Client work, organized: a simple system for tracking every account

When you serve many clients, the failure mode isn't dramatic — it's diffuse. Each account is 90% fine, and the missing 10% is scattered across inboxes, chat threads, and memory. The fix is structural, not heroic: give every client one home where their work lives.

One view per client, three questions answered

• What are we doing for this client right now?
• Who owns each piece?
• What's the status — and what's overdue?

If you can answer those three questions for any account in under thirty seconds, client check-ins prepare themselves. If you can't, every call starts with twenty minutes of internal archaeology.

Group recurring vs. one-off work

Most client relationships have a recurring layer (monthly SEO tasks, weekly reporting, ongoing admin) and a project layer (the website rebuild, the campaign launch). Track them in the same client view but as separate groups — recurring work slips silently when it's mixed into project noise.

Make ownership visible to the whole team

Every client task needs a name on it — not a team, a name. When ownership is visible, handoffs during vacations and departures stop being emergencies, and 'I thought you had that' disappears from retros.

Review accounts weekly, lightly

A ten-minute weekly pass across all client views — scanning for overdue items and stalled statuses — catches almost everything that would otherwise become an awkward client email. It's the cheapest insurance an agency can buy.