Three ways of charging.
One schedule that adds up.
Almost no firm bills one way. Pre-design is flat, design development is hourly with a cap you promised not to cross, purchasing is per square foot. Workroom holds each of those as its own billing group on the same project — and reads the hours from timelogs, the square footage from the rooms and the fee from what has actually been invoiced, so the schedule is a live position rather than a monthly reconstruction.
Not paid $0
+53.8 hrs over
Flat, hourly and per-square-foot billing groups running on the same project, with hours read from timelogs.
Trusted by the studios doing the work
Define how you charge for this phase, once
A billing group is a phase of work and the rule for charging it. Pick flat, hourly or per square foot, then tick which project phases count toward it — and from then on, every hour a designer logs to Schematic Design lands in the group that bills Schematic Design. Nobody has to remember where the time was supposed to go.
Estimated rate and estimated hours are optional, and they do not change what gets billed. They exist so that when the job is done you can see the difference between the fee you quoted and the hours it actually took — per phase, not as one number at the end of the year.
- Flat fee, hourly or per square foot per group
- Phases mapped to the group that bills them
- Estimates by phase, by service type, or both
- Hour allocations planned across service types
Schedule shows amber at 80% used, red at 100%.
Estimates are a planning + audit tool — they don’t change billing logic.
168.8 hours against an estimate of 115
A fee is only a good fee relative to the work it bought. Most firms find out it was a bad one at the end, when the project is closed and the answer is useless.
- Hours against estimate, live — the schedule carries est hrs and total hrs on the same row, so 53.8 hours of overage is visible in the month it happens rather than in the post-mortem.
- Per phase, not per project — knowing you went over is not useful. Knowing you went over in Design Development, on this kind of client, is what changes the next proposal.
- Effective hourly rate on a flat fee — a flat or per-sqft group still tracks hours, so the designer can see what they actually earned per hour on work that was never billed by the hour.
Rate × room, room by room
Per-square-foot billing falls apart in spreadsheets because the rate is rarely one rate. The dining room went at $75, the family room at $45, and a room that never got a square footage quietly contributes nothing while everybody assumes it was counted.
Workroom calculates each room from its own rate and its own square footage, then totals them — 750 sq ft, $41,250 — and scopes the group to all budgeted rooms or to specific ones. Estimated hours still get tracked against it, which is how you find out that the $75 room was really a $38 room.
Sqft fee is calculated; estimated hours are an audit tool — designer sees their effective hourly rate.
“Not to exceed” only means something if something stops
Hourly work with a cap is the most common way a good project turns into an unpaid one. The team keeps logging, the client keeps asking, and the twenty hours you agreed to became thirty-four before anyone did the arithmetic.
Turn the cap on and the group stops billing at the number. The schedule shows amber at 80% of it and red at 100%, so the conversation about scope happens while there is still scope left to discuss — and the hours logged past the cap are still recorded, because you will want them when you price the next one.
- Cap per billing group, not per project
- Amber at 80% used, red at 100%
- Hours past the cap still logged, just not billed
- Overage becomes evidence for the next proposal
Two more revision rounds were logged after the cap. They are on the record and unbilled — which is either a change order or the reason next year’s number is different.
“We bill three different ways on one project and I used to keep three tabs to prove it. Now it is one schedule, and the hours are already in it.”
Design fees, specifically answered
Can one project use more than one billing type?
Yes, and most do. Each billing group carries its own type — flat fee, hourly or per square foot — and they run side by side on the same schedule with their own section totals. A typical project bills pre-design flat, design hourly against a cap, and purchasing per square foot.
Where do the hours come from?
From timelogs. You map project phases to a billing group, and time logged to those phases counts toward it automatically. There is no separate fee worksheet to keep in step, which is the usual place fee tracking dies.
Do estimated hours change what the client is billed?
No. Estimates are a planning and audit tool. They let you compare the fee you quoted against the work it actually took — and on a flat or per-square-foot group, they are how a designer sees their effective hourly rate on work that was never billed hourly.
What happens when hourly work hits its cap?
Billing stops at the cap. The schedule turns amber at 80% of the agreed hours and red at 100%. Hours logged past it are still recorded against the project — unbilled, but on the record, so they can become a change order or evidence for the next proposal.
How does per-square-foot billing handle different rates per room?
Each room carries its own rate and its own square footage, and the group totals them. A dining room at $75 and a family room at $45 produce one calculated fee across 750 sq ft, with a room that has no square footage showing as zero rather than silently disappearing.
Does the fee schedule know what has actually been invoiced?
Yes. Every line carries invoiced, paid and outstanding alongside unbilled, plus margin in dollars and percent — so “what have we earned and not yet billed” is a column rather than a calculation.
Bring your fee structure. All of it.
The odd one, the legacy client on the old rate, the phase you agreed to cap and regretted. We will build it as billing groups on the call and show you the schedule it produces.