Agencies and studios
For agencies and studios whose work is made for somebody else to approve. The making is rarely the hard part. The hard part is everything around it: getting the client to look, getting a clear yes, moving files too big to send, and getting the invoice out once the work is signed off.
What we hear
Approvals live in email threads.
Which version did the client say yes to, and was it a yes or a "love it, one small thing"? The answer is in a thread four people were copied into.
Nobody can see what is waiting on the client.
Account managers chase from memory, and finished work sits until somebody notices it has not been looked at.
Files too big to send.
Rushes and masters get split, compressed or pushed through three different services, and the link the client needs has expired, or never does.
Signed-off work waits to be invoiced.
The job is approved on Tuesday and billed whenever somebody remembers it was.
A sign-off portal for a creative agency
The Creative Clan shoot and edit campaign work for brands, and we built the portal their client uses to see it. A month at a time, every shoot sits in one of three columns: being shot or edited, waiting on the client, or approved and closed. Only the column waiting on the client is marked, so they know where to look.
The client opens the review link from the card, decides, and signs off in the same place. Pressing sign-off opens a confirmation that names the job again and says in words what approving it means, so nothing is approved by catching the wrong button. The approval is stamped with the name and the date, and a finished month is locked as view only, so the record of what was delivered survives and nothing is approved twice.
Underneath, the work moves itself. A new task makes a named storage folder. Moving a card uploads the assets for review, makes a link for each one, writes the result back and emails the client. Sign-off sends the job to invoicing. It works with the tools the agency already used, Asana and Frame.io, rather than replacing them.
Storage for files too big for everything else
Sera is our own cloud storage for people who work with large files. Files go up whole, broken into parts and checked on the way. Images, PDFs, video and audio preview in the browser rather than downloading first, and share links carry a password and an expiry. On a Mac, Sera Drive mounts the folders you tick as a drive, so an editor opens a timeline straight off them.
Where we would start
Usually with the step between "it is ready" and "it is paid": the approval. We look at how a job moves today from brief to sign-off to invoice, which tool holds each part, and build the joins so that moving a card is enough. You keep your task board and your review tool. They just stop needing a person to carry things between them.
The work behind this page
- Case studyThe Creative ClanA client review and sign-off portal. Their client opens a board, sees what is waiting on a decision, signs it off, and the work moves to invoicing. Live.Read the case study
- Case studySeraCloud storage for creative professionals. Files too big for everything else go up whole, and preview in place. Share links expire, and deleted files can be restored. Live at usesera.io.Read the case study
How we usually help
Tell us the job that still gets done by hand. We will tell you on the first call whether it is worth building.