Software for communication agencies: a checklist of what it must do

An agency does not sell boxes. It sells time, ideas and continuity: a website, a campaign, twelve months of social media. That is why software designed for trading companies feels tight, and separate tools (a CRM, a project management tool, the invoicing program, a spreadsheet for fees) force you to stitch the data back together by hand every month. This checklist helps you see whether a piece of business software can handle your real work.

Why does an agency need different business software?

For four reasons a trading company does not have:

The checklist: what the software must do

Tick each point during the demo. Next to it you find how YVY does it. Where we write "on the way", it is not there today.

Sales

• 1. One contact register for clients, suppliers and collaborators, filled in from the VAT number. In YVY: Contacts, with Autofill from VAT number and import of several VAT numbers in one go.
• 2. A pipeline with your own stages and a target for the period. In YVY: CRM, with stages and the quarter's target in the settings.
• 3. Quotes with versions, a polished PDF and sending by email from the record. In YVY: the quote in one record, with versions, a PDF composed with a cover and service sheets, sent to the client.
• 4. A catalog with price lists and recurring fees. Several price lists, discounts, a single client's price list. In YVY: Catalog, with multiple price lists and recurring-fee products.

Delivery

• 5. The order opens the project. Without copying anything. In YVY: every service has a project template that becomes the real project on order.
• 6. A rule on when work starts. On signature, on invoice or on receipt of the down payment. In YVY: the order rule, with manual start too.
• 7. Projects readable at a glance. Phases, dependencies, who does what. In YVY: a flow-diagram canvas, with nodes, assignees, estimated hours and computed progress.
• 8. Hours and margin per job. Value, costs, margin, collected. In YVY: the project's Reporting, with hours by rate, collaborators and the supplier bills assigned to the job.
• 9. External collaborators without opening everything. They see their work, not your accounts. In YVY: a portal for externals, with only the shared projects and the work assigned to them.

Clients

• 10. Conversations attached to the work. The message sits in the project record, not in a separate chat. In YVY: every record has its own chat, with an internal and an external channel.
• 11. Connected mail. The client's email one click from their record. In YVY: Mail on Gmail for Google Workspace users, linked to the records.
• 12. Client requests in a queue. Tickets with queues, mailboxes and response times. In YVY: Helpdesk, with queues, SLAs and tickets that can be recalled in projects.
• 13. Reports for clients. In YVY: the reports portal is on the way.

Administration

• 14. An invoice born from the order. Never retyped. In YVY: the draft invoice is born from the confirmed order or from a recurring-fee renewal.
• 15. E-invoicing. In Italy, invoices between private parties go through the Sistema di Interscambio (SDI), the e-invoicing exchange system of the Agenzia delle Entrate, Italy's Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate, what the SDI is). In YVY: FatturaPA XML, validated and sent through an accredited intermediary; YVY keeps the XML and the receipts. Legal archiving is done with the archiving provider you choose.
• 16. Recurring fees and renewals invoiced without spreadsheets. In YVY: Subscriptions, with due dates, renewal invoice, plan change and add-ons.
• 17. Reconciled payments. Bank statement imported and matched to invoices. In YVY: the daybook, with Import bank statement and a suggested match; payment schedule and reminders.
• 18. Real accounting. In YVY: double-entry with a chart of accounts, VAT registers and a trial balance, plus a Cockpit with 90-day cash.

Governance and AI

• 19. Who sees what. Salespeople see their own portfolio, the project manager the project's costs, the admin team everything. In YVY: roles and permissions down to the single field, such as margins and costs.
• 20. AI inside, with rules. In YVY: an MCP server to connect Claude, GPT or another chatbot, the in-app assistant under the name you give it, AI agents with their own identity and a human owner; sensitive actions are approved by a person.

What questions should you ask in a demo?

A demo prepared by the vendor always shows the easy case. Ask to see yours.

1. "Start from a quote with two versions and take it all the way to payment, without leaving the software."
2. "Show me the margin of a job with an external collaborator."
3. "What does a freelancer working on one of my projects see?"
4. "How do I invoice a monthly fee that renews on its own?"
5. "How do I bring in my last few years of quotes and invoices?"
6. "What happens when the AI wants to issue an invoice?"
7. "Where is the data, and who sees it?"

If the demo jumps from one app to another to answer, you have your answer.

When do you not need all-in-one software?

It does not pay off for everyone. If you are a freelancer with a few clients, an invoicing program and a calendar are enough. If the agency has two people and no recurring fees, the cost of switching can outweigh the benefit. All-in-one software starts to pay off when:

• several people work on the same job;
• you have recurring fees to keep an eye on;
• you use external collaborators;
• at the end of the month you wonder which clients make you money and which do not.

How do you move to new software without stopping the agency?

With your history imported and the old system kept on until switch-over day. New software that starts empty forces the team to look for the past elsewhere. Software with the history inside becomes the place where work happens from day one. We explain how in How we work and Data import.

Frequently asked questions