Creative Agency Software: Brief to Invoice
Capture the brief, run deliverables on boards, track revision hours, show clients progress in the portal, and invoice with margin visibility — without a separate PM tool, tracker, and billing app.
No credit card required · $9/user/month, all features included
The creative delivery loop
Corcava does not ship a dedicated “Brief” module or client approval gates today. The workflow is honest: intake via forms and notes, deliverables as tasks, time on every revision, client visibility through the portal, then billing.
Deliverables
Tasks and boards per project; attach files on tasks and chat
Client view
Portal: boards, reports, chat — not formal sign-off workflows
Invoice
Hourly, fixed, or retainer from tracked time
Margin
Project Finances vs budget; spot scope creep early
Worked example: 6-person design studio, fixed + hourly mix
Studio Lumen has four designers, one PM, and one account lead. They run brand projects (mostly fixed fee) and ongoing retainers (hourly buckets).
Brand refresh for Harbor Co (fixed $28k)
- Brief captured in CRM + shared creative brief PDF
- Board: discovery → concepts → revisions → handoff tasks with owners and due dates
- Round 3 revisions logged as billable time (within scope) vs round 4 flagged via change-request form (out of scope)
- Harbor sees board progress and time summary in client portal; feedback in project chat
- Final invoice: fixed fee milestone + approved change-request hours; margin checked in Project Finances
Monthly retainer for Apex SaaS (40h/mo)
- Recurring project; designers track time per asset batch
- Uninvoiced report shows 44 hours used in March — account lead renegotiates before April
- Invoice generated from uninvoiced hours; client pays via portal
Why creative teams choose one stack
Revisions stop eating margin silently
When time, tasks, and invoices share a project, you see when a “small tweak” pass costs six hours. Pair with change request discipline so scope creep gets priced.
Clients see progress without Slack pings
Boards, time reports, and chat in the portal replace weekly screenshot decks. Your PMs get hours back for actual delivery work.
Fixed and hourly models in one place
Same platform for project-based brand work and retainer buckets — one client record, one profitability view.
Part of the full agency OS
Sales pipeline, outreach, Upwork hybrid ops, and team payments live in the same system. Start at agency management.
Templates & guides
Run creative delivery and billing in one platform
Brief to invoice for design agencies — $9/user/month, every feature included.
Start free trial →