Pulse was created by Paul Muggeridge-Breene, an exited agency founder and agency advisor. Here’s why he did it.
I’ve spent years helping agency leaders navigate financial challenges (and years before navigating them myself when I was running my own agency!)
And I kept seeing the same problem: financial data was trapped in different silos and presented in different formats, making it impossible to see the whole picture.
To do this, you really need to look in three directions at once: the past, the present, and the future.
Most agencies rely heavily on their accounting software for all of this. While essential, it’s often like looking in a rearview mirror that’s slightly fogged up. Revenue recognition is frequently misaligned with the actual work done, and legally correct accounting provisions (like excluding dividend payments taken in lieu of salary from the P&L) can distort the numbers.
The present is even murkier. Your current month will almost certainly be incomplete and entirely unhelpful until the next month has started – and often for quite some time after that, depending on how long your bookkeeping takes to complete.
Then there’s the future. Many agencies use CRM tools to manage their pipeline, but these generally aren’t built or set up for financial forecasting. They rarely break forecast revenue down by month, or show you how the weighted pipeline opportunities will actually impact the overall picture. How do you see your confirmed revenue alongside your pipeline forecast? And, more importantly, how do you see it in terms of actual profit – both gross and operating?
This is why I created Pulse.
Pulse is specifically designed for agencies to give founders and other leaders a crystal-clear view of their finances. The service’s app integrates seamlessly with accounting and CRM software to combine all of your disparate data into one single, live dashboard.
- Past performance: See your historical data with revenue correctly recognised and accounting quirks properly handled, so that you can see your agency’s actual performance.
- The present: Get an instant “at-a-glance” forecast for the current month so you can adjust course in real-time.
- The future: Review your full-year forecast and beyond. Pulse maps out your month-by-month trajectory by incorporating confirmed work, your sales pipeline, and your specific growth targets.
Everything is kept updated through intelligent automation – you don’t need to spend hours wrestling with spreadsheets or manually updating logs – with bespoke setup and oversight from me. Pulse ensures you always have a live, real-time view of your agency’s health.
Running an agency is demanding enough without flying blind. By monitoring the vital signs that matter, you can stop worrying about the “what ifs” and start focusing on growth.