How FingoWeb benefits from real-time data on project profitability

Introduction

Founded in 2008, FingoWeb counts more than 40 experts who specialize in building modern web applications and e-commerce platforms. The company delivers projects that range from simple WordPress-based websites to custom web applications for sectors such as retail and financial services.

FingoWeb works with enterprise clients and ambitious startups from the USA, UK, Norway, Austria, and Germany. Their clients include Ailleron, Miquido, Lubiebuty.pl, and Zaufane.pl.

The primary challenge FingoWeb faced on a daily basis was controlling the project budget while the project was still ongoing. The company’s management was looking for a solution that would offer this type of real-time insights and allow diverting the project’s course if it turned out that its margin was below expectations.

Thanks to Primetric, FingoWeb can finally get all of the key project accounting data in one place and in real time to enable smarter planning and people allocation.

The problem: Too many spreadsheets, no bigger picture

Controlling the project budget was a key challenge at FingoWeb. How much does a project cost? Is our team within budget? Are projects managed effectively?

FingoWeb organized their works with the help of Excel spreadsheets, Clockify, and a custom tool developed to integrate with Clockify. But the company was still missing features that would allow greater control of the project at both the project and organization level - for example, checking the current cash-flow or learning which client has the greatest share and which has the least in revenue.

Another challenge was related to people planning and allocation. FingoWeb used a combination of Excel spreadsheets, but these have become more and more problematic as the company rapidly grew in size.

"When we had 15 people and two project managers on board, we could remember everything and take an occasional look at our Excel spreadsheets. But now that the company has grown, this has become difficult, time-consuming, and error-prone, especially in tracking our expenses. We were looking for a tool that would allow tracking costs per client over the long term when that client realized many projects spread over time.”

Kamil Fus - Chief Operating Officer at FingoWeb

Key pain points‍

• Reinventing the wheel (building and maintaining a custom system)
• Problematic information exchange between Excel spreadsheets
• Lack of checks related to data correctness of information
• Fear that something was wrongly calculated
• Maintenance efforts dedicated to Excel spreadsheets
• Less and less visibility as the company grew in size

Solution: Implementation of Primetric

The integration with Clockify was a critical part of the implementation process. FingoWeb used Clockify to store the working hours of employees. Once integrated with Primetric, all it took was setting the hourly rates, and FingoWeb’s COO could instantly see the project’s cost.

How FingoWeb is using Primetric

The project manager is responsible for estimating projects together with the team. Once the project is running, the management of FingoWeb can easily control its budget by checking the cashflow and forecasting future profits.

If they stop any problems, they can view the data in a different context by adding a new variable. For example, it might make sense to carry out one sprint with a lower margin if the collaboration with this client has been successful over the long-term.

The COO checks Primetric in two cases:

• During the monthly project settlement and adding new people with their hourly rate,
• Every time he wants to learn more about the current status of project realization,
• Get real-time data about the project’s profitability,
• Check whether there are any threats to project completion within budget or conflicts (for example, one software developer required in two projects running at the same time).

“Implementing Primetric took just a few days. After uploading projects and integrating them with Clockify, the system generated the first data we needed to start controlling our project budgets."

Kamil Fus - Chief Operating Officer at FingoWeb

Results

• One place for tracking the profitability of all projects and discovering potential problems
• No more slow Excel spreadsheets with poor visibility or data leaks
• Automated counting of revenue and expenses in projects (thanks to the integration with Clockify, everything happens automatically)
• The COO has more time to focus on business development

“Before installing Primetric, we could only learn how the project performed in terms of the budget at its end. Thanks to the integration with Clockify, I can now check Primetric every day to see the burn rate of the project and react accordingly. Everything happens automatically, giving me full control over the project profitability rate."

Kamil Fus - Chief Operating Officer at FingoWeb

Next steps

At the moment, FingoWeb is using mostly the project accounting module. In the near future, FingoWeb is planning to take advantage of Primetric’s people allocation module to control project occupancy and ensure proper planning.