Every project made money on paper.
Where did it go?
Full-service is the hardest version of this business. You specify it, sell it, buy it, chase it, receive it, install it and bill it — and the margin leaks in the gaps between those verbs, where one system hands off to another. Workroom is the record that runs the whole arc, so nothing is retyped and nothing is lost in a handoff.
Hand-finished ceramic dome with a raw stone texture and an open scooped mouth.
lumens.com/moeraki-pendant… Zapata Residence | Spec # LU-MOER-PD-ST
Dim to Warm Lightbulb — Tala Sphere III E26 dim-to-warm LED. $38.00 each, six required.
Custom-sized flatweave in a fine checkerboard, hand-woven wool.
annieselke.com/checkers-flint… Zapata Residence | Spec # AS-CHK-7570645
Woven stripe in taupe, a soft irregular line on a natural ground.
yorkwallcoverings.com/line-in-the-sand… Zapata Residence | Spec # YW-0165172Every product, every field — specification, financials, procurement and tracking on one line.
Trusted by the studios doing the work
Nothing goes wrong. It just goes uncounted.
No single decision loses the money. A vendor discount you forgot to apply, freight absorbed rather than billed, an allowance specified 30% over, a receiving fee nobody passed on, six hours of revisions on a fee you quoted flat. Each one is defensible. Together they are the year.
The budget holds all of it in one place — FF&E, fee and extra costs against what the client is actually paying — and it refreshes from product status and timelogs rather than from someone updating a spreadsheet on a Sunday.
- FF&E, design fee and extra costs on one budget
- Committed against available, per category and per room
- Freight, tariffs and receiving where they belong
- Live from product status and time, not hand-maintained
Project Budget
Live — buckets refresh automatically from product status + timelogs.
Specify it once and let it carry
In most studios a product is entered four times — into the schedule, the estimate, the purchase order and the invoice — and each retype is a chance for the price, the finish or the quantity to drift.
- Approved becomes ordered — the estimate the client signed splits into one ready-to-send purchase order per vendor, pricing and sidemarks already filled in.
- Ordered becomes received — the same records drive the receiving log, the damage claim and the room-by-room install list.
- Received becomes billed — what actually landed is what gets invoiced, drawn against the retainer you are already holding.
Their money is not your revenue yet
Full-service means holding large sums that are not yours — deposits against product not ordered, retainers against work not done. Treated as income they flatter a good month and ambush a bad one, and the first time anyone notices is usually when a client asks for a balance back.
Workroom holds retainers as a credit on the client's account, allocated per project and per pool, drawn down against invoices as work is billed. The balance you hold and the balance you have earned are never accidentally the same number.
No retainers match this view.
The day the client walks in is the only one they remember
Everything upstream is negotiable. The install is not. The same purchase orders that got chased become the room-by-room list the crew works from, with what is delivered and ready separated from what is not — so nobody arrives to find four of six dining chairs.
Full-service, specifically answered
We charge different ways on different projects. Does that work?
Yes. Billing groups cover flat fee, hourly and per square foot, with hour allocations across service types and a cap so hourly work stops billing at the number you agreed. Product markup and reimbursable expenses are handled separately, which is how cost-plus works in practice.
How much of this does the client see?
Only what you choose. Selections, approvals, documents and the financials you share are theirs; vendor pricing, margin, the schedule and internal notes stay yours. Client collaboration →
Do I have to re-enter products into purchase orders?
No. An approved estimate becomes one purchase order per vendor with pricing, sidemarks and freight already filled in — a five-vendor estimate becomes five clean POs rather than five blank forms.
What happens to freight, tariffs and receiving fees?
They sit on the product where they were incurred, with their own markup, and you decide what passes to the client. Tariffs apply at purchase-order stage rather than on the estimate, which is where they actually belong.
Will it tell me what a project actually earned?
Yes, and it shows its working — profit and margin, quoted against actual on fee and FF&E, hours estimated against logged by phase, margin by category with the best and worst three, and a suggested rate for next time. See the audit →
Bring a project you have already finished.
We will set it up on the call — fee, product, freight, change orders — and the audit will tell you which room earned and which one quietly did not.