Simplify Credit Card Expense Management at Your Creative Agency

Managing expenses has long been a notorious source of frustration for both event personnel and management.

Procim users have for some time however, been able to take advantage of functionality to keep track of expense related costs. As expenses are managed against lines within a budget, costs are clearly visible, overruns are less likely, and reconciliation is made easier, providing full control of project finances.

More recently, new functionality has been added that allows credit card statements to be uploaded and imported into Procim through a “csv import” facility, further simplifying the process and dramatically reducing the need for manual expense entry.

Here are some key highlights of the credit card expense import facility.

A format that works for you

Credit card statements downloaded as a csv file can now be uploaded into Procim with little manual intervention. Before setting up csv importing rules, you’ll provide us with an example of your banks standard credit card statement, and we’ll work with that, ensuring that minimal effort is needed to upload future files to Procim.

Overview, a step by step guide of how it works

Step 1: Users spend money on a credit card.

Step 2: Finance download the credit card statement as a csv file.

Step 3: Finance upload it to Procim. If there are multiple users on the same csv file, as is likely, Procim will automatically filter them and allocate the right expenses to the right person.

Step 4: A user, after logging into Procim, will see a list of expense items based on their expenditure on the credit card. The user then allocates each expense transaction to an appropriate line within a project budget using a simple and intuitive user interface.

Step 5: Finally, the user can review the expense form containing individual allocated transactions and submit this for final approval.

Keeping management in control

Management no longer need wait for users to manually enter expenses. Furthermore, submitting expense reports on time can speed up project reconciliation which will help creative agencies stay in control of their internal cash flow and provide their clients with more accurate estimates.

In-depth reports can be generated to help guide important decisions. With Procim, everything is connected, so expenses are managed as part of a whole, more connected and visible workflow.

What next?

If you’ve already got Procim, email procim.support@itassociates.co.uk and ask for a demo of the new csv importing feature. We’ll be more than happy to show you how this new feature could be incorporated in your current processes.

If you or your agency haven’t as yet subscribed to Procim, book a demo to find out how Procim can increase the profitability of your creative agency and create a connected workflow.

5 Ways to Take Care of Your Mental Health While Working in an Office

Working in an office can be great. Chatting with office friends over endless cups of tea, knuckling down and getting some deep admin and writing work done, collaborating with management over fun meetings. However, sometimes it can be difficult. The depression of monotony, the anxiety of human contact and the stress of having to keep up appearances can all have a bad effect on mental health. Don’t be afraid, if your mental health is being taken care of, office work can be rewarding and exciting and we’ve got a few tips to make sure that happens.

Don’t be afraid of taking mini breaks

Anyone who works with a smoker knows how important cigarette breaks are to them. They pour limitless dedication and energy into making sure they can escape for five minutes. Why should a mental health break be any less important to you? If you need to, talk to your line manager about setting up a few five-minute breathers throughout the day. People are generally quite understanding.

Familiarise yourself with the law

If you meet the definition of disability under the Equality Act (2010) you are legally entitled to ask for reasonable adjustments at work to accommodate your disability. It is illegal for your employer to not provide you with reasonable adjustments as required. The government has subsidised schemes in place to ensure you have the equipment you need, for example, if you are eligible they will pay for “a support service if you have a mental health condition” or “disability awareness training for your colleagues” (https://www.gov.uk/access-to-work/).

It is important to note that the government very firmly includes mental health under disabilities that are protected by the Equality Act (2010). It is also important to note that “the application of a rule or policy or the existence of physical or communication barriers which make accessing something difficult or impossible” is discriminatory, and that “the discrimination does not have to be intentional to be unlawful” (https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/disability-discrimination).

Working from home and alterations to working hours are considered reasonable adjustments. Make sure you’re protected by putting any requests in writing and ensuring you have all required documentation and evidence of disability before approaching management. The law is the law and you have your rights.

Ease yourself in

Give yourself a few weeks to settle. If you’ve just started in an office, that’s a huge shift in lifestyle and it’s important to give yourself a chance to adjust. That means not trying to do everything at once. It’s important to not isolate yourself, but try to limit how long you stay out on weeknights while you settle in. Make adjusting to the new setting a goal in and of itself and treat that goal with the kindness and patience it deserves.

Maintain structure

It’s no secret that disturbed sleep can drag down mental health rapidly. One of the hard parts of working in an office is the pressure of waking up on time. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but some creatives are used to working late in the evening and at night. The shock of having to rise before you’re ready can tip the balance of happiness and leave you feeling drained. Give yourself enough time at night to sleep properly. That means, at least for the first few weeks, turning off all electronics when it’s time for bed. If you’re suffering with insomnia, talk to your doctor or pharmacist and try to fit some exercise into your evenings.

Eat yourself happy

One of the hard parts of working in an office is eating enough food. A lot of people don’t notice how heavily their state of mind is dependent on the food they’re eating. Psychology Today pointed out that “some of the microbiome can release neurotransmitters, just like our own neurons do, speaking to the brain in its own language via the vagus nerve” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201404/the-gut-brain-connection-mental-illness-and-disease).

That means that the microbes and organisms in our stomach are speaking to our minds. The health of our minds and the happiness of own internal monologues are deeply dependent on the strength and quality of our gut bacteria.

When working from home, it’s easy to cook something as part of your lunch break. From an office, there are restrictions to your food preparation options and your time. Tesco sandwiches and chicken shop chips become an easy habit to fall into. Preparing your food at home and bringing it in becomes vital. It doesn’t have to be difficult, just cook a little extra for dinner and take it to work in a Tupperware box. You’ll be surprised by the difference this can make to your longer term mental health.

Event Budget Management Software Designed for Agencies

Fast-moving, filled with adventure and over serviced. Without a stable collaborative environment in which to plan and manage event budgets and track costs, agencies can find themselves left in the dark. Over servicing goes unchecked and unmonitored, budgets contain damaging mistakes, costs often overrun, and reconciliation is only an afterthought.

Having worked to provide event budget management software to agencies for 30 years, we understand the specific requirements the industry faces and have developed an end-to-end solution designed to help your agency grow. With an unmatched level of depth in event budget management functionality, Procim is being used around the world by agencies large and small, global enterprises as well as single offices.

Flexible Event Budgeting Software

The last thing you need when you’ve got an event to manage or pitch to win is more admin. Event budgeting software provides a secure, formula-free, budget management environment, that limits costly human errors.

With Procim, you can ditch the spreadsheets and fragmented tools in favour of an easy to use, stable, multi-user event budgeting software. Creatives build their budgets in Procim’s highly secure environment, using industry and company specific project templates that present a default structure with tasks and items of cost based on client specific rate cards. Resources are allocated and project activities planned with complete visibility of profit margins, time constraints and availabilities.

Events aren’t static or rigid, neither are budgets. With Procim you have a wide range of budgeting features specifically designed for event agencies, making the budgeting process extremely flexible.

Within each project, there is the option to create different versions of a budget. Budgets are easily duplicated so event managers can plan out the effect of a modified scenario. Procim turns pre-built budgets into well-presented client estimates. At any time during the budgeting process, an updated client estimate is available from an easy to access tab. Client estimates can be generated for different versions of the same budget giving users an easy way to easily present and cost different ideas arming you with the tools you need to win new business.

Often in event management, budgets are revised and modified several times before a price is agreed. In Procim, each budget change is automatically tracked as a budget revision. Procim provides functionality to automatically compare revisions highlighting any changes between revisions.

Client Specific Rate Cards

It’s common when working with a range of clients to agree set charge rates for some of those clients. This can make things complicated when budgeting if you only utilise a single rate card, since budget creators will have to track down how much each client has agreed to pay for each resource.

Procim allows for multiple rate cards, with a default rate card set for each client. Rate cards can include defined charge rates by role or service item along with the cost to your agency of utilising that resource, making the budgeting process less stressful and far more secure.

Reconciliation Made Easy

When a project is approved by a client, Procim produces a contractual document called a Project Acceptance Form (PAF). This acts as a line in the sand providing ongoing visibility of the originally agreed budget. Procim helps ensure that informed decisions are made regarding under or overspending, and makes it easy to decide if, and on what basis, costs should be absorbed or passed onto the clients.

Apart from using budget revisions, changes made to the scope of an event can be formalised and documented through Project Change Notices (PCNs). This document can be sent to the client for approval and contains all proposed or actual changes to costs and budgets.

An automated process can be adopted as part of the final reconciliation to update estimate at completion costs based on actuals. It is then easy to establish which costs should be absorbed or passed on to the client with an appropriate mark-up within a final project change notice (PCN) or as a revised client estimate that incorporates all change (orders) notices raised.

Cost Control

From venues to freelancers, the cost of managing an event can quickly add up, making cost overruns a common occurrence for event agencies. Procim was designed to combat this lack of visibility. By displaying actual costs against budgeted line items, Procim is unique in its ability to control budget variances. All purchase orders, expenses and timesheets raised in Procim automatically display as a cost against the appropriate line item, so discrepancies are instantly caught and you’re always in control of your budget.

Procim’s integrated workflow helps prevent possible cost overruns before they happen. You can use Procim to set up approval processes, creating a smooth, secure workflow across your agency.

When a pitch has been won and your project is up and running, project team members raise POs directly from the budget. Where costs for each budget line are exceeded, approval is required. Approvals and purchasing limits are entirely customisable. For example, Project Coordinator A could have a purchasing limit of £10,000, a budgeting limit of £100,000 and could require approval from Director A, while Project Coordinator B could have different limits and require approvals from Director B. All approvals and limits are handled by Procim. Unique spending limits can be set by person with approvals when those limits are exceeded.

Management are always able to see and keep track of projects remotely and catch any exceptions. There’s no need to micromanage because you can already see and control everything going on in your agency.

Multi-User and Multi-Currency

Planning an event in one country and executing in another? Are you a global agency struggling to find a single software that works for all your branches? Procim allows you to setup multiple offices within a single site or across multiple sites while accommodating all multi-currency needs.

Procim is hosted on the cloud, facilitating company-wide collaboration. Teams can work on and build budgets together at the same time from different global locations by logging into their web-based Procim account. This means all users will always be working with the most up-to-date project and budget related information.

In Procim, you can build a budget and raise costs in any currency. Procim automatically manages multi-currency conversions. Control and manage exchange rates on an office or a project-by-project basis. Different exchange rates can be set for buying and selling, facilitating the use of a different currency exchange rate when charging your client from the rate when buying supplies.

Procim’s reports help you predict and analyse the possible financial impact of currency exchange rate fluctuations not only on your project, but also company-wide.

One Unified System

From the generation of client estimates through to project reconciliation, Procim is event budgeting software that understands the needs of agencies, providing benefits and enabling the automation of a whole range of common event agency processes.

Timesheets, resourcing, project management, billing and invoicing, reporting and a range of other project related activities are all managed. When you implement Procim, you’re implementing an end-to-end tool that will bring your entire agency into alignment and create clear visibility and structure across all levels.

It can be a struggle to keep tabs on everyone working at an event agency. Our event budget management software will help your agency grow by controlling and managing all budget and cost related activities from one, secure platform.

“I’ve been using Procim at two agencies in the ‘States since 2010. In both cases, this software has drastically changed the project management and business administration efficiency. Procim provides information that previously wasn’t tracked accurately or available in one place with such formidable reporting capability. In the latter case, our managing partner identified Procim as the reason we were able to manage our growth effectively and sell the business several years ahead of the proposed schedule. I would highly recommend Procim to anyone in the live event, video or marketing business: it will get your agency organized and help you grow!” – Marc Buchan, Director of Production, INVNT.

Book a demo today to find out how Procim can help your business grow.

Exhibition Budget Management Software

Choosing the right software for budgeting, cost control and resource management

Exhibition management software available on the market today is either incredibly limited or isn’t right for the exhibition industry. Ticketing and asset storage software applications are common, however project management software applications aimed at the exhibition industry often only address in a very limited fashion, the need for budget creation, cost control including automated purchasing approval and resource planning. These functions however form an important aspect of exhibition management that is worth considering when searching for the right software.

Budget creation and estimation

Unless the right software has been purchased for the management of exhibition budgets, producers often still create budgets for their exhibition projects in unsecure outdated spreadsheets. A much more efficient and secure approach is to implement budgeting processes and software that provide a more secure alternative to formula-based spreadsheets. Exhibition budget management software should include budgeting templates specific to exhibitions, allowing budgets to be quickly and effectively created with less risk of missed costs.

Actual costs should be displayed against budgeted line items

Raising a purchase order or expense shouldn’t be a fragmented administrative exercise that isn’t connected to your prebuilt budget. Every expense or purchase order raised should in some way display against the budgeted line item, so that you can at an early stage, catch and prevent overspends.

Client estimates

Project management software aimed at budgeting and cost control for the exhibitions industry should be able to turn a budget into a well-presented client estimate. As the scope of work often changes between client approval and reconciliation, the software should track these changes and automatically create a client estimate revision document that highlights budget lines where those changes have occurred. Budgeting for an exhibition project can become a much more accurate exercise when historic budget information is easily retrievable.

Project timelines, resource management and time tracking in one system

Project management software should in general facilitate the creation of timelines and project plans with the ability to assign resources and distribute time allocations against activities defined in the plan. Time can then be entered against those activities within the system, making time tracking an easy fuss-free process. Mobile friendly timesheet entry is critical for project team members to easily track and enter time spent on the exhibition while working onsite or on the move.

Software that works for you

Your project manager, logistics co-ordinator, managing director and account manager should all be able to access the same budget information at the same time. The software should therefore have full multi-user capabilities. When everyone’s connected, workflow processes are more seamless, efficient and profitable.

The right software should integrate with the tools you need, in the way you need. It should help with your resourcing, billing, invoicing and reconciliation and provide flexible, insightful reports that help you make the right decisions.

Software that works should reflect your needs as well as that of your exhibition through easy to understand and informative screens that help you deliver your project on time and on budget. Don’t settle for less.

About Procim

Procim is a multi-functional project management software application specifically designed to assist front office project team members to control and manage their project budgets. It is not registration or exhibition booth management software but was designed for creative, event and exhibition management agencies. It is a front-end tool that covers all aspects of the project life cycle from sales forecasting through to project budgeting, reconciliation as well as resource planning.

At Procim we’ve been working with creative agencies and exhibition companies for 30 years, so we understand exactly what is needed when creating and managing exhibition budgets. Procim’s resourcing features connect to and flow from our budget management and planning features. We also integrate with industry standard accounting software, so you never have to duplicate work, everything is connected, everything is designed for you.

To find out more about how Procim can help you manage exhibition budgets and resource management, give us a call or book a demo. We’d love to hear from you.

Project Budgeting Software for Agencies

What is project budgeting software?

Project budgeting software is software that helps in the creation and management of a project budget. It provides a controlled, secure and collaborative environment in which to build a budget. It then displays actual costs against budgeted line items to prevent accidental overspends and improve profitability.

What is Procim?

Managing budgets as an agency can be tricky. Project management software is often more focused on resourcing and time tracking, forcing project managers to use outdated spreadsheets for the creation and management of the project budget. Procim is a unique fully-integrated software that focuses on budget creation while including a range of other features such as resourcing, purchase orders, expenses and timesheets to manage cost control. Our software works two-fold. On the one hand, the project budgeting process is secured, collaborative and guided. On the other, costs are controlled from one system, so work is never duplicated and you always get a big picture understanding of your project and agency. Project costs are raised directly against the budget, so users are always aware of what’s being spent and if any adjustments to the budget need to be made.

What makes Procim different?

Another issue agencies face with project software that attempts to manage budgets is the software is often created for finance teams. Procim is designed for creatives through years of collaboration with existing users. Rather than essentially acting as an accounting software that results in more admin for creative users, it’s a software that is specifically designed to be useful in the creation and management of a creative project.

How does it work?

Build a budget

Procim begins with building a budget. This happens in a familiar spreadsheet like format. However, formulas do not need to be manually inserted, so the likelihood of mistakes occurring is very low. Rate cards and budget templates are created before Procim is implemented. Budgeting becomes seamless as users have the option of simply selecting the number of units for each line item. This also ensures elements aren’t forgotten about, as standard line items are included in the available templates to act as a checklist.

Double, triple, quadruple check

Project budgeting software implements a four-step checking process. This is designed to highlight any line items where negative margin and accidental expenditure is at risk. Procim assists project and account managers to increase profit margins by providing instant visibility and preventing accidental expenditure.

Automated approvals

With a built-in approval system, project budgeting software provides agencies with unprecedented control, ensuring profit margins are controlled and managed. All approvals occur behind the scenes from within the system using rules outlined when Procim is first implemented, giving management complete control and taking away the need to micro-manage. Once the budget has been approved, purchasing limits are set. When costs are raised against the project, any overspends are sent for approval, keeping all invested internal parties aware of how the project is going before it’s too late.

Client estimates, revisions and comparisons

Presenting the perfect proposal to a client is an important part of winning business. Procim comes with a range of client pitching features. Client estimates are automated from the budget to give budget builders a clear understanding of what the client is agreeing to. It’s not uncommon for client estimates to require several amendments before a project is confirmed. In Procim, estimate comparisons automatically highlight where revisions have been made to previous budgets, giving clients an incredibly easy and professional overview of changes to the budget.

Ongoing reconciliation

Project budgeting software helps prevent tricky reconciliation conversations by displaying up to date costs against budgeted line items. This helps users identify where adjustments need to be made to current spending. Procim also provides a wide range of reconciliation assisting features, equipping agencies with all the tools required for consistently smooth reconciliations.

Project budgeting software can help keep your agency profitable and your clients happy. Procim will give your employees the space and security required to stay creative whilst managing their projects.

Book a commitment free demo today to find out how it works.

What Does Resourcing Software for Creative Agencies do?

What is resourcing and why does it matter to creative agencies?

Let’s say your client asks for an exhibition stand to be designed and built. You’ve got to find, budget for and manage the team that will physically build the exhibition, the creative who will design the concept and the physical products you’re going to use (walls, floor etc.).

Resourcing and budgeting are two practices that need to be carried out in conjunction with one another to achieve your creative endeavour with the best speed efficiency and minimal cost. It is important that while you are selecting available resources, you are also assessing the impact on your budget of the resources allocated. To properly carry out this process you will need:

  • A resource plan that accurately predicts the resourcing requirement (which people and products are needed) for different tasks and for how long.
  • The ability to choose from available resources while at the same time assessing how skilled or suitable for the task a specific person is.
  • Information on the cost and impact on your budget of selecting your potential resources regardless of how suitable or skilled they might be.

For example, there are two creative exhibition designers in your agency.

Designer 1 is highly skilled and experienced; the job would take her 2 hours and she charges £50/hr, her total cost would be £100. She is available on Tuesday and Thursday. Designer 2 is less experienced, so the job would take him 5 hours, he charges £35/hr costing a total of £175 and is available on Monday and Tuesday. Designer 1 may be more expensive but she’s also faster making her overall cost, efficiency and speed the most optimal.

However, let’s say you’ve also got two exhibition building suppliers, you do the same calculations and find out that Builder 2 is more cost effective than Builder 1. Unfortunately, because of previous time commitments, Builder 2 needs the design by Monday evening, whereas Builder 1 would be happy to wait until Thursday evening. To get Builder 2, you would need to use Designer 2 due to the time constraint.

Scenarios like the one above can arise at creative agencies during the resourcing stage of a project. However, it’s better that these complications are caught and planned for at the beginning of the planning process, rather than during your project. Resource planning is important for creative agencies because it helps to optimise the allocation of resources increasing efficiency and control throughout the entire agency and on every project.

With the right resourcing system in place, such as event budget management software, agencies are aware of how their resources are allocated and what impact that’s having on the budget.

What does resourcing software for creative agencies look like and how does it work?

Procim provides several tools which enhance a company’s ability to effectively resource. All resourcing is rooted in the budget, so implementing Procim connects your entire work structure.

Resource Plan

The resource plan is a quick and easy way to distribute time amongst job roles and personnel. It is available from within the budget plan, making the first step towards resourcing very accessible.

Project Activity Planner

Procim pulls information from the financial budget into a project planner. You can create a detailed operational plan of each event from a system that is secure and easy to use. Managing your project timeline and breaking down a resource schedule are easy from this visual tool.

Time Board

The Project Activity Planner integrates with our mobile timesheet WebApp. When a resource (person) is assigned to a task, the booking will appear in their timesheet app. Similarly, they can submit actions as and when they complete them, so that timesheets are always up to date and costs are managed and controlled.

Personnel Availability

Procim clearly displays upon request who is available, and when. The system prevents users from making common mistakes, such as allocating a person for too many working hours in a day or booking a resource into conflicting time slots.

When building a budget, you can assign job roles to line items and allocate people to those job roles in the Project Activity Planner, an inbuilt tool that secures, simplifies and controls the process of assigning people to tasks.

The features in resourcing software for creative agencies ensure you won’t hire an external contractor when internal team members are available, this clear view of employee availability often lowers time costs. On the other hand, it will also ensure you’re aware well in advance if you do need to hire an external freelancer, so that you’re in a great position to hire the best person before their availability becomes limited.

Rate cards

Procim provides inbuilt internal and external rate cards. There are three available settings that can be applied to line items when building a budget in Procim; an internal employee, an external contractor or freelancer, or an object/item (external third party cost). Separating these three into distinct categories ensures costs are controlled and understood from pitch to reconciliation. During implementation, Procim users set up a range of rate cards for each category. This optimises resourcing because the data is readily available, so users don’t have to waste their time gathering information on how much each resource costs. All commonly used company resources, whether internal or external, will be displayed when users build a budget, along with any available pricing information.

Reporting

How is your resourcing working out? Are mistakes often made? Is money being lost? Is one freelancer turning pitches around much quicker than another? Are assumptions you previously made about the speediness of an internal employee wrong? With integrated time tracking and cost control features, resourcing software for creative agencies can create a wealth of reports that ensure each project is run more effectively than the last. Procim ensures your resourcing comes from an informed place of historic data, accurate reports and inbuilt security measures.

To find out more about the ways in which Procim controls and optimises the role of resourcing in creative agencies, book a commitment free demo.

Procim Release New Mobile Friendly Time Board

Is time always running away from you? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Managing your own time is a difficult feat surpassed only by trying to manage everyone else’s time. Urgent emails, important meetings, less important meetings and the occasional attempt at a lunch break all get in the way of working on and completing projects.

Managing everyone else’s time comes with its own range of additional problems. If your company bills clients for hours spent, tracking time is a vital part of your businesses health. Yet, project managers get stuck spending unnecessary hours hunting through freelancer invoices trying to figure out who needs to be billed and by how much. That’s why integrated project management and time tracking software exists.

If you’ve got timesheet software, you’ll already be aware of the benefits of having an organised multi-user process for time tracking. However, a lot of the software out there isn’t fully integrated, which creates a friction between resourcing and time tracking. On top of that, timesheets can become irritating and difficult meaning they aren’t filled in, leaving management with little knowledge of the actual figures.

When software integrates project management and time tracking in one online environment, time allocation works with the tracking of hours to give both creatives and management a smooth workflow. Everything is tracked from within one system, so while management get access to a wealth of data, team members don’t have to learn how to use multiple systems and aren’t weighed down by unnecessary admin. Accurate reporting provides insights across the business and project rather than in just one specific field, creating a holistic understanding of your business and strengthening decision makers.

So, how do you get your creatives to actually fill in their timesheets?

You use their phones.

Procim have just released a new mobile timesheet WebApp as part of our fully integrated project software. Integrating mobile time tracking software with desktop project management software gives your creatives the chance to update their timesheets on the move from wherever they are. Procim already has resourcing features that allows you to allocate people to tasks. With the mobile WebApp, people can choose the activity they want to work on and from there it’s just a matter of entering how many hours. Or, if they’re not sure how long they’re going to spend on each activity, they can use the Procim stopwatch to track their hours for them. Here’s the low down on what the new integrated timesheet mobile WebApp is and how it’s going to create an even smoother working environment.

Mobile

As mentioned the new time tracker and integrated stopwatch are mobile friendly, making it easy and fuss free to track your time.

Stopwatch

You can now use Procim to track your time by simply clicking start and stop on a stopwatch in your app.

Activity Planner and Actions

When resourcing, Procim’s Activity Planner lets you allocate people to assignments. In the new mobile WebApp, users will be able to quickly add time to any assignments they’ve been allocated to. If you assign someone to an activity, a booking will show up on their mobile friendly time board. This makes it incredibly easy to for both management and team members to track and organise time and workloads.

Forgot something?

If you forget something after the timesheets have been completed, you can just go back and allocate time to budgeted items. With Procim’s integrated project management and time tracking software, you get complete control over your submissions, ensuring cost visibility is always up to scratch.

Enter Time Daily or Weekly

However you track your time, Procim keeps you in control down to the last minute.

Time Analysis

More data means more accurate analyses. Having access to such an easy way to enter time means creatives won’t cower away from clunky software, giving management and Procim all the data they need to run an optimised happy work environment.

Project Budgeting and Cost Control

It is our mission at Procim to empower creatives with the right tools to take control of their projects. It should come as no surprise then, that the new mobile WebApp works with Procim’s project budgeting features to gain immediate cost visibility. In your project costing reports, submitted timesheets will immediately affect actual time cost, providing you with the ability to catch and control potential project overspends, keeping you and your team in control of your project’s profitability.

Book a demo to find out what Procim’s new integrated project management and time tracking software can do for you.

8 Reasons FAM Trips Are Important to the Event Industry

Familiarisation (FAM) trips are a great part of being an event professional, but they’re also a necessary part. Viewing hotels, venues and locations in person gives the important opportunity to understand the experience you’re creating from the perspective of your attendees. Have you ever expected a holiday to be incredible and then found the location to be a bit disappointing when you get there? A FAM trip ensures that doesn’t happen at the worst possible moment, when it’s too late and 100 delegates are already on their way! Here’s our 10 reasons getting to go on familiarisation trips are an important part of being an event professional.

  1. Story telling is a great way to market a product and create a memorable experience. Pitching to a potential client can include stories from the places you visited. This can help build a better image in the client’s mind, giving them more reason to go with it.
  2. Immersing yourself is the best possible way to gain an insight into your clients’ perspective. For example, it’s good to get the feel of a hotel so you don’t end up putting your clients somewhere that looks beautiful online but ends up being secretly depressing in person.
  3. You can develop a stronger relationship with your suppliers when you’re there.
  4. Being there in person will better equip you to know what could potentially go wrong and having an informed plan will help prevent any mishaps.
  5. Have you ever tried giving someone an opinion about a place and then they find out you’ve never been there? It may go wrong pretty quickly.
  6. The free products and services venues and suppliers sometimes give you are the products you might be giving your clients in future. You’ll want to know how they work long term before investing in them.
  7. You can’t taste food through the internet. Making sure your delegates get the best food experience isn’t achievable without a FAM trip.
  8. You deal in experiences; shouldn’t you live in them too?

Moral of the story: FAM trips can be a fun part of working in the events industry, but they’re also an important and valuable one. They help improve the skills and knowledge of planners and give suppliers the best opportunity to showcase their products.

Using your Events Personality to Drive Sustainability

People are worried about the environment. Other than a selected few with loud voices, we’re all a little scared, a little concerned and rather excited to do our bit to help. We all feel better knowing that we’re making a positive contribution to the planet. However, for many years now some people have felt like there’s nothing they can do. This creates a barrier to problem solving because the problem isn’t clear cut. Yes, the planet needs help, but how do I personally help? A big problem requires lots of thought and too much thought is often shied away from.

Our brains are wired to see solutions to problems, but only if we see the problem clearly.

When someone has a clear-cut preference, it becomes much easier to find solutions that help. Most people want to contribute to a brighter future but can feel unsure where to start or who to go to.

Here’s a fun way to put this into context. Is it the rushing to Oxford Street at 5pm on Christmas Eve that’s the difficult part or is it the two months it takes you to finally decide you’ll get Aunt Mildred another jumper this year because you’ve got no idea what she likes? Having a clear-cut understanding of what someone does or does not want makes it easy for you to want to give them what they do want.

For example, my friend Maggie has so many fridge magnets you can barely see the colour of her fridge. She’s got magnets from all over the world. She’s got boring ones and lewd ones. Ones that look like mini countries and some with pictures of her friends in them. Some with messages we’ve all heard a million times and a handful that look like they were crafted by Da Vinci. However, she’s only bought two of the many magnets she owns. Many years ago, when she moved out at 16 she tried to create a sort of grown up homely feeling by buying a magnet. She told everyone how much she loved them and slowly, bit by bit, people started buying her magnets.

There’s an ease that comes with the simplicity of a singular simple expressed interest.

If your event’s personality is very obviously eco-centric, people will start thinking up clever new ways to help and most importantly, they’ll share them with you. You’ll have created the space for optimism and collaboration. People will know that you’re someone who will listen to their ideas and appreciate their environmental efforts. In meetings you’ll be given more options because they won’t feel shy or embarrassed about presenting something unconventional.

Most of us want to feel like we’re helping. The event industry isn’t ignorant to the needs of the planet, there’s been a wealth of strides towards sustainability already. Once you put it out there that this is something your event’s passionate about, suppliers and delegates will get pumped up too. They may start finding solutions to cost related issues so that they can feel like they’re part of the environmental revolution too. Where the personality angle differs from some other sustainability efforts, is that it moves from something you’re interested in and would like to implement, into something you’re already involved in.

It becomes a necessity, rather than a selling point.

When suppliers are discussing terms with you, rather than trying to promote a costly sustainability add on, it’s more likely they’ll offer an alternative at the pitch phase at the same rate because they know they’re not selling you an edgy marketing point, they’re aligning themselves with your event’s personality.

Don’t underestimate or forget initiatives you’ve already undergone to promote sustainability.

If you’ve planned a meeting with 8 people and you provided 8 glasses rather than the standard 8 plastic cups, you’ve made the difference of 8 less plastic cups in the ocean. Don’t shy away from saying you have already implemented a plastic free policy that has been successful so far.

Keep it at the forefront of your events’ brand. Make “eco-conscious” part of your messaging, marketing and meetings. Make it very easy to see that sustainability is something you’re passionate about. Tell everyone from suppliers to sponsors all the ways you and your agency have gone green. Over time, people will start to help you achieve more sustainable events. Like Maggie and her magnets, ask and you’re a lot more likely to receive than if you hadn’t said anything at all.

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