Business Information Management for Growing Creative Agencies in 2025
Business information management made simple. Learn how agencies organize client files, feedback, and billing all in one place.
Adetola Rachael Iyanuoluwa
A Redditor’s creative agency is growing. They have 25-30 clients, and a team of five. They're not much, but they're finding it difficult to keep their client information in Google Sheets.
“All of the formatting is a little different, the edit history isn't the best, and it just feels janky.”
Another user is running their agency all alone and needs tips on how to collect and save client information without stress.
There are many varieties of customer information– you deal with project details from different clients with different project needs, and you need to have this data in an organized, arranged order.
In this article, I'll explain what business information management is, and how you can manage your client information with the right project management tool.
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Business Information Management (BIM) is how your agency captures, stores, manages, and makes use of client information throughout their period working with you.
It includes how you handle client data management from
Businesses use BIM to manage internal records like employee files and financial records, but business information management for creative agencies focuses on client and project information.
An agency BIM would include managing client briefs, design files, feedback, approvals, and invoices in a structured manner.
Let's explore how you can utilize BIM with a single source of truth platform like ManyRequests.
BIM for creative agencies focuses on how they collect data from clients, how they use that data, and how they store it. If you want to handle client and project information with ease, here's how to do it:
Intake forms are the first point of work-based contact between your agency and a potential client, so it must capture the necessary information about the project to align both parties.
If you're using a consolidated platform like ManyRequests, you can customize and create templates for intake forms based on the client and their projects.
Here's what the ManyRequests intake form looks like:
Intake forms should be detailed, so add detailed sections to describe their project, assets you'd expect from them, relevant information about their business background (e.g.industry, products, services), target audience (age, demographics, pain points), and their project goals (specific outcomes they want to achieve).
You can use our template as a guide to get answers from clients. You can then reference this form as regularly as necessary.
When you have the necessary information, schedule a meeting to review the responses and ask follow-up questions.
This meeting should involve key stakeholders (or at least, your point of contact) who understands a lot about their goals. The goal is to clarify their business objectives, understand what success looks like to them, and identify potential challenges.
The next thing to do is create a brief with this information that includes the project’s objectives, key deliverables, budget, etc.
We call this Requests in ManyRequests. You can create requests with these briefs to get your team started on the work. Remember that so far, you can do all these on one platform.
If your agency deals with a recurring client with similar briefs, ManyRequests even lets you clone previous briefs, rather than having to select and reattach the brand assets every time.
All you need to do is clone the request you created, update the deadline, and add new context.
Creative agencies share many visual assets with their clients and vice versa, so use visual feedback tools like ManyRequests, which allow clients to comment directly on design files, prototypes, and videos.
You can send visual documents to your clients, they can edit, leave comments with the ManyRequests annotation tool, and you can make changes to the document all on the same platform.
As you can see, the client, Jeff, leaves some comments on the document we shared with him, with the round numbered figures.
Each figure contains a comment on what he wants us to change or work on, and we can also reply to these comments.
Another way to create a standard communication with your clients is to create a tiered approval system that you can document easily:
You can do this on ManyRequests as well, which reduces complex back and forth that can affect the efficacy of your workflow and structure.
Disorganized files and email chains can affect how fast your team communicates and completes their assigned work.
They may also lose some details in the mix of long email threads.
Here's how you can change that with BIM:
Every document should include the project name, version number, date, and status.
For example, our dashboard shows the name and owner of the project, and everyone on the team can see these named files and work on them.
Avoid naming your files with tags like “final final approval” or “Last approval” while another is tagged “the last of the piece.” This format doesn't say what it is or which client owns it.
A better naming style would be Your client’s name\_Brand Guide_v02\_2025-09-08\_APPROVED.pdf, but you wouldn't even need this if you use a project management tool like ManyRequests.
As you can see, each project assigned has complete details for the team.
Keep your project-related assets in a single, accessible location, such as a cloud storage service like Google Drive or your project management software.
If you're using ManyRequests, you can add files directly to Storage for future use.
Your team can access these files at their leisure, and depending on what you allow your clients to see through their portal, they can also see and access these files.
ManyRequests also has a status tag for each project so your team knows how far the task has progressed and who's meant to handle what.
The status tag (To Do, In Progress, Pending Feedback, Revisions Needed, Completed) shows a progression of the assignment as it goes forward.
ManyRequests is a project management software and client portal for agencies that helps growing agencies centralize their client information in one platform.
It allows you to onboard new clients, create intake forms to gather information about their project, track project progress, communicate with clients through a customizable client portal, submit every deliverable, and send your invoices.
Some of ManyRequests’ features that helps you manage creative operations include:
ManyRequests has a self-serving dashboard that allows your agency to communicate with your clients and vice versa.
ManyRequests uses a request-based system that allows your clients to submit customized service requests through forms. You can auto assign these requests to team members through the dashboard where your clients (and team members) can track each task and their progress.
ManyRequests has a built-in CRM feature that centralizes everything your agency needs in one place.
Case in point, ManyRequests is a connected system that allows you to:
Growing creative agencies outgrow spreadsheets fast. Like that agency owner who's looking for better alternatives to Google Sheets, you may also need to either improve on how you collect and use client information with a project management tool like ManyRequests or manage the problem until you can't anymore.
ManyRequests puts BIM into action. It combines intake forms, client portals, file storage, project tracking, and a CRM in one system.
Your team knows what to do, your clients see progress, and nothing gets lost. It's a single source of truth that lets you run projects faster and keep your clients happier. Sign up for a 14 days free trial to see how it works.
