In an agency, the work clients pay for is only part of the week. The rest is the Monday report for every account, the timesheet nobody filled in on Friday, the invoice that's three weeks overdue, and the "quick extra" that quietly turns into a week of unpaid work. None of it is billable, and all of it grows with every client you sign.
Here are the workflows we'd hand an agency or consultancy first, most of them ready-made templates in Lodol's library, and how to run them for many clients from one workspace. Each does the legwork, and none of them writes to a client until a person says so.
1. The weekly report, drafted before you're in
The chore: copying each client's numbers into an email and writing two lines on what moved.
The workflow: every Monday at 7:00, Weekly metrics briefing by email reads a Metrics tab with this week's and last week's value for each measure, and AI writes a short briefing on what changed, which way and by how much. It's emailed to you with the numbers it was written from underneath. Add Weekly chart of how a metric has moved for a line chart of one measure's recent history, with the readings printed below it.
What it won't do: explain why. The briefing is told not to give causes, because a spreadsheet can't tell you that and a plausible invented one is worse than none. It doesn't estimate or project, and a blank cell is called incomplete rather than counted as zero. Because it comes to you rather than the client, a person reads it before it goes on.
For SEO clients, Catch the pages slipping in Google each week records where each tracked page ranks and writes up only the ones that lost more ground than the threshold you set, with a specific recommendation for each. For PR clients, Get a daily round-up of your press coverage in Slack archives every article it finds before it summarizes, so a failure can cost you the commentary but never the record.
2. A welcome that sounds like you, sent with your sign-off
The workflow: every hour, Welcome new clients from their intake form reads your intake sheet and writes each new client a welcome from what they told you on the form. Each one comes to you as an approval request: approve it and it goes out under your name; reject it, or leave it, and it's saved as a Gmail draft for you to edit.
What it won't do: reach a client without a person approving it, or welcome anyone twice. A row missing a name, an email address or notes is skipped rather than guessed at.
3. Timesheets that start from evidence
The workflow: every day at noon, Build yesterday's timesheet from what you actually did rebuilds yesterday from the time your calendar was busy, the emails you sent and, if you like, the commits you pushed, and adds one row to your timesheet with the counts and a sentence or two on the shape of the day. Each person runs their own copy.
What it won't do: fill a gap with a guess. If your calendar or mailbox couldn't be read, that cell is left blank with the reason in the Notes column, so a blank never reads as zero, and a day already on the sheet is never written again. If your team tracks time in Harvest or Toggl Track, both connect to Lodol, and each has a time report a workflow can read for a weekly look at billable hours.
4. Catch scope creep, and the client going quiet
There's no template for scope creep, because every retainer is different, but it's two steps. Start a workflow on each new Gmail email from the client's domain, then add an If / Else and set its condition to Use judgment: "This is true when the client is asking for something outside a monthly SEO retainer." Turn on Not sure. A yes sends the account lead a Slack message with a link to the email, a not sure labels it for a look, and a no does nothing. It never answers the client. That conversation is the account lead's.
Then there's the client who's drifting. Every Monday, Score client health from your email log reads the client emails you've logged and scores how satisfied each client sounds, from 1 to 10, on a health tab with a status of Healthy, Watch or At risk and the trend since their last email. The ones marked At risk are this week's calls. Each email is scored once, and a reply with no readable score leaves the client's row as it was until next week.
5. Invoices chased politely, on time
The workflow: every weekday morning, Chase overdue QuickBooks invoices emails each customer a reminder with the invoice attached at 3, 14 and 30 days overdue, one email covering all of a customer's overdue invoices, and sends you a summary such as "Chased 4 invoices · $12,480.00 overdue across 9 invoices".
What it won't do: email anyone until you say so. Until you switch sending on, every run is a preview with each reminder written out for you to check. Each invoice gets each reminder once, totals in different currencies are never added together, and an invoice with no email address is listed for you rather than skipped. If you keep the books for clients, Identify who was paid on every bank feed line is built to be imported once per client.
Many clients, one workspace
- A folder for each client. On Pro, limit each one to the people who work on that account, and its runs and approvals follow.
- Each client's accounts, side by side. When an app has more than one connection, every step and trigger has a Connection field, so each client's Google Ads or Google Analytics account can be a connection of its own.
- Sign-off from the client. A Request approval step can ask someone outside your workspace, who answers from a link in their email without an account, so the client can approve a draft before it's published.
- A screen they can open. An app built on your workflows can be shared through a read-only link that needs no sign-in.
What it costs
Lodol charges per run, however many steps a run takes. Nothing is charged per client or per seat, so freelancers and contractors can join the workspace at no extra cost. For an agency with 12 clients and 10 people:
| Workflow | When it runs | Runs a month |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly briefing, one per client | Once a week each | 52 |
| Client welcomes | Every hour | 720 |
| Timesheet evidence, one per person | Once a day each | 300 |
| Scope watch | Once per email from a client | 400 |
| Client health | Once a week | 4 or 5 |
| Overdue invoices | Every weekday | 22 |
| All six | About 1,500 |
That fits Builder's smallest tier, 2,500 runs for $18 a month ($15 if you pay annually). A new client adds the runs its workflows use, about four a month for a weekly report, and nothing else. The writing steps run on your own AI account, such as Anthropic or OpenAI, which bills you at its own rates. A judgment call like the scope check runs on Lodol's account, at no extra charge.
Start with Monday's report.
Add Weekly metrics briefing by email for your biggest client and read next Monday's draft before it goes out. Or browse the workflows for agencies and professional services.