The five workflows your agency runs every week.
Across forms, databases, pages, booking, time tracking and invoicing, these are the five jobs Ascend was built to do well. Pick the one closest to what is costing you time today.
Client onboarding
The first impression a new client gets, before any work has started.
The 5-tool reality
- Intake form lives in Tally
- You manually create a client record in Airtable or Notion
- A Calendly link goes out by email for the kickoff call
- You write a project brief in a fresh Notion doc, copy-pasting the form answers across
- You share the brief by Notion link and hope the client does not need a Notion login
- A week later the client emails asking where you sent those files
In Ascend
- Form submission fills a project record automatically
- The record renders as a project page with the intake answers shown inline
- The booking link is on the same page
- One external share link gives the client a view of everything, under your domain
- The client never needs an Ascend login
Every agency does this every time it wins a client. Onboarding friction is the first impression a client gets, and the standard 5-tool flow makes a small agency look smaller than it is. Cleaning this up changes the perceived quality of the agency before any actual work has happened.
Try Ascend freeProject billing
The workflow that decides whether you get paid the right amount on time.
The 5-tool reality
- The project brief lives in Notion
- The team logs time in Toggl against a "project" Toggl does not actually know about
- The monthly invoice gets built by hand in FreshBooks from a Toggl CSV export
- The client queries a line item and you go digging through Toggl entry descriptions to defend it
- Reconciling time logged against time invoiced is a quarterly spreadsheet exercise
In Ascend
- Time logs attach to tasks on the project page
- The invoice generates from those logs with the task descriptions intact
- The client can see (if you grant it) exactly what they are paying for, by task
- Reconciliation is automatic
Agencies that bill hourly or value-based lose real money to time-leakage and disputed invoices. This workflow directly affects cash collection, which is the daily pain that actually keeps small agency owners up at night.
Try Ascend freeDiscovery to deposit
The workflow that closes the sale, before any work has been agreed.
The 5-tool reality
- The lead fills a Tally form
- You email a Calendly link for discovery
- After the call you build a proposal in Google Docs or Pitch
- The proposal goes out as a PDF or shared link
- The client signs via DocuSign or a back-and-forth email
- You raise the deposit invoice in FreshBooks
- The client experiences six different brands and six different login flows before signing a single contract
In Ascend
- The lead fills a form on your site
- The booking link is on the same page as the form
- After the discovery call, you build the proposal as an Ascend page
- The accept button is on the proposal
- The deposit invoice triggers on acceptance
- The whole flow lives at one URL under your domain
This is the workflow that decides whether a prospect closes. A polished, single-domain experience converts better than a fragmented one, particularly for agencies competing for clients above their weight class. The five-brand flow is also where most agencies look smaller than they are.
Try Ascend freeRetainer management
The workflow that turns one-off projects into recurring revenue.
The 5-tool reality
- Retainer terms live in a spreadsheet
- The team logs time in Toggl
- Mid-month you check the spreadsheet against Toggl exports to see how many retainer hours are left
- The monthly invoice gets raised by hand in FreshBooks
- You assemble a "this is what we did this month" report from Notion notes and Toggl screenshots, and email it to the client
- The client has no live view, so they are surprised by any overages
In Ascend
- The retainer balance is live on the client record
- Time deducts from the balance as the team works
- The monthly invoice generates with the right line items
- The client report is a shared page that updates itself
- The client knows where they stand before they ever email asking
Retainer agencies live or die by renewal rates. Live visibility into "what am I getting for my retainer" reduces the monthly invoice argument and quietly raises renewal rates. This is the workflow that converts a one-off project agency into a recurring-revenue one.
Try Ascend freeSubcontractor management
The workflow that keeps your team flexible without leaking time to admin.
The 5-tool reality
- A new freelancer joins a project. You invite them to Notion, Toggl, Slack and your file storage. Four invites, four permission sets.
- They log hours either in your Toggl workspace or their own, depending on the setup
- They invoice you via PayPal, Wise or their own FreshBooks. You reconcile the payment by hand
- Off-boarding them later means revoking four sets of permissions and hoping you did not miss one
In Ascend
- One scoped invite gives the freelancer access to the project only
- Their hours log against the same project
- Their invoice to you is a record on the same project
- Off-boarding is one click
Any agency using contractors at all has felt this pain. The bigger the freelancer roster, the more time leaks into admin. For agencies running three or more freelancers concurrently, this single workflow can justify the switch.
Try Ascend freeFrequently asked questions
What workflows does Ascend support for small agencies?+
Ascend supports five high-value agency workflows: client onboarding (forms, databases, pages, booking, sharing), project billing (pages, time tracking, invoicing), discovery to deposit (forms, booking, pages, sharing, invoicing), retainer management (databases, time tracking, invoicing, pages, sharing), and subcontractor management (databases, sharing, time tracking, invoicing). Each workflow that normally spans four or five separate tools runs from a single connected workspace.
How does Ascend replace Notion, Toggl, FreshBooks, Tally and Calendly?+
Ascend has six native building blocks that cover what those five tools do individually: forms (replaces Tally), databases and pages (replaces Notion plus Airtable), booking (replaces Calendly), time tracking (replaces Toggl), and invoicing (replaces FreshBooks for hourly billing). Because they share a data layer, time logs attach to the right project, invoices generate from those logs, forms fill the right database, and bookings land beside the client record without integration work.
Is Ascend suitable for solo consultants and freelancers?+
Yes. The Solo plan at $19 per month covers a single user with unlimited clients. Solo consultants typically use the project billing workflow most heavily (time logs against client records, automatic invoicing), and the discovery-to-deposit workflow for new client acquisition.
Can clients access Ascend without paying for seats?+
Yes. External clients access shared records via secure share links without needing an Ascend account. This is how Ascend keeps the per-seat cost low while supporting full client collaboration on records, pages and project status.
Which workflow has the biggest impact on agency profitability?+
Project billing has the most direct revenue impact. When time logs attach to tasks on the project page and invoices generate from those logs with descriptions intact, agencies stop losing money to unbilled minutes and disputed invoices. Retainer management has the biggest impact on agency stability because live retainer visibility raises renewal rates.
Run all five from one workspace.
The Ascend free tier covers a single client end-to-end across all five workflows. Add seats when you grow.
Try Ascend free