Pancake is a project management app with tons of features that help you run your graphic design or website design business. I’ve been using Pancake for my project management system since July 2017. It’s been awesome! It has helped manage almost every single aspect of the business. Here are some of the benefits, a few cons and tutorial videos.
Pros
- Self-hosted and one time fee of $149.
- Full customization of front and back end, so it matches your existing brand
- Full customization of page templates
- Manage clients
- Manage projects, including creating project templates (GAME CHANGER!), so if you have a list of tasks for a website job, you can create a job based on that template, then they appear in a list (and you can make tasks be subitems too), you can track time for them and assign them to someone else, if needed. You never have to type them in again! This may negate your need for Asana and similar tools. I created a template project for each type of project: website, book design and layout, logo design, etc.
- Time tracking, including showing total time for grouped tasks and for other users to log in and track their time
- Invoicing, including recurring invoicing and reminders, flat or hourly rate, can see when invoice was looked at
- Support tickets
- Multiple users, so you can assign people to certain tasks or to support tickets.
- Client area that allows for private comments between you and other users or public ones that the client can see. The client can also upload files or access uploaded files.
- Canned e-mails for a plethora of situations, such as a past due invoice
- Proposals
- Financial reports
- Expense tracking (manual)
- Integrations: PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net; Zapier coming soon
- Custom fields so you can add extra info about a client, say, listing how they found out about you
- View estimate, proposals, invoices in each respective area or with each job.
- See when a client viewed an estimate, invoice or proposal.
- Option to BCC yourself on e-mails from Pancake.
Cons
- No Zapier integration (but it's in the works)
- No e-signature capability (but it's in the works, I believe). In the meantime, clients can click a button to accept estimates and proposals.
- No auto-numbering of projects when you create a project, but it's not a big deal to enter numbers manually.
- You must manually enter expenses. Perhaps Zapier integration, once available, may negate that.
- It doesn't automatically add late fees but you can add them.
Pancake Tutorial Videos
Your Business Identity
E-mail Templates
Your Branding
How to create a custom Pancake theme
Payments, Task and Ticket Statuses and Other Settings
Users
Clients
Note: You can add more than one e-mail address in the client info or to the e-mail with their client area details. You can also customize the subject and message.
Project Templates
Tasks
Tasks and Invoicing
Tasks and Time Entries
With tasks, I’ve found—at least for the time being—that you need to give at least view level access for a project and either assign the task to someone (so it shows in their Today section of the dashboard) or you give one or more team members view, view/edit or view/edit/delete access for a task.
Timer App and Timesheets
Estimates
Create an Estimate
View and Send Estimates
Convert Estimate to Invoice
Invoices
One-time or Recurring Invoices
One-time and Recurring E-mail Template
Payment Notification E-mail Templates
Payment Reminders
Clients
Client Area/Client Portal
Client Stats
Discussion Area
Support Tickets
There is functionality for support tickets: getting them from clients, replying to clients, assigning a priority or assigning a ticket to someone else, adjusting the status, etc.
This affiliate link does not cost you anything additional. The cost is only $149 one time, with free support. (On the order page, just be sure to change the number to 0 for priority support unless you intend to get that.) Pancake has a demo, but note that it's the same demo for everyone, so others can see info you add.