When did we stop asking what our time is worth? A job needs doing, so we build a process. It works. And because it works, it never gets questioned again — even years later, even after everything around it has changed.
But working and working efficiently are two very different things. Nowhere is that clearer than artwork proofing and approval — a process that looks straightforward until you count what's actually inside it: quotes, mockups, orders, revisions, approvals, production updates, ship dates, and a mountain of email holding it all together. Every minute of that managed by hand has a price.
Everyone wears more than one hat
A salesperson isn't only selling. They're chasing artwork, checking order status, answering client questions, coordinating with production, and digging through email to work out whether a proof was ever approved.
The artwork team isn't only creating artwork. They're managing revisions, tracking feedback, confirming which version is current, and deciding what has to happen next. Admin, production and shipping all carry their own version of the same load.
On its own, each of those tasks costs a few minutes. Multiply them across dozens — or hundreds — of orders and a serious share of your team's week goes into managing the process instead of moving the work forward.
Email was never built to run a workflow
Look at how a typical artwork approval actually unfolds — nine stages before anything ships:
The artwork approval workflow · 9 stages
Stages 05 and 06 repeat for every revision — which is exactly where email-run workflows lose track.
Now run every one of those stages through an inbox. Every member of the team ends up asking a question they shouldn't have to go digging for:
Six people, six questions, one answer buried in somebody else's inbox.
When the critical information lives across threads, inboxes, attachments and forwards, mistakes get easy:
- !Mistakes get made. The wrong attachment goes out, or the right one goes to the wrong person, and nobody notices until it's in production.
- !Steps get skipped. A mockup becomes an order without the sign-off that was supposed to come first.
- !Ownership blurs. Ask who's holding a stalled job and you'll get three different answers — or a thread to go read.
And your team spends its day working out where an order stands instead of simply knowing.
One place, start to finish
This is where Trakkables Proofing comes in. Instead of leaving quotes, mockups, orders, proofs, approvals and production as disconnected activities, it connects them into one tracked workflow. With it your team can:
- ✓Manage quotes and mockups
- ✓Convert them into orders
- ✓Run unlimited proofs and revisions
- ✓Track approvals and workflow status
- ✓Assign responsibility across the team
- ✓Move approved orders into production
- ✓Work to defined production and ship dates
- ✓Keep sales, admin, artwork, production & shipping aligned
Everyone involved can see where the work stands, what has already happened, and what needs to happen next.
Trakkables Proofing modules
The real benefit isn't organization. It's time.
A structured workflow buys you something rarer than tidiness: clarity. Sales stops emailing artwork for an update. Artwork stops re-reading a thread to find which revision was requested. Production stops wondering whether an order is genuinely approved. Management can finally see the pipeline. And your customer gets a cleaner, more professional approval experience.
Less back-and-forth. Less searching. Less duplication. Fewer missed steps. Clearer ownership. Better visibility. Lower risk of blowing a deadline. Most of all, hours handed back to the people who were spending them on admin.
Your process may work. That doesn't mean it can't be better.
We're not suggesting your process is broken. It may have served you for years. But businesses evolve: volumes rise, customers expect faster answers, staff absorb more responsibility, deadlines tighten. Eventually the question stops being "does our process work?" and becomes "is this still the best use of our time?"
If people are spending hours a week searching email, forwarding proofs, confirming approvals and relaying status that a shared workflow could simply show, there's room to improve — and the improvement lands on your customers as much as your team.
Your process works. That doesn't mean it's worth what it costs you.
Who this is built for
The approval bottleneck looks slightly different in every shop, but it's the same bottleneck. Trakkables Proofing is built for the businesses living it every day:
Put a dollar value on the time you're spending
Time stays abstract until you price it. The Trakkables Proofing Return on Investment Calculator takes a few minutes: enter your volume and see what your current approval process consumes — and what that time is worth. Small inefficiencies add up faster than most people expect.
See what happened at Artmetal Promotions
Want to see it in practice? Read the Artmetal Promotions story — the Toronto shop's workflow efficiency began improving almost immediately after implementing Trakkables Proofing.
Real improvement rarely means reinventing how your business operates. Often it just means giving your team a better way to manage the work they're already doing.
Your time has value. Start treating it that way.
Every unnecessary email. Every search for the latest proof. Every "has this been approved yet?" Every internal status update. Every missed handoff.
It all takes time — and your team's time is one of the most valuable resources your business has. Stop undervaluing it.
Time Saving · We have the Proof