Youmeus Youmehub studio-management software

Youmeus Youmehub is an all-in-one system for managing a creative business.

Creative types are renowned for not being the most organized of people - and that can be a real challenge if you plan on running a creative studio. For larger studios, teams will be able to call upon office managers to handle admin tasks, while freelancers can get away with their own, ad hoc systems. But for smaller studios perched in between, office management can be chaotic. That's where Youmeus Youmehub steps in.

Designed as an all-in-one system for managing a creative business, Youmeus Youmehub sits on an included FileMaker runtime engine and pulls together everything you need to make a studio sing from a business hymn sheet.

Designed specifically for creatives, Youmeus Youmehub's elegant interface offers up the ability to track data, such as clients and suppliers, as well as sales, projects, expenses and purchases. It offers facilities for managing file assets, such as pitch documents, timesheets and job costs - and pulls it all together in one compact, simple-to-use interface that intelligently links elements such as projects, staff hours to be billed, invoice raising and project milestones.

Available as a standalone application, a multi-user version of Youmeus Youmehub is available to those running FileMaker that can deliver a studio-networked system for managing projects and staff.

Youmeus Youmehub's interface is a smart grey - and a far cry from the kludgy office admin tools aimed at general business. Starting by entering your company details, letterhead graphics, and contacts, you're then presented with a window offering access to CRM (contacts and mail), calendar, staff, projects, sales and other options.

The CRM module operates as the core to Youmeus Youmehub. There is a wealth of data you can enter for company and client contact details - including photos - and the other modules hook into this. For example, you can create a project, along with your own predefined milestones and design stages, and link that to clients and staff working on it. As work progresses, the calendar shows the project's progress, while invoices can be automatically generated by pulling up associated staff timesheets and costs.

Youmeus Youmehub is well thought out, and it's clear that a lot of effort has gone into its creation. Admittedly, there are some quirks - you can't drag-and-drop calendar elements, and running a postcode lookup caused Youmeus Youmehub to crash. Also, to get a networked solution that everyone can access, you'll need to be running FileMaker on each machine, which adds to the cost. The standalone version of Youmeus Youmehub works without FileMaker.