---
title: "Creative agency: 7 departments in one system | SPOA case study"
url: https://warrenperez.com/en/case-studies/spoa/
description: "Seven departments in one system and every project’s margin in real time: how SPOA, a Paris creative agency with its own studio, structured its entire business."
language: en
---
Creative agency

# Creative agency: 7 departments in a single system, from sales to bookkeeping prep

SPOA is a Paris creative agency of around twenty people, with its own production studio: strategy, creative, production and post-production, for luxury, corporate and entertainment brands. For more than three years, I have been helping [structure the entire agency](https://warrenperez.com/en/) around a single system.

- 20 people
- Paris
- Creative · production · post-production

## 1 · Context

SPOA is a Paris creative and digital agency of around twenty people, specializing in advertising and content production, both film and digital, with an in-house production studio.

It works for particularly demanding premium and luxury brands. In this context, operational excellence is not an internal matter: it determines the agency’s ability to deliver high-level creative work with speed, precision and reliability.

Growth called for structuring internal systems without weighing down the teams or adding unnecessary complexity.

## 2 · Challenge

The brief at a glance

- Bring seven departments together in one system
- Keep the history of every project
- Secure the handoff to post-production
- Match every invoice to its project
- Track margins and cash flow in real time

Briefs, scripts, storyboards and production data got lost in Slack. With no shared source of truth between production and post-production, every handoff exposed the agency to missing or incomplete information.

Technical project data was not centralized early enough, which weakened file naming, archiving and file management over time. Quotes, invoicing, vendors and payments remained largely manual, at the cost of unnecessary follow-ups.

For leadership, the goal was to track each project’s margin, vendor costs and cash flow in real time, without waiting for the books to close.

## 3 · Roadmap

1. 1 Workflow auditAn analysis of business development, production, post-production and finance workflows: where information gets lost, duplicated or delayed.
2. 2 Central operations baseAn architecture connecting projects, clients, vendors, production data and financial information, from first contact to the final debrief.
3. 3 Post-production moduleTechnical data, resources and deliverables centralized as soon as a project is signed.
4. 4 Administrative automationWith Make, Qonto and Pennylane, the agency’s banking and accounting tools: invoicing, and every production invoice matched to its project code.
5. 5 Financial managementDashboards for margin, profitability, pipeline and payment deadlines, built with the agency’s accounting firm.
6. 6 CRM and Notion AIA CRM linked to projects, where Notion AI automatically summarizes meetings and touchpoints.
7. 7 Ongoing supportTraining, onboarding and continuous improvements for more than three years, at the pace of growth.

## 4 · The transformation

Before

- Briefs, scripts, storyboards and production data scattered across Slack.
- No shared source of truth between production and post-production.
- Technical data centralized too late.
- Quotes, invoicing and payments handled manually, with unnecessary follow-ups.
- No real-time view of project margins or cash flow.

After

- Seven departments in a single system: sales, business development, client relations, creative, production, finance and administration, and bookkeeping prep.
- The context of every project kept in one place, from first contact to the final debrief.
- Every production invoice matched to its project code, and the margin of every project visible in real time, vendor costs included.
- A smooth handoff to post-production, with technical data created at signing.
- A complete foundation on which AI works with the agency’s real context.

> Warren is a reliable partner, both over the long term and in the solutions he brings. Attentive and available: a great collaboration that supports our development and our growth.

> I think it’s going to save us a crazy amount of time and avoid the communication problems we have all the time.

## Let’s talk about your project.

Tell me a little about what you’re working on. I’ll get back to you personally to discuss the next steps.

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