How design agency Anagram gained insights into time and budgets with Bonsai

Scaling with Bonsai

For the past seven years, Anagram has relied on Bonsai to streamline operations and scale their team from a solo operation to a thriving team of 15.

They manage all their projects from Bonsai's platform — from project progress to tracking time and budgets. The intuitive interface has made onboarding teammates straightforward and efficient over the years.

Gaining transparency with accurate time tracking

Transparency is especially important in Anagram's fully remote setting. As the team grew, accurate time tracking was crucial to successfully managing multiple projects.

With Bonsai's timesheets, the team tracks and logs where their time is spent every day, allowing Emmanuel to see exactly how team members allocate their hours across various projects.

To grow efficiently, we need to measure where we spend our time, or else we just don’t know. With Bonsai’s timesheets I can clearly see how resources are spent across clients and projects.

Closer budget monitoring

With the entire team tracking hours in Bonsai, Emmanuel gets real-time insights into project costs. This clarity keeps projects within budget, and allows Emmanuel and the team to address financial discrepancies promptly.

With Bonsai, we’re able to see our budgets progress across projects without having to calculate it ourselves. 
We refer to the visual budget progress bars every day to ensure we’re on track.

Managing client expectations

Conversations with clients about how much of the project budget has been used up can be sensitive. It can also take time to go through the project's history to understand what was done, what's remaining, and then report back to clients. 

When clients ask me ‘How much budget do we have left?’, I can answer in minutes. It makes these conversations easier and minimizes the risk of going over budget.

With Bonsai, Emmanuel can tell clients when they risk going overtime before it happens, and it takes him a minute to get back to them when they have questions about the budget.

This openness fosters trust and strengthens client relationships, contributing to Anagram's reputation as a reliable and professional design partner.