The problem
Sunbowl, a Vancouver-based Shopify agency, had a remote team across several time zones and many projects running at once. They needed to track billable hours, keep project leads and clients informed, and hold every job to the same standard, all without adding administrators.
The team already lived in Slack, so that's where the system needed to live too.
What we built
Bucky turned Slack into the command centre for the whole business, handling everything from a client's first request to the final invoice. Over ten years it grew to cover:
- Work cycles. Requests broken into tasks, approved and funded by clients, matched to specialists by skill, then reviewed before delivery.
- Prepaid credits. Client balances tracked in real time, with low-balance alerts and a full journal of every transaction.
- Roles and permissions. Different access for project leads, controllers, specialists and clients.
- Reporting. Weekly reports, client statements, profitability dashboards and client satisfaction ratings.
- Secrets management. Encrypted client credentials, access that expired after four hours, and a complete audit trail.
The hard parts
Slack had to work in both directions. People issue commands from channels and threads, and the system responds with updates and interactive buttons, which took careful message parsing and webhook handling.
A distributed team added its own challenges: deadlines and notifications had to respect time zones, and approvals had to work when nobody was online at the same time.
What changed
Routine admin and reporting were automated, so the agency could take on more projects without growing its staff in proportion. Clients got transparent reporting, and owners got a clear view of the profitability of every project. Bucky ran the business for ten years, changing as the company did.