More creative time –
HR software for your agency

No. Personizer isn’t traditional agency software with project management, resource planning, or invoicing. Personizer covers the basics of HR: time tracking (with project-based tracking via time tags) and digital personnel files. If you already use a project management tool (e.g., Asana, Monday, Jira), Personizer fills in the missing HR component in your setup.

Time tags are freely definable labels that you assign to time entries, e.g., by client, project, campaign, or task type. When starting the timer, your team simply selects the appropriate tag. You can then use the export feature to analyze how many hours were spent on each project. This is sufficient for most agencies that track project expenses but do not require a fully integrated PSA system.

Yes. On September 13, 2022 (Case No. 1 ABR 22/21), the Federal Labor Court ruled that all employers, including agencies, are required to systematically track working hours. This applies to full-time, part-time, and working students. Personizer meets all current requirements.

Personizer automatically calculates positive and negative hours in the work time bank. If the statutory maximum working hours are exceeded (Section 3 of the Working Hours Act: generally 8 hours, max. 10 hours with compensation), the system automatically issues a warning. This helps you, as agency management, stay on top of things, even when things get busy during peak periods.

Yes. With the team calendar, you can immediately see who is already away during the same period whenever a vacation request is submitted. Multi-level approval processes allow requests to be approved first by project managers and then by management. This ensures that capacity for ongoing client projects remains available.

Personizer offers several DATEV interfaces. Master data, absences, and absences due to illness are transferred directly to DATEV. In addition, Personizer supports retrieving eAU certificates via DATEV; the electronic certificate of incapacity for work, which has been mandatory for employers since January 1, 2023, can be retrieved directly in Personizer.

Personizer is billed per employee per month, with no base fee and no implementation costs. You only purchase the modules you need. You can view the prices on the pricing page here. The first 14 days are free and include full functionality. No credit card is required.

Yes. Through the Slack integration, absences appear as status updates directly in Slack. Your team knows right away who is in the office, working from home, or on vacation today, without having to ask. There are also browser extensions for Chrome and Edge, as well as calendar sync with Outlook and Google.

In marketing, advertising, and creative agencies, personnel costs are the largest expense. They often account for 60–70% of the total budget. Without systematic time tracking, it remains unclear how much effort is actually being invested in each client project. Pitches are underestimated, retainer budgets are exceeded without notice, and internal tasks consume time that is never billed.
Since the Federal Labor Court (BAG) ruling of September 13, 2022 (Case No. 1 ABR 22/21), agencies are also required to systematically track the working hours of all employees, including working students and part-time staff.
A digital solution like Personizer combines this legal obligation with business benefits: working hours are tracked via browser, app, or Chrome extension. Time labels allow each hour to be directly assigned to a client or project.
Especially for agencies without their own HR department, this saves hours of administrative work every month. Automatic overtime calculation and labor law alerts provide additional protection against compliance risks.

Vacation planning is more complex in agencies than in many other industries. The reason: projects run in parallel, deadlines are client-driven, and the availability of individual specialists (art direction, UX, development) can be critical to a project’s success.
A common problem: Half the design team takes vacation at the same time, and no one noticed in time. Or the account lead is absent during the very week client feedback is due. Without a centralized overview, bottlenecks arise that, in the worst case, jeopardize deadlines.
With a digital vacation planner like Personizer, your team can centrally log absences in the team calendar. Project managers and leadership can immediately see who is available and when. Custom absence types keep the calendar organized. Multi-level approval processes ensure that vacation requests are only approved once capacity is secured.

Agencies often rely on a mix of full-time employees, student workers, part-time staff, and freelancers. Each type of employment comes with its own contractual terms, work schedules, and payroll-related data. Without a centralized system, contracts end up as email attachments, sick leave notices pile up on desks, and payroll data gets scattered across an Excel spreadsheet.
A digital personnel file like the one in Personizer stores all documents and master data centrally: contracts, sick leave certificates, performance reviews, salary history, and individual data fields. Each employee has their own file, which can be accessed depending on their role: management sees salary summaries, while project managers see working hours but not salary data.
The DATEV interface significantly simplifies the monthly data exchange with your tax office. Master data, absences, and time off flow directly into your tax office’s DATEV system. The integrated eAU retrieval (electronic sick leave certificate, mandatory since January 1, 2023) eliminates additional paperwork.
For agencies where HR tasks are often handled by a single person on the side, a digital system reduces administrative workload by several hours per month and ensures that everything is readily available for audits or labor law inquiries.