Background
Elunos is a lean digital agency that specializes in web design, development, and digital marketing for SMEs in Malaysia. With a small core team and a network of freelance specialists, they deliver projects quickly — typically in 4–8 week cycles. The agency prides itself on fast turnaround and transparent client communication.
The problem
Elunos was using four separate tools: Asana for project management, Harvest for time tracking, Wave for invoicing, and cPanel for hosting. Each tool worked fine in isolation, but the lack of integration created constant friction. Generating an invoice meant exporting hours from Harvest, cross-referencing with Asana to verify which project the hours belonged to, manually entering line items in Wave, and hoping nothing was missed.
The freelance model added another layer of complexity. Freelancers needed access to specific projects without seeing other clients' work. In Asana, this meant complex team and project permission setups that broke every time a new freelancer joined.
How they use com1
Projects with per-project access
Each client engagement is a project. Core team members have access to all projects. Freelancers are added only to the projects they're working on — they can't see other clients' work, invoices, or contacts. This solved the permissions headache without requiring complex role configuration.
Swimlane and Gantt for client visibility
Elunos shares the swimlane view with clients during weekly check-ins. It shows tickets grouped by milestone with status visible at a glance — clients can see what's in progress, what's done, and what's coming next without needing a login or a detailed walkthrough. The Gantt chart is used internally for planning, especially when scheduling freelancer availability across projects.
Time tracking with billing targets
The team logs time against tickets throughout the day. Monthly billing targets are set based on revenue goals, and the dashboard shows real-time progress. This visibility changed behavior — the team became more conscious of unbilled time and more disciplined about logging hours promptly.
The billable hour capture rate improved from roughly 75% to 95% after switching to com1, simply because logging time was no longer a separate step in a separate tool.
Estimates that convert to invoices
New projects start with an estimate sent to the client as a PDF. Once accepted, the estimate's line items convert directly into an invoice. The rates, descriptions, and tax configuration carry over — no re-entry. For retainer clients, monthly invoices are generated from time logs with per-project hourly rates applied automatically.
Hosting for client sites
Elunos hosts a number of client websites and web applications. With com1, they manage server registration, container deployment, SSL certificates, and automated backups from the same interface where they manage the project and the invoice. When a client asks "is my site backed up?", the answer is one click away.
Results
Consolidating four tools into one eliminated the integration tax that was eating into the team's productive hours. The average project turnaround tightened to 6 weeks because less time was spent on admin and context-switching between tools.
The financial impact was significant: the 20% improvement in billable hour capture translated directly to increased revenue without taking on additional work. The team is doing the same amount of work — they're just getting paid for more of it.
Freelancer onboarding went from a multi-step process involving three different tools to a single action: add them to the project in com1.