We Left Function Point for a Year. We Came Back.

After 12 years as customers, TRG Multimedia switched to a competitor in search of better project management. What they lost, financial visibility, reporting clarity, and operational sanity, brought them back. Here’s the story every agency owner needs to hear before switching software.

One of North America’s Most Unique Production Studios

Before you can understand why TRG Multimedia’s software journey matters, you need to understand what TRG actually is. Because it’s unlike almost anything else in the industry.

Based in Brooklyn, Ohio, TRG Multimedia is a full-service content creation studio serving Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 brands. With over 160,000 square feet of studio space, 40+ semi-permanent customizable sets, a soundstage, and a team of more than 90 specialists across photography, CGI, video, retouching, and virtual production, TRG does it all under one roof.

“There might be one or two other studios like us that do everything we do. A lot of our competitors will partner with another company to do video, or go overseas for CGI. We really are all here, working on it together in the same building and that’s pretty unique in our industry.” — Craig Cardilino, Director of Marketing & Operations, TRG Multimedia

That integrated model has powered TRG’s growth for over four decades. But as the studio evolved from a boutique photo shop into a full creative and production partner, the complexity of running it grew with it. Today, TRG is also expanding into creative strategy, original content, films have screened at Sundance and SXSW and AI-powered production. The operational stakes have never been higher.

A Reasonable Decision With Unreasonable Consequences

TRG had been a Function Point customer for more than a decade when they decided to look elsewhere. The reason was legitimate: they wanted stronger project management capabilities. What happened next is a lesson every agency owner should bookmark.

After evaluating the market, TRG landed on Accelo. On paper, the project management module was strong exactly what they’d been searching for. So they made the switch. What they didn’t anticipate was the full cost of what they were giving up.

The Year They Ran Blind

Within months, problems became apparent. Reporting, one of the core operational pillars at a studio managing dozens of concurrent productions for major brands became cumbersome. Financial visibility didn’t just decrease. It nearly disappeared.

The real cost of switching: What TRG experienced wasn’t just inconvenience. It was a fundamental inability to answer the most basic business question: are we making money on this project? Without that visibility, every decision became a guess

“We had no visibility to our financial status on individual projects. I couldn’t figure out what my profit was on a job. It just became very difficult to understand in real time how we were doing. We were running blind for a whole year and that’s terrifying.”— Craig Cardilino, Director of Marketing & Operations, TRG Multimedia

The impact wasn’t limited to leadership. TRG’s financial manager, the person most directly responsible for making sense of the numbers, flatly refused to continue working within the new system. Workflows that had been seamless in Function Point now required double the effort and duplication of data across multiple platforms. The promised efficiency gains never materialized.

200 Demos Later: Nothing Comes Close on Reporting

Before returning to Function Point, TRG did their homework. They weren’t going to simply come back out of frustration — they wanted to be sure. So they did something extraordinary.

They sat through over 200 product demonstrations. Nearly every studio management and agency operations platform on the market. The search was exhaustive. And the conclusion was clear.

“We sat through 150, maybe 200 demos of different systems. And specifically on reporting, no one can touch Function Point. It is so powerful yet so easy to use — it’s very difficult to find something on the same par.” — Craig Cardilino, Director of Marketing & Operations, TRG Multimedia

After twelve months of running the business with compromised financial visibility, the decision to return wasn’t difficult. TRG came back to Function Point, not because it was convenient, but because the evidence was overwhelming.

What the Departure Revealed

There’s a particular kind of product proof that no marketing team can manufacture: the proof of leaving. When a customer with 12 years of experience evaluates hundreds of alternatives and returns, that’s not brand loyalty. That’s evidence.

TRG’s year away didn’t just confirm that Function Point’s reporting was best in class. It revealed how deeply embedded the platform had become in the way TRG operated and how much of that value had been invisible precisely because it was working so well.

“We tried to find something better. We sat through hundreds of demos. We spent a year running the business without Function Point. And we came back. That tells you everything.” — Craig Cardilino, Director of Marketing & Operations, TRG Multimedia