Published on October 25, 2024, in if.team cases
Hanna Pichkur
Copywriter, if.team
Oleh Frolov
CEO, if.team
Currently, over 20 companies manage their projects with if.team. However, the first beta version client was the IT company Webnauts. How the team jumped off the burning train called Bitrix24 and started using ERP in project management through the if.team system is detailed in our first business case.
Niche: development and promotion of websites, online services and applications
Start of ERP implementation: June 2023
Project portfolio: 30–40 projects per month
Webnauts is an IT company that has been developing websites since 2018, followed by online services and mobile applications. The expansion of the team’s technology stack (as well as the team itself) allowed them to quickly move from developing landing pages in HTML and CSS to high-load projects in JS, PHP, and Python frameworks with UI/UX design, promotion, and all the positive consequences for their clients’ businesses.
Over time, the company began to provide outsourcing services, assigning teams to implement projects of various sizes, including startups. This experience, along with the growing load on the company’s operational and financial activities, would eventually lead to the integration of the if.team web solution for ERP in project management. This integration helped Webnauts streamline its processes and manage resources more efficiently.
To understand the growth rate of the company, it is enough to say that in 4 years the Webnauts team has grown more than 17 times: a small group of 4 specialists has become a powerful team of 70 people of various specialties. At the same time, only 2 sales managers were involved in selling IT services, as there were no problems in finding customers. However, as the number of employees and projects grew, the company’s operational efficiency began to suffer. CEO Oleh Frolov recalls:
I was drowning in operational activities and did not understand what was happening - I was constantly looking for employees and could not raise prices for our services in time. There was such an operational workload that I couldn't do anything for more than 3 minutes.
Problems with the operating system were causing financial pain that no service could relieve:
I can't say that if a company keeps some records in a spreadsheet, it's definitely bad. Because it's simple, and simple is good.
— Oleh Frolov, CEO of Webnauts
Like many small businesses, Webnauts started out with an Excel spreadsheet and a full-time bookkeeper. Then, as the number of orders and employees grew, the need for a task manager with a time tracker arose. Then the company chose Bitrix24, not a conscious decision, but a free and popular solution among Ukrainian companies at that time. The truth is that in addition to using the system internally, the development team had experience integrating a boxed solution with customer sites. The builder did not meet the needs of the company and clients 100%, and customization for individual requests usually led to websites “on crutches”.
The company’s operations were based on Bitrix, its finances were still based on the same Excel, and its strategic planning was based on a single word. It was impossible to predict cash gaps and plan business development in the face of growth. To prevent this from becoming a reason to go backwards instead of forwards, an effective all-in-one tool was needed.
On February 24, 2022, everything changed: the company lost more than half of its projects, and the problem of scaling was replaced by the stage of adaptation to the conditions of full-scale war. Webnauts terminated all relations with Russia, including the use of Bitrix24, and began to look for a new project management system. Fortunately, there was plenty to manage: the team focused on outsourcing and actively worked on current projects, gradually attracting new Western clients.
In response to the invasion of Russia and the long-term expansion of Russian systems in the Ukrainian business environment, the ERP software market has also revived. This is how Webnauts came across if.team and migrated to the beta version of the service just in time for the closure of Bitrix24 in Ukraine on May 22, 2023. At that time, the system had all the functions for time tracking and project and task management, providing a comprehensive ERP in project management solution.
While the functionality of the financial part of the service was gaining strength, Webnauts was still able to work with the online financial accounting program Finmap. However, in order to see the financial situation of each project and the entire company on one screen, it was necessary to constantly transfer and consolidate data. Later, when Webnauts transferred all of its finances to the if.team ERP in project management system, this was no longer necessary. In addition, the service’s technical support developed a script to migrate the database from Finmap and helped to quickly transfer the financial data to if.team during the onboarding stage.
I don't like complexity at all. I am not the kind of person who likes to build something complicated in management.
It seems that the words of Webnauts CEO Oleh Frolov are completely in tune with the if.team design concept because, despite its rich functionality, the ERP system is extremely easy to connect, configure, and manage everything: tasks, iterations, projects, as well as the time and budget for their implementation.
A somewhat smaller team of 60+ people – based in Kryvyi Rih and remotely located in various parts of the world – with 12 years of outsourcing experience knew exactly what they needed and where they were struggling. That’s why they tested the system on themselves: they quickly identified weaknesses and helped improve not only functionality but also onboarding, the process of first interaction with if.team.
Thanks to the system’s simple and user-friendly interface, onboarding didn’t take long – the team received an invitation via email and killed two birds with one stone: they completed a quick 3-step registration and thus immediately filled out an employee profile. No more tedious setup: the service was ready to use in just 15–20 minutes:
The team quickly became familiar with the common features and capabilities of the task manager in list mode, kanban, and later Gantt chart.
Thanks to the time tracker, each employee was able to control deadlines, track progress, and even get paid for work on a task or project according to a rate:
Although the company moved to financial management gradually, even in beta, project managers could quickly create projects using the fixed-price and time-to-material models, divide them into iterations, and monitor the financial status of each in real time:
A few months later, the managers mastered a few more new financial tools, such as cash flow, P&L, automatic costing, and many other features.
Thus, the Webnauts team launched operational and later financial management. This allowed the company to combine project teams, financial data, and operational processes in a comfortable mode without any disruptions.
After validating the ERP system at their company, the team was convinced of its effectiveness and optimized all project resources within a single platform. Over time, dozens of other companies will confirm the value of the service and share their experiences in our next cases. But first, let’s find out what the main value of if.team is for the Webnauts team.
14 months after the launch and implementation of the service, along with numerous if.team updates, Webnauts managers have learned more and more new features, including:
In the end, if.team became not just a project management system for the company, but a solution for comprehensive business management, including three key areas
Undoubtedly, the most important tool that led Webnauts to implement the if.team ERP system was the Financial Tracker. The ability to summarize project budgets in a few clicks and see accurate data analysis on one screen saves managers 4.5 times the time and effort.
Previously, it took a manager 20–30 hours to summarize the total budget for all projects, but with if.team’s project budgeting feature, this can be done in 5–6 hours. In monetary terms, the company saves $250-$350 per month at a manager’s rate of $10-$15 per hour. And that’s just for one process!
As a result, if.team has become the best financial management experience for the Webnauts team. In combination with other functional modules, the ERP system not only manages all aspects of the business but also saves up to 75% on subscriptions to other additional programs, streamlining ERP in project management.
At the same time, if.team’s functionality doesn’t overload the user interface: the minimalist design with different modes for viewing tasks, cash flow, and leads is not only pleasant, but also easy to use. A clear and efficient interface helps teams be more productive and makes it easier for managers to access analytics. Interactive dashboards and graphs make it easy to analyze dry data and respond quickly to problems with deadlines, staff, or cost overruns.
One of the main advantages of if.team is the ability to flexibly adapt the system to the company’s specific needs, thanks to the wide range of integration and customization options. The technical team is always open to implementing new proposals, which then find a response in many project-oriented companies: web studios, design agencies, architecture and law firms, etc. It’s hard to imagine such an effective dialogue with users with technical support services like ClickUp, Monday, or Trello, especially in the context of ERP in project management.
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