As a package (software + support), it's the best product in the market - and we tested 6 of the leading solutions in great depth. If you're looking for a system that's customisable for your own business and the way you do things, you won't find a better system.

For us, the quoting side of the system is fantastic. It's super configurable and allows granular customisation across products, services and mark-ups. Time tracking is also very good. Support has been fantastic - very quick to respond to any questions and they always take the time to make sure you understand.

There is a fairly steep learning curve. It's not immediately the easiest software to get in to, but it is worth the investment.

The implementation of Synergist was part of a wider (and thankfully successful) agency turnaround strategy I had been managing, and it certainly did its job!

The depth of its functionality was not found in many other PM software when carrying out my research. Plenty of options for setting up projects, retainers, rate cards, roles, departments, etc. Its ease of use for non-financial agency staff, client services and PMs made for much happier teams compared to previously used PM software. There are lots of great options available for analysing project performance - and the variety of reports and data extraction options massively helped with timely management reporting.

The data viewer option for creating bespoke reports took some time to get my head around.

One central area for the life of the project to be able to budget for future, fee quote more accurately for the future, track the life of the project and analyse data at the end of the project more efficiently.

One central place for the life of the project i.e. from fee quote to completion, cutting down on previous needs for quite a few spreadsheets !

Data Reviewer reporting isn't as simple as we would like it. We would like more things bespoking to our company. Calendar bookings if far too complicated for our needs.

Very positive - I have used it in 2 agencies now and i think compared to other tools it is very well developed.

Synergist is made for marketing agencies and the development team have listened and incorporated alot of features that agencies need which other general workflow/ project management systems might not consider. It provides accurate data and insight, allows very good management and financial control of projects and allows you to manage and agency workflow by integrating into the agency processes well.

the CRM needs some development to help new business categorisation

Great customer service, The Agency works are extremely knowledgable and helpful. The product is great but like any proprietary software there are compromises relating to config.

Once you get used to Synergist it is an extremely versatile and powerful management tool.

There are multiple options in how to use the system and configure it. It is not the simplest software to configure. I would recommend having a very clear vision of how you want the system to work before implemetation.

I really like the system, having used other agency systems and had other systems demonstrated. Great system with a great support helpdesk.

Great all in one agency management software. Good resource planning to help with efficient planning across the agency. The system enables you to look at client profitability at a job level and client level during and when the job has been completed. Manages with accrued and deferred income, we found that many systems state that they can manage and report on deferred and accrued income but very few systems can. A big plus of synergist is not only the deep dive on implementation but also the ongoing support from the helpdesk.

This is not a plug and play system, implementation is expensive in terms of time. However if implemented correctly you will get this investment back in a short time - which we did.

Excellent, we are really pleased we implemented this system into the agency.

An all in one solution- and now the backbone to our agency! We do not know what we would do without it, or how we ever managed,

Its does take a while to really understand the set up and just what it can do. The management information you can get out of it is robust and extensive. We provably still dont know the half of what we can do....

One of the best Agency management tools you can buy. Great customer service, tech support it very fast and helpful.

It covers all areas of Agency management from onboarding new prospects, planning & build tasks and hours, traffic management, through to revenue recognition.

attaching briefs to jobs isn't as easy as it could be.

Positive, helps run the business

The software is great for running jobs, which is vital to ensure we deliver to budget. The integration initially (10 yrs ago) was difficult, mainly due to us having to ‘know’ our processes, before we could integrate Synergist.

The fact Synergist is database driven; means you can cut the data in so many different ways. Although this can be beneficial it can sometimes be confusing.

Improvements in agency reporting leading to better and more profitable customer relationships.

Reporting and analysis of projects and clients is second to none. We have improved client and agency profitability and process by a significant margin using Synergist.

UI could be better, but does not distract greatly from solutions overall performance. I believe a new version out soon should provide a better experience.

Synergist has a lot of very useful features to help support the running of a busy agency and its projects all of the way through their lifecycle. It sits at the heart of our agency, is used daily across the business, and has allowed us to make many data-driven decisions over the past five years. Our core use for Synergist is: - tracking opportunities, - building quotes, - monitoring billing plans, - resource scheduling, - time recording, - invoicing, - utilisation reporting Synergist is bigger than this though as it has many other features.

Its vastness is also a challenge - there is so much it can do that we typically feel behind the curve on its use. This isn't too much of Synergist's fault though. The admin-side of agency life is a balancing act between efficiently staying on top of admin versus focusing on clients and their projects.

Synergist got us off spreadsheets and onto a fully enterprise platform. Month on month is continues to surprise us with what else it can do and how else it can help our business. Invoicing for example used to take us a couple of days and these are now done in moments at month end as Synergist builds them for us based on the timesheets. We've also found the support to be the best we have ever experienced. Whenever we have a question or query it's resolved so quickly and the team are super helful!

The features provide everything we need to run our business and move away from Excel. It's intuitive and very easy to learn and requires very little maintenance overhead. An absolute game changer for us!

We work in professional days but Synergist is largely an hours based system. It still works for us but we just have a couple of calculation we need to do on certain screens where we can't see day rate, day cost etc.

Really good. Support from The Agency Works in setting up, training and managing the system has been great. The system meets our current and future requirements as we grow.

The end to end nature of the system. We utilise it for Business Development as a CRM, as Project Management tool, a time management tool, all the way through to project delivery and finance. Plus reporting is very flexible to monito at every step.

The scheduling tool doesn't quite suit our way of working and due to the flex, speed and volume of project traffic would be fairly labour intensive to keep it aligned.

The ability to track our time and analyse the profitability of our jobs has really helped improve our future quoting and planning. Forecasting tools also help us plan effectively as a business.

Synergist is a robust and tailored workflow management software which we use from budgeting and quoting through to invoicing. Our success as an agency has come through leveraging the reporting tools and insights that Synergist allows us to capture and analyse.

Synergist has expanded to overlap with task management software. It is not a feature we currently use as it doesn’t offer the same level of user experience as more established software in this niche. We don’t find this an issue as it does what we require of it very well.

Better business management, reporting and trustworthy information.

Ease of use and functionality to adapt to any type of business requirement. We have 2 departments that both use Synergist differently for their needs, it is adaptable and flexible. Reporting is brilliant and again is an adaptable dependent on the needs. Synergist has allowed us to scrap unreliable excel spreadsheets and allows ONE centre for updating the whole company. Synergist has proven easy to learn also for our new starters who average about a week to understand the basics and roughly a month to get to a "superuser" level.

Running reports takes a little time to get your head round how the data interacts but once you do its great.

Insight on job profitability and visibility of productivity by project type too

Time to value requires input from the team but this would be the same with any implementation

The product is great for managing multiple clients and projects. It is simple to use and the training videos/information have been a great asset. We mainly utilise the functionality for quickly pricing new jobs and phases, invoicing and allocating work loads. Integration with the Xero accounting software is also great and saves time.

Some of the error messaging isn't always clear on how the problem can be resolved. It may be useful to hyperlink to a more detailed explanation.

Would not recommend, other tools such as Workfront would be better to use!

I like the fact that it's a multi purpose tool. It allows you to add projects, complete timesheets and raise invoices in one area.

The UX is awful. Navigation, use of features and elements and the overall slowness of the tool are things to name a few. There are too many sub-navigations on sub-navigations making moving around the tool awfully hard.

Productivity, reporting, profitability, better management of people and time.

It has enabled my agency to understand the hours spent on client work, helped manage utilisation and productivity of the agency. It has helped agency profitability. It has helped us manage over servicing and most importantly where our team are being overworked or working too many hours.

Nothing really in the cons - other than some people might find it labour intensive on top of the client work they are doing.

Helps to track all of our projects commercially and plan resource/workload.

Great at managing everything from initial enquiry, estimating, project & company commercials and tracking live projects for all your clients.

It's only as good as the information and effort you put into it. Detailed training and customisation is required prior to using in anger, but once set up correctly is fantastic.

Full business visualisation

The fact it can manage all aspects of job management, through Quoting to Invoicing, whilst utilising as many or as little features in between.

Not all features are available in the cloud based version yet - However, this may change soon though!

I mainly use the software for time tracking which is really easy to do with this software. Tracking project progress is also easy through the software as there are so many project details which can be entered to ensure all members of the team are up to date on project information and progress.

There are so many interesting features that this software provides so at times can be slightly confusing to navigate but have only been using the software for a short period of time.

Having scheduling, job management, forecasting, costing all in one module is a rarity. The system integrates very well and gives fluidity through the job process

A plus and minus, having too many options within configuration can get a little confusing and we personally changed our set up from the original mapped out system plan.

Synergist is worth the patience required to get it up and running. Its complex but this complexity makes it versatile. It has taken us many man hours to implement but we confident that this investment should pay off in the future

Flexbility

Complexity

We are currently learning the system with a view to rolling it out within the company early part of next year. We are still getting to grips with it all and find that the customer services are very helpful. We are looking forward to the new version being rolled out in the new year.