually generating profit after direct costs and time are factored in.
Contractor payments get mixed into general expenses, making it difficult to see what any given project actually cost once the work was complete.
Overhead — office costs, software subscriptions, leadership time — sits in a flat expense category that doesn't help you understand whether any particular team or department is carrying its weight.
By the time you notice a problem — a client relationship that's been running at a loss, a production budget that quietly ballooned — the work is already done and invoiced.
An accounting structure built around your billing, not the other way around
Creative Agency Accounting starts by mapping how your studio actually generates revenue. The chart of accounts, project tracking structure, and reporting templates are all configured around your billing model — not a generic template retrofitted after the fact.
Revenue recognition
Project-based billing reconciled so your statements reflect what's been earned, not just invoiced.
Profitability by project
Monthly summaries showing margin per engagement, not just total revenue versus total expense.
Team overhead allocation
Studio costs distributed across the departments and clients that actually incurred them.
What the ongoing relationship looks like
Once the initial setup is complete, the work settles into a reliable monthly rhythm. You focus on the studio. We handle the numbers.
Monthly reporting package
Each month you receive complete financial statements — profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow — alongside project profitability summaries broken out by client engagement. Delivered on a consistent schedule.
Questions answered as they come up
Numbers raise questions. We're available to walk through the reports, provide context on variances, or work through a specific scenario — a new pricing model, a potential hire, a contract structure you haven't used before.
Year-end preparation
Books maintained throughout the year mean year-end is a review, not a scramble. Tax preparation handoff, contractor documentation, and financial summaries are ready without a last-minute search through twelve months of transactions.
Transparent pricing for a complete service
A fixed monthly fee for comprehensive financial management — no per-transaction billing, no hourly surprises.
- Full monthly financial statements — P&L, balance sheet, cash flow
- Project profitability summaries per client engagement
- Time-and-materials billing reconciliation
- Contractor payment tracking integrated into project costs
- Overhead allocation by creative team or department
- Year-end preparation and tax documentation handoff
- Available for questions and review sessions as needed
What to expect, and when
Agency accounting takes a full billing cycle or two to normalize. Here's a realistic picture of how the first months tend to unfold.
Setup and baseline
Chart of accounts configured, project tracking structure built, historical data organized. The foundation for everything that follows.
First full reporting cycle
Project profitability data starts accumulating. Billing patterns become visible. Reports begin reflecting the actual structure of your business.
Ongoing clarity
Month-over-month comparisons become meaningful. Pricing and capacity decisions can be grounded in real data rather than informed estimates.
Starting with a conversation costs nothing
An initial conversation is simply a conversation. We'll ask about your studio's billing structure, team size, and what's been unclear in your current financial picture. You'll get a sense of whether our approach is a practical match — and we'll give you an honest assessment of what working together would involve.
No obligation to move forward. No presentation to sit through. If the fit isn't right, we'll tell you directly — and if there's a different service that would serve you better, we'll point you in that direction.
A clear path forward
Send us a message
Use the contact form or write to us at [email protected]. A brief note about your studio — size, billing structure, what you're looking for — is enough to get things started.
We'll have a conversation
We'll reach out to arrange a short call. No slides, no pitch — just a practical discussion about your agency's financial situation and whether our service is a reasonable fit.
Setup begins
If it makes sense to move forward, we configure your accounting structure around your billing model and get the first reporting cycle underway. Most of the setup work happens on our end.
See what your agency's numbers are actually telling you
A brief conversation is often enough to clarify whether Creative Agency Accounting is a practical fit. Tell us about your studio and we'll take it from there.
Start a conversationMore from Wroughton
Many clients begin with one service and add others as their needs develop. Here's what else is available.
Project Profitability Tracking
Ongoing monitoring of revenue and costs by client project, with weekly or bi-weekly status reports. Flags projects approaching budget thresholds before they become a wider issue.
Contractor & Vendor Payment Management
Organization and processing of payments to freelancers, production vendors, and media partners — invoice review, scheduling, and year-end documentation handled completely.