What functionality is needed in CRM for a web studio?

Question

CRM

In a nutshell: a small web studio: development, promotion, context. The question arose about the introduction of a system of accounting and project management. We tried several systems - nothing came up. More or less suitable, what is on the market and costs sane money - Zoho CRM.
There was an idea to develop something similar for own needs.
In this regard, there is a question: what do web studios use as CRM (that is, ready-made systems where you can peek), what functionality of these systems is needed, what can be improved, what is superfluous, and what is missing? What will be needed as it grows in two or three years (i.e., without which it is difficult to scale the work)?
Thanks

Answer 1

Perhaps something will fly into me now, but we use Bitrix24 (we are actually implementing it).
The deal is perfectly divided into areas:
- Project
- Maintenance
- Domains
- Licenses
We use Redmine for developers, and Okdesk for technical support.
It turns out the following case: all new requests go to leads, they are processed by sales (employees of the sales department), they determine where it all goes.
Further agreements are concluded.
- Licenses (they are also regular / one-time sales of renewals).
N days before the expiration of the license, a reminder to the responsible manager, printing documents under the license, agreeing on prices and special conditions (for cereals, state, etc.)
- Domains
The same as with the license, except that there is no agreement, and only an invoice / act from the documents
- Maintenance
Just a list of transactions based on contracts, only background information, business process for the establishment (creating accounts in the Okdesk system) and accounting for statuses (do I need to conclude additional agreements or what)
- Project
Long-term thing, there is integration with Redmine by the number of tasks and hours spent.
All internal communications, events, etc. takes over Bitrix24. Accounting for working hours (formal, i.e. not how much he worked, but whether he worked at all).
Ordinary employees receive tasks in Redmine / Okdesk, and they have a portal for general information about the company.
They did not switch to Redmine due to the lack of the necessary mechanisms - it is for developers, but it is not realistic to drive sales there, and there are no plugins that can more or less do this.
For the same reason, we cannot work only in the helpdesk system. In the end, we decided to focus on a bunch of three systems.
PS Jira bites the price a lot

Answer 2

Do you need project management or CRM? These are somewhat different things.

Answer 3

Redmine, trello, yes, now they will throw others at you (Jira is also fire, but a lot of money). Most likely you are simply not up to date with good accounting systems. You will write yours for a long time and painfully

Answer 4

Redmine, trello, asana are good for managing project tasks, but there is not enough tool for managing finances, documents, contractors, so we ended up writing our own.

Answer 5

There was an idea to develop something similar for own needs.

Kill this thought in the bud. Reinventing the wheel is our national sport.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that you are slightly ahead of the locomotive. Those. the real need for CRM has not yet formed. It is for this and

nothing went

.
I would suggest stepping up sales and development and revisiting CRM when it becomes a problem. You yourself will feel this moment when two sales managers start calling the same client in order to sell services, or when a client turns to you and asks: “Do you remember what you did to me?”, And you will realize with horror that you don’t remember anything , and in general, those developers are no longer there, you will not find a contract.
And then you will have requirements for the system:
- KYC;
- accounting of the contractual base;
- accounting and planning of communications with the client;
At this stage in the development of your studio, the "CRM problem" looks a bit far-fetched. M.b. You really need a tracking system like jira or redmine (they generally fall short of CRM and project management systems).