Every retainer, every hour and every invoice on one system
Briefs arrive by email, Slack and a call on the way to a shoot. Hours land in timesheets on Friday afternoon, if they land at all. Bring clients, work and billing into one place that knows every scope, and put AI teammates on the work in between.
Good work, counted at the end of the month
Most agencies your size run on a project tool, a CRM the new-business team keeps, a timesheet app and a capacity spreadsheet one producer trusts. It works until a retainer quietly runs at 130%.
- Scope creeps one small ask at a timeA client asks for “just a few” extra cutdowns on a Thursday night. The work gets done, nobody writes a change order, and the retainer absorbs it.
- Timesheets get written from memoryHours go in on Friday afternoon, or on Monday after a reminder. By then nobody remembers which client Tuesday’s call was for.
- Utilization arrives a month lateWho is overbooked next week lives in a producer’s spreadsheet. Realization by client shows up after the month has closed.
- Invoices wait for the hoursBilling can’t close the month until the timesheets are in, so retainers are invoiced on the tenth and overage is rarely invoiced at all.
- Google Workspace Business Standard
- Slack Pro
- Asana Starter
- Zoom Workplace Pro
- HubSpot Sales Hub Professional
- Otter Business
- Zendesk Suite Team
- RingCentral Core
- Calendly Teams
- Mailchimp Standard
- QuickBooks Online Advanced
- Power BI Pro
$84,745$0 a year, at list price, for Halden Rowe’s 12 subscriptions
Halden RoweDenver, ColoradoHalden Rowe builds brands, content and websites for 41 retainer clients across the Mountain West.
Nadia Halden started it in 2009 with Theo Rowe, a developer, in a room above a bike shop in RiNo. It is 85 people now, in three studios on one floor of an old brick warehouse, running on twelve subscriptions, a timesheet app and a capacity spreadsheet only one producer trusts.
- 85
- people
- 41
- retainer clients
- 3
- studios
- $14M
- in fees a year
Nadia Halden Founder and CEODesigns Halden Rowe’s system with OpenLazarus in the film below.
Halden Rowe is an invented example, not a client: a company like the ones we build for, made up to show how one would run on OpenLazarus. Its people, numbers and photographs are illustrative.
What Halden Rowe runs on it
The modules carry the studio’s names, not ours, and the AI teammates work on the same clients, scopes and hours its people do.
- ProjectsEvery retainer and project, with its scope and this month’s hours
- RequestsEvery client ask, checked against the scope before anyone starts
- Clients41 retainers, their contacts, their SOWs and every call
- New businessPitches and proposals, from first call to signed SOW
- FilesBriefs, decks and assets, filed on the right client
- InvoicesRetainers billed on the 1st, with approved change orders
- ReportsUtilization, realization and margin by client, every morning
Ethan WalshAIDeliveryDrafted 85 timesheets from calendars and files, and caught 3 asks outside scope
Priya RamanAIClient servicesTurned Fourmile’s 12 extra cutdowns into a $2,880 change order before 7:00
Arjun MehtaAIStudio numbersPosted utilization by studio, 76% billable, before the 9:00 stand-up
Inés DuarteAIBilling and collectionsMatched 23 retainer payments and sent 6 polite reminders on overdue invoices
Companies like Halden Rowe usually start with Ethan, Priya and Inés.
What it could change in a year
An illustrative estimate for Halden Rowe, worked from its example numbers: the subscriptions it would stop paying for, the hours its people would get back, and the work outside scope that now gets billed.
- $22,800
- a year it would keep after paying for Lazarus, its server, two phone lines and an engineer’s time
- 4,200
- hours a year it would give back to producers, account leads and billing
- 91%
- of hours billed, up from 83% before every ask was checked against its scope
Example figures for an invented company. The savings and hours are worked out from its example tools and plan at list prices; the third figure is an illustrative goal, not a measured result.
Run your agency on a system you own
Tell OpenLazarus how your studio works. You’ll see your system take shape in the conversation, with your names, your teammates and what it saves.
We have a project tool and a timesheet app. Do they have to go?
No. Lazarus reads from them while your teams move over, so projects, hours and clients stay on one record. Most agencies move the daily work first and switch the old tools off when nobody opens them any more.
Will people have to fill in timesheets somewhere new?
Less than today. Ethan drafts each person’s week from their calendar, files and calls, and they confirm or correct it in a minute. Nothing is submitted without the person seeing it.
Our clients’ work is confidential. Where does it live?
On your own server, under your domain. Briefs, files and call notes stay in your system, each AI teammate sees only the clients you give it, and every action is logged where your people can see it.
Who decides what the AI is allowed to do?
You do, per teammate: what they handle on their own, and what they ask first, such as a change order over $2,500 or moving someone off a client mid-week. Nothing reaches a client outside the rules you set.
How long does it take to set up?
The design takes one conversation with OpenLazarus, like the one in the film. Our engineers then move your clients, projects and files over, usually within a few weeks for an agency Halden Rowe’s size.