Best finance tech solutions PR agencies can use for campaign management

Key takeaways

• Your PR agency finance software stack must connect campaign delivery to financial results. The right tools track retainer profitability, media spend, and team time against client fees.
• Choosing between Xero vs QuickBooks depends on your integration needs. Xero often wins for agencies due to its open API and superior ecosystem of connected apps.
• Strategic app integrations automate data flow. Linking your project management, time tracking, and invoicing tools eliminates manual errors and saves admin hours.
• Workflow automation is your secret weapon for margin. Automating tasks like retainer invoicing, expense claims, and client reporting protects your billable time.
• Start with your core financial truth. Pick one accounting hub (like Xero) and build outwards, ensuring every tool feeds data back to it.

What is a PR agency finance software stack?

A PR agency finance software stack is the connected set of tools you use to manage money, track campaigns, and run your business. It's more than just accounting software. It's how you see if a retainer is profitable, track media spend against budget, and know your cash position for payroll.

For a PR agency, this stack must bridge creative work and commercial reality. Your tools should answer key questions. Is the time spent on a media launch within the retainer's scope? What's the true cost of that influencer campaign after fees and expenses? How much cash will you have after paying your retainer freelancers?

A good stack turns fragmented data into clear insights. It connects time sheets from your team, invoices from media outlets, and fees from clients into one financial picture. Without it, you're making guesses about your most profitable clients and services.

Why do most PR agencies get their software stack wrong?

Most PR agencies start with disconnected tools that create manual work and blind spots. They use one app for time tracking, another for invoicing, and a spreadsheet for campaign budgets. This forces someone to manually copy data between systems every week.

The biggest mistake is treating finance tools as a back-office chore. They're seen as something for the bookkeeper, not the account director. This creates a gap between campaign delivery and financial results. Your team might be delivering amazing coverage, but you can't see if the account is actually making money.

Another common error is choosing software in isolation. You pick a project tool your team likes, then later find it doesn't connect to your accounting system. You end up with data silos. Your campaign data lives in one place, your financial data in another. Reconciling them takes hours of manual work each month.

Specialist accountants for PR agencies see this pattern often. The fix is to design your PR agency finance software stack as a connected system from the start.

How do you choose between Xero vs QuickBooks for a PR agency?

For most PR agencies, Xero is the better choice over QuickBooks. Xero's open platform and vast marketplace of app integrations make it easier to connect your campaign tools. QuickBooks is powerful but can be more closed, making custom connections harder.

The decision between Xero vs QuickBooks hinges on integration. PR agency work involves tracking retainer time, billing media buys, and managing freelance costs. You need your accounting software to talk to your other tools automatically. Xero is built for this with its strong API.

Consider your team's workflow. If your account managers need to raise client invoices based on approved time sheets, Xero connects seamlessly with apps like Dext for expenses and Float for cash flow forecasting. This creates a smooth flow from work done to cash in the bank.

QuickBooks is a solid accounting system. But for the specific need of a connected PR agency finance software stack, Xero's ecosystem usually provides more tailored solutions. It's the hub that most agency-specific apps are designed to plug into.

What are the essential app integrations for a PR agency?

Essential app integrations connect your project management, time tracking, and expense tools directly to your accounting hub. This automates the flow of data from campaign delivery to your profit and loss report. Key integrations include project management tools like Asana or Trello, time tracking like Harvest or Clockify, and expense management like Dext or Pleo.

Start with time tracking integration. Your team's time is your main cost. A tool like Harvest tracks time against specific clients and campaigns. When integrated with Xero, it can automatically create draft invoices based on billable hours. This eliminates manual timesheet collation and reduces billing errors.

Next, integrate your project management tool. Apps like Asana can feed project budgets and task completion data into your financial dashboard. This lets you see if a campaign is running over budget before the monthly report is due. You get real-time visibility, not a monthly surprise.

Don't forget media and expense integration. PR involves outlays for press releases, media databases, and event costs. Using an app like Pleo for company cards or Dext for receipt capture automates expense tracking. These costs can be coded to the correct client and campaign in Xero without manual entry.

These app integrations create a single source of truth. Campaign data and financial data live together. This is the core of a modern PR agency finance software stack.

How can workflow automation improve PR agency profitability?

Workflow automation removes manual, repetitive tasks from your team's plate. This protects billable hours and reduces administrative errors. For a PR agency, automating processes like retainer invoicing, expense approval, and client reporting can save dozens of hours per month.

Think about your monthly retainer billing. Without automation, someone must calculate billable hours, add any media spend, create an invoice, send it, and track payment. With workflow automation, this can be a one-click process. Your time tracking app confirms billable hours, your system adds pre-approved costs, and Xero generates and emails the invoice automatically.

Another powerful automation is client reporting. Tools can pull data from your media monitoring service, time tracker, and accounting software to auto-generate a performance and financial summary. This demonstrates value to the client while saving your team half a day of report building.

Approval workflows are also key. Automate the process for approving freelance costs or media buys. An account executive submits a cost in an app, the account director gets a notification to approve, and once approved, the data flows straight to the correct client ledger in Xero. No chasing emails, no lost receipts.

This level of workflow automation turns your software stack from a record-keeping tool into a profit-protection system. It ensures your team focuses on client work, not admin.

What does a best-in-class PR agency finance software stack look like?

A best-in-class stack has a central accounting hub (like Xero) connected to specialized tools for time, projects, expenses, and reporting. All tools communicate seamlessly, providing a real-time view of campaign profitability and agency cash flow. The stack is simple, connected, and requires minimal manual intervention.

Here's a typical architecture. At the centre is Xero as your financial brain. Connected to it is a time tracking tool like Harvest for capturing billable hours. A project management tool like Asana is linked to feed in project budgets and timelines.

For spending, a tool like Pleo handles company cards and expenses, feeding receipts and transactions directly into Xero. For cash flow forecasting, an app like Float connects to Xero to predict your future bank balance based on upcoming invoices and bills.

Finally, a reporting layer like Fathom or Spotlight pulls all this data together. It creates dashboards that show retainer profitability, team utilisation, and client lifetime value. This gives you a commercial view of your agency at a glance.

This connected PR agency finance software stack isn't about having the most tools. It's about having the right few that talk to each other. It turns data into decisions.

How should PR agencies track campaign costs and retainer profitability?

Track campaign costs and retainer profitability by assigning every cost and hour of time to a specific client and project code within your software stack. Use your integrated time tracking and expense tools to capture data at source, then review profitability dashboards in your reporting app weekly.

Start with clear project setup. In your project management tool, create a project for each client retainer or campaign. Use the same project name and code in your time tracker and accounting software. This creates a consistent thread for all related data.

Track all time, no matter how small. Encourage your team to log all hours against the correct project in your time tracking app. This includes strategy calls, writing time, and media outreach. The goal is to understand the true cost of delivering the retainer.

Capture all direct costs. Use your expense integration to code every cost – from a media database subscription to a courier for press packs – to the specific client project. This gives you the full picture of campaign cost, not just team time.

Review a profitability dashboard regularly. Your reporting app should show you, for each client, the fee income minus the total cost of team time and direct expenses. This is your retainer gross margin. Spotting a declining margin early lets you have a scope conversation with the client before the account becomes unprofitable.

What are the biggest mistakes when building a software stack?

The biggest mistakes are buying tools in isolation without an integration plan, underestimating the setup time, and failing to train your team. This leads to low adoption, continued manual work, and no return on your software investment. The stack becomes a cost, not a profit driver.

A common error is letting different departments choose their own tools. The PR team picks one project app, finance picks another accounting system, and they don't connect. You then need a person to be the human integration, manually transferring data. This defeats the purpose.

Another mistake is not budgeting for implementation. Good software saves time, but setting it up correctly takes time. You need to configure projects, set up approval workflows, and train your team. Rushing this leads to messy data and frustrated users who revert to old spreadsheets.

Finally, agencies often ignore the ongoing cost. A PR agency finance software stack is a subscription model. You pay monthly for each tool. Review the total cost annually. Ensure the time savings and margin improvements justify the spend. Sometimes, consolidating to fewer, more powerful tools is smarter than adding more apps.

To understand where your agency stands financially and identify areas for improvement, take our free Agency Profit Score — a quick 5-minute assessment that reveals your financial health across profit visibility, revenue pipeline, cash flow, operations, and AI readiness.

How can a better software stack improve client relationships?

A better software stack improves client relationships through transparency, accurate billing, and data-driven reporting. When you can quickly provide a breakdown of how retainer time was spent or prove the ROI of a campaign with clear numbers, client trust grows. Automated, error-free invoicing also prevents billing disputes.

Clients value predictability. With integrated time tracking, your estimates for monthly retainers become more accurate. You can show clients a clear plan for how their fee is allocated across strategy, outreach, and reporting. This manages scope expectations from the start.

Reporting becomes a strength, not a chore. Automated reporting tools can pull media coverage metrics, spend data, and team activity into a polished client dashboard. This shifts the conversation from "what did you do?" to "here's the value we delivered." It turns your finance stack into a client service tool.

Accurate, timely invoicing builds professional trust. Automated invoicing ensures bills are sent on time, with clear line items for fees and reimbursables. Clients appreciate not having to query confusing invoices. This smooths the financial side of the relationship, letting you focus on the PR work.

What's the first step to building your PR agency finance software stack?

The first step is to audit your current tools and identify the single biggest manual process causing delay or error. This is your priority for automation. Typically, this is monthly invoicing, expense reconciliation, or time sheet collection. Choose one core accounting hub (like Xero) and one integration to solve that problem first.

Map your current data flow. Write down how a piece of information, like a billable hour, moves from your team to your bank account. Note every manual step, copy-paste action, and spreadsheet involved. This map shows you where to break the chain with automation.

Pick your central hub. For most agencies, this is Xero. Migrate your core accounting there if you haven't already. Ensure your chart of accounts is set up with PR agency needs in mind, like client project codes and cost categories for media spend.

Solve one pain point completely. Don't try to automate everything at once. If late time sheets are delaying invoicing, implement a time tracking tool like Harvest and integrate it with Xero. Get that one workflow perfect before moving to the next. This builds confidence and shows quick wins.

Building a robust PR agency finance software stack is a journey. Start small, connect deliberately, and always link the tools back to your commercial goals. The right stack gives you the clarity to run a more profitable, scalable agency.

Getting your tools connected is a major competitive advantage. If you want specialist advice on building a stack that fits your agency's specific workflow, try our Agency Profit Score to benchmark your current setup and spot optimization opportunities.