Architects & Engineers
A project runs 18 months. Cash arrives in phases. Costs pile up in between. We help you know where you stand before the final invoice.
Eighteen Months Is a Long Time
You sign a contract in January. Schematic design runs through spring. Design development takes you into fall. Construction documents stretch through winter. Construction administration might last another year after that. By the time the project closes, you’ve been working on it longer than some businesses stay open.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, you need to know if you’re making money. Not at the end when it’s too late to adjust. Not when the final invoice goes out and you realize you burned through the fee six months ago. You need to know now, while there’s still time to do something about it.
Who This Is For
Who This Is For
Architecture firms, engineering consultants, landscape architects, interior designers, planning firms. Anyone working on projects measured in months or years, not days or weeks.
The Problem
The Problem
You know the total fee. You know what phase you’re in. But how much of the budget is left, and how much work remains? That answer is harder to find than it should be.
Cash Arrives in Chunks
Billing is tied to phases. You invoice at schematic completion, again at design development, again at CDs. Maybe monthly during CA. The payments are lumpy. A big check in March, nothing in April and May, another in June. Meanwhile rent is due every month. Payroll runs every two weeks. Software subscriptions don’t wait for your client to approve an invoice.
Long timelines mean long gaps between payments. You’re spending money on a project for weeks before the next phase fee arrives. If you’ve got three projects running at different stages, cash flow becomes a puzzle. We track it so you can see what’s coming, what’s going out, and whether the timing works.
Phase Billing
Phase Billing
What’s been invoiced, what’s been collected, what’s still to come. Each project tracked by phase so you know where you are in the fee.
Cash Flow Timing
Cash Flow Timing
When payments are expected versus when expenses hit. See the gaps before they become problems.
Knowing Where You Stand Mid-Project
You quoted $80,000 for a project. You’re eight months in. You’ve billed $50,000 and collected $45,000. Are you ahead or behind? Depends on how much work is left. If you’re 60% done, you’re fine. If you’re 40% done, you’ve got a problem. The fee is fixed but the hours keep running.
Most firms don’t find out until the end. The project closes, they look back, and realize they worked the last three months for almost nothing. We track hours and costs against each project so you can see where you stand while there’s still time to manage it. Push back on scope. Renegotiate. Or at least stop the bleeding.
Budget vs. Actual
Budget vs. Actual
Hours spent against hours budgeted. Costs incurred against fee remaining. The math that tells you if the project is on track or slipping.
Early Warning
Early Warning
See a project going over budget at month six, not month eighteen. Catch it while you can still do something about it.
Multiple Projects, One Picture
You’re not running one project. You’re running five, all at different stages. One is wrapping up. One just kicked off. Three are somewhere in the middle. Each has its own fee, its own billing schedule, its own burn rate. Add them together and that’s your firm. But if each one lives in its own spreadsheet, you don’t have a picture of the whole.
We give you project-level tracking that rolls up into firm-level reporting. Where each project stands, what’s been collected, what’s outstanding, how cash flow looks across everything. When you need to know if the firm is healthy, not just the project, the answer is there.
Project Dashboard
Project Dashboard
All active projects, side by side. Fee, billed, collected, remaining. See the portfolio at a glance.
Firm-Level View
Firm-Level View
Revenue, expenses, profitability across all projects combined. The health of the business, not just the sum of its parts.
Greater Richmond's Small Business Bookkeeper
The Next Step:
A Short Conversation
Fifteen minutes to tell us what you're dealing with. We'll let you know how we can help and give you a clear price quote.
