Marketing agency timesheets late again? AI staff do the chasing.
The retainer went over its scope before anyone saw it, because the hours were on timesheets that arrived late. The monthly report was rebuilt by hand from Google Analytics and the ad platforms, again. AI staff can chase the timesheets, collate the figures and draft the report. Your account managers keep the client.
Where the margin on a retainer goes
Timesheets against retainers
The studio manager or a project manager chases timesheets every week, and again before the invoice run. Harvest sends its automatic reminder, and people still log Tuesday's work from memory the following Monday. Until the hours are in, nobody can see which retainer has gone over its scope, and by then the work is done.
Monthly client reports
Each month an account manager pastes the figures from Google Analytics, Google Ads and Meta's Ads Manager, or from a Data Studio dashboard (Looker Studio until recently), into last month's deck and writes the commentary, for every retained client. The report goes out late, and the time it took is time the client never sees.
Briefs, approvals and contact reports
Feedback on creative work arrives by email, in Slack, in comments and on calls, in rounds, from several people at the client. The account executive writes the contact report so that what was approved is on record. When it is written late or never, the argument over what was agreed is the agency's to lose.
New business and getting paid
An enquiry lands on the website form while the team is on a deadline, and the reply waits. Meanwhile finance raises retainer and stage invoices, then chases them. Many clients will not pay without a purchase order number, and with no agreed date the law counts an invoice as late after 30 days.
Roles for Marketing, creative and digital agencies
Timesheet chasing
Sees whose hours are missing in Harvest or your project system and asks them before the invoice run. Shows the studio manager which retainers are over. Billing and write-offs stay your decision.
Management reporting
Collects each client's monthly figures from the platforms you report on and drafts the report in your format. The account manager checks it, writes the recommendation and sends it.
Meeting follow-up and notes
Turns a client meeting's notes or transcript into the contact report, lists the actions and updates your project system. The account manager signs it off, since it is the record of what the client agreed.
Social media drafting
Drafts posts for the agency's own channels, which the CAP Code covers, from the week's work; a person approves and posts each one. It drafts routine posts on a client's agreed plan for your approval.
It drafts.
You approve.
We manage.
You don’t need a complex new platform. Your AI worker operates inside your existing tools under human supervision.
Human-in-the-loop
High-impact actions (sending emails, updating compliance records) wait for explicit human approval before execution.
A full audit trail
Every action is logged with who approved it, and we go through it with you each month.
Nothing to maintain
If a workflow breaks or a system changes, we fix it. Keeping it running is our job.
UK-hosted and kept separate
Your data is stored in the UK, and is never used to train AI models.
Questions owners ask
Will an AI agent be writing our clients' work?
Not the ideas or the craft. Those are what your clients pay you for, and they are not on this page. The roles here are the admin around the work. Where an agent drafts words, a report's commentary or a routine post on a plan the client has agreed, a person at the agency edits and approves them before anything leaves.
Can it tell us when a retainer is being over-serviced?
It can set the hours logged against each retainer beside its agreed scope, and tell the account manager when one passes the level you choose. It can only count hours that are in, which is why the chasing comes first. Whether to absorb the overrun, bill it or renegotiate is the account director's decision.
Does it work with Harvest, Asana, Teamwork.com or monday.com?
Each of them publishes an API. It reads hours and updates tasks through that API, once we have checked with you what your plan and the maker allow. If there is no way in, you hear that before you commit to anything.
Can the agent send the monthly report to the client itself?
We would not set it up that way. The agent assembles the figures and a draft commentary. Your account manager checks the numbers against what they know of the account, writes the recommendation and sends it. The conversation about results belongs to the person who holds the relationship.