As your agency scales and as you become more detached from the operations side, you’ll need consistent financial reporting across time periods. Consistent reporting increases the comparability of disparate time periods, leading to better insights that drive growth for your agency. Accounting software also has a bank reconciliation feature that, when used on a regular basis, keeps account balances in the accounting software in sync with actual bank account balances. To benefit from project-based accounting, your agency should first implement best practices specific to agencies. Billable expenses are costs that the agency incurs on behalf of a client’s project and will be charged back to the client.

Check and analyze price structure or switch to a subscription-based pricing model rather than project-based or hourly pricing to improve the stability of inflows. If you’re in the world of projects and contracts, bidding on campaigns and introducing them to prospects, it can be difficult to keep a track of your budget. If your marketing agency has any subscriptions or retainer routes, there are small benefits. If there are gaps between projects, a reliable source of income provides a useful safety net. Like any organization, a marketing agency must be responsible for its smooth functioning in the industry and focus on billing methods to report cash and accrual advertising.

SEOteric Digital Marketing

Talking about digital marketing for accountants, without including social media marketing in the discussion, is not right. After measuring your CPA firm’s marketing performance, compile a list of action items for improving your campaigns. These action items can range from revising a social media ad campaign’s targeting to developing more blog content on a specific topic.

Double-entry bookkeeping, on the other hand, considers that every financial transaction affects both the debit and credit sides of an account. This means that every transaction is recorded as either an expense or credit, and takes less fluid assets and liabilities into account, such as equity, loans, tax burden, etc. With double-entry bookkeeping, it’s easier to detect errors and identify areas for improvement in the general ledger. Alternatively, you could work with a professional to build a streamlined accounting system for your agency, saving you the time and stress of figuring everything out on your own. We’ll discuss your current setup and identify next steps in building a system that works for your agency, no matter where it is in its development. To be forward thinking about your agency’s finances, you’ll need to add a few additional steps to your agency’s accounting cycle.

Accounts Receivable (“AR”)

If you’re in the marketing agency industry, you must build the right accounting platform to create a great brand. Advertising costs of the marketing agency flow into the income statement as operating costs. To record this claim, the marketing agency debits the marketing expense account and credits the vendor accounts payable. A Marketing agency relies on providing the services accounting for marketing agencies they sell but needs to be more disciplined in managing its accounts, budgets, and cash flow. Internet marketing falls under the category of inbound marketing and takes a much more targeted approach. Examples of inbound digital marketing strategies include SEO, PPC, email marketing, and web design – and they are all uniquely crafted to attract your target audience.