Engineering & planning offices
TodayWhether the project paid off becomes clear when the final invoice is written.
In planning offices work builds up over months, with changing participants and many versions. The work is divided into phases; the filing usually is not. In between sits effort that appears nowhere.
Also for architecture practices, structural engineering, building services engineering and surveying offices.
Does this sound familiar?
- Hours_W38.xlsxThe times are put together at the end of the month from the calendar.
- Design_Draft_RevC_final.pdfWhich version the client holds is not documented.
- Additional service?It was delivered. Whether it was commissioned only becomes clear at invoicing.
- Minutes of 12 MarchThe outcome of the meeting sits in an email to five recipients.
- Who is doing that?Responsibilities were discussed but written down nowhere.
Hours are recorded when there is time for it – that is, at the end of the month, from the calendar and from memory. That makes the post-calculation approximate, and the question of which project types actually pay stays a matter of feel.
At the same time the project status hangs on people. Whoever handled the correspondence knows what was promised. If that person is away, the status is reconstructed from emails – and nobody can find the commitment made three weeks ago.
What the workflow could look like
Not every company needs every stage. But each one gets easier when the previous one has prepared it.
01 Enquiry
Enquiries become comparable
Building project, scope of services and date are captured in one format, not as free text.
02 Project
A project number from the start
With an owner, the agreed scope and the phases your office actually works in.
03 People involved
Client, specialist planners, authority
Recorded once, with their role. Who is on which distribution list is not a memory exercise.
04 Tasks
Who does what by when
Prepared for the phases that always run the same way in your office – with a date and an owner.
05 Documents
Every version is findable
Which version went to whom and when is documented. Without archaeology in file names.
06 Coordination
Feedback hangs off the document
Comments and approvals sit with the version they refer to – not in one person's mailbox.
07 Handover
What was delivered is evidenced
Recorded hours, additional services and documents sit together when you hand over or invoice.
What we build or connect for it
- Time recording where the work happens – on the project and in seconds, not in a spreadsheet of its own
- A project file with parties, tasks, documents, versions and correspondence
- Additional services recorded as they arise instead of hunted down at the final invoice
- A view per project: planned, recorded, invoiced – continuously rather than at the end
- A connection to your existing accounting, so that nothing is entered twice
What changes day to day
- A project file in which the status does not get lost between emails, files and people's heads.
- Being able to see where a project stands, what is open and who is working on what.
- Recorded hours as a basis for post-calculation instead of estimates from the calendar.
- Additional services are documented at the time they are discussed.
From applications we have built
What follows are excerpts from applications we have actually built. No mocked-up interfaces and no invented figures.
The parts most often needed here
- 01
Projects & cases
Projects, people, tasks, documents and open items in one place — instead of spread across mailboxes and folders.
View: Projects & cases - 02
Documents
Documents are built from the data you already have — and end up where people look for them.
View: Documents & information - 03
Customers & data
Record companies, contacts and objects once — and find the same details everywhere afterwards.
View: Customers & data - 04
Automation
The steps someone otherwise has to remember every time now run by fixed rules.
View: Automation
Questions from the industry
We already use industry software. Do you replace it?
Usually not. What is missing is rarely the software, but the connection between project, hours and documents. That is exactly where we start.
How precise does time recording have to be?
Precise enough that it actually gets done. Recording that costs three clicks delivers better data than a to-the-minute system nobody keeps up.
Can we start with one project type?
Yes, that is the usual route. One workflow properly, then the next. That keeps the office running alongside.
What about projects already running?
They carry on as before for the time being. New projects start in the new workflow, and you decide whether and when older ones follow.
Also searched asengineering office · planning office · architecture practice · project controlling · time recording for architects · post-calculation · project file