How Lever stays on top of its media buying and billing activities with Spendwise

Overview

Lever is a full-service marketing agency based just outside of Chicago. With over two decades of marketing know-how, the agency provides leading expertise in today’s most advanced digital and offline marketing opportunities.

The agency had been using an Excel spreadsheet to manage its media buying and billing activities. As these activities became more complicated, it became increasingly difficult to manage them this way. Knowing there had to be a better way, David Sutton, Senior Vice President, Growth began looking for a solution and found Spendwise.

Since implementing Spendwise, the agency has been able to increase visibility, strengthen its approval process and improve the accuracy of its media buying and billing activities.

Industry

Advertising Services

Company Size

11-50 employees

Location

Downers Grove, IL

Website

www.leverinteractive.com

Key Outcomes

Increased Visibility

Stronger Approvals

Greater Accuracy

The Challenges

As a full-service marketing agency, Lever is responsible for buying media for clients across a variety of different verticals and industries. Over time, the agency’s media buying and client billing processes have become increasingly complex and difficult to stay on top of.

Before Spendwise, the agency used Microsoft Excel to keep track of buying and billing activity. One of the problems with this approach was that it was difficult for Lever to consolidate every piece of their financial information into a single Excel spreadsheet and determine budgetary impacts on the fly. Another was that approvals relied on manual confirmations, forcing users to reach out to other departments after each transaction and wasting valuable time. There were also problems with versions not working due to conflicts from multiple people using the same spreadsheet at the same time or using different versions of the same software.

Why Lever chose Spendwise

The agency knew that it needed something to help streamline and automate its processes so David began searching for a solution.

He looked into a dozen different products but found that either they didn’t have the flexibility needed or there was too much customization and too many options.

After turning to ChatGPT for ideas, he found Spendwise and after some research determined that it was what the agency needed.

The Results

Once the decision to use Spendwise was made, the agency was able to quickly get it up and running, and soon saw the benefits.

Increased visibility

By using Spendwise, the agency is now able to see how actual spending is going compared to the budget in real-time. This increased visibility allows the agency to make timely adjustments to stay on track.

In addition, management is able to access the financial information they need without having to rely on accounting. This has made it so that they can get information more quickly and has reduced the burden placed on accounting.

Before Spendwise, there was a lot of back and forth with accounting to stay on top of the status of certain transactions. Now we can quickly find what we need without having to bug accounting.”

– David Sutton, Senior Vice President, Growth

Stronger approvals

Instead of relying on spreadsheets and manual notifications, the agency can now easily manage approvals in Spendwise.

For example, media operations people can create purchase orders for media purchases and can send it to the client services team for approval. Client services then reviews the purchase order to make sure everything looks good and after they approve it goes to accounting for final approval.

At each step along the way, automated notifications are sent to the approver so they know that their approval is needed. When they approve the purchase order, their approval is recorded along with the date and time that they approved it. If anyone has any questions or comments about the purchase order, they can post them directly in Spendwise and tag anyone who needs to see it so they are notified.

Greater accuracy

With Spendwise, the agency now has the tools it needs to ensure buying and billing information is accurate which has saved it time and money.

“When you are keying in lots of numbers, human error is bound to happen. With Spendwise, we have stronger checks and balances to ensure accuracy and have been able to catch and eliminate any errors.”