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Design fee agreements, retainers and hourly bills

Agree the design fee as a flat sum, a share of the project value, a rate per area or room, or by the hour. Add a retainer and the stages it is billed at. Each bill, including extra concept rounds and hours, goes through approval and becomes a customer invoice.

PLANSEvery plan

Compare plans How it works

The problem it solves

The fee is agreed on a call, and at the end nobody can find what share was due at concept approval.
The retainer the client paid up front is forgotten when the stage bills go out.
Hours spent on a client who changes their mind every week are never billed.
Fee bills go out without anyone senior checking the amount.

How it works

Open Interiors > Projects > Finance > Billing > Design Fees and press New: the client, the project (can be set later) and the designer.
Choose the basis and fill in its numbers: Flat Sum, % of the Project, Per Area, Per Room or Hourly. The Total Fee works itself out.
Put the retainer, the concept rounds included (2 to start with) and the fee per extra round. On the Stages tab, list the stages to bill at, each a %, adding up to 100 %.
Press Agreed when the client agrees. Then Bill Retainer once, Bill on each stage when reached (less the retainer left), and Bill Hours for an hourly fee.
Each bill is sent for approval. It goes through your Design Fee Bill chain, usually an Interiors Manager, who approves or rejects with a reason.
On approval a draft customer invoice is made in Accounting with the entity's usual sales tax. The bill turns Paid by itself when the invoice is paid.

Everything it does

Fee basis

Flat Sum: the fee
% of the Project: % of Project Value, or of the project's value when that is empty
Per Area: rate per area times the area
Per Room: rate per room times the rooms
Hourly: rate per hour times the hours estimated; the bills follow the real hours
Terms tab for the written terms; statuses Draft, Agreed, Fully Billed, Cancelled

Stages and retainer

Stages such as On signing, Concept approved, Drawings issued, each a % of the total fee
Agreed is refused if the stages do not add up to 100 % (an hourly fee needs no stages) or the total is 0
Retainer: billed once, then set against the stage bills until it is used up
A stage bill reads, for example, Concept approved (less retainer 50,000.00)
When every stage is billed the fee is Fully Billed
A fee cannot be cancelled while it has approved or paid bills

Bills

Kinds: Stage, Retainer, Extra Concept Round, Hours, Other
Draft > Waiting for Approval > Approved > Paid, or Cancelled
A bill of 0 cannot be sent for approval (the retainer covers it)
Rejected goes back to draft with the reason shown under Rejected Because
An approved or paid bill cannot be cancelled here: credit its invoice in Accounting
Filters Waiting for Approval and Not Paid; Reporting > Design Fees by designer and status

Invoice

A draft customer invoice from the entity's first sales journal, with its default income account and default sales tax
One line: the project and the bill's description, at the bill's amount
Make Invoice tries again if it failed; you post and send the invoice in Accounting
The bill turns Paid when its invoice is paid or in payment; managers can also press Paid for money taken outside Accounting
With project budgets, the invoice is tagged to the project

Extra concept rounds

Take a project with an agreed fee and a fee per extra round. When a concept round past those included is made, a draft Extra Concept Round bill is made by itself
The new round says so, with a link to the bill
Rounds are counted per room (or for the whole home)

Designer time (Growth)

Interiors > Design > Time: date, who, project, work (Brief, Concept, 3D Design, Drawings, Site, Meeting, Purchasing, Other), hours, a note, Billable
Designers see their own entries; managers see everyone's
Filters Mine and Billable, Not Billed; group by project, person or work
On the project: Hours Budget, Hours Used and Hours Left
Bill Hours on an agreed hourly fee bills every billable hour not yet billed at the rate per hour, and marks them Billed

Who uses it

DesignerWrites the fee agreement, logs hours, and makes the stage, retainer and hour bills.

Interiors ManagerApproves or rejects fee bills, marks money taken outside Accounting as paid, and watches hours against the budget.

AccountsPosts and sends the draft invoices, and records the payments that mark the bills paid.

Principal designerSees fees agreed and billed per designer in Reporting > Design Fees.

Where you use it

Web: Interiors > Projects > Finance > Billing > Design Fees and Design Fee Bills; Reporting > Design Fees; Interiors > Design > Time
Approvals > To Approve for the approvers
The SmartMy Interiors app: hours this week and adding hours (Growth), and approvals waiting for you. Built and in testing, not in the app stores yet
Not on the client's page: the client gets the invoice from Accounting, not the fee agreement

What you control

Settings

Concept Rounds Included: 2 per fee to start with; Fee per Extra Round: empty
The Design Fee Bill approval chain: Interiors managers to start with
The sales journal and default sales tax of the entity, in Accounting

Approvals

Design Fee Bill: every stage, retainer, extra round and hours bill. Interiors managers approve to start with; add levels or set it to Approved at Once

Notifications

Approvers get each bill waiting in Approvals and as a to-do
Request Waits for Your Approval: to the approvers of the next level, in the app, by email and as a phone notification, at once

Questions

Can we take a monthly retainer?

The retainer here is one amount paid up front and set against the stage bills. A retainer billed every month is not built; add those as bills of kind Other, or bill by the hour.

Are extra concept rounds billed by themselves?

A draft bill is made by itself when a round past those included is started. It still goes through approval before it becomes an invoice.

Does the invoice carry GST?

It takes the entity's default sales tax, such as GST in India. Change the tax on the draft invoice in Accounting before you post it if it differs.

Can a designer approve their own bill?

Fee bills are approved by Interiors managers, or the levels you set in the Design Fee Bill chain. Designers can send bills for approval, not approve them.

Which plan has it?

Fee agreements, stage, retainer and round bills with approval are in every plan, from Starter. Designer time and hourly bills from logged hours come with Growth.

Related features

DESIGNConcept rounds with mood boardsShow the client the look of each room, or the whole home, as a mood board with a palette and the idea in words. The client likes pictures, writes notes and approves or asks for changes on their own page. Every round is kept; rounds past those in the fee become a draft bill.ACROSS SMARTMY INTERIORSApproval chainsFee bills, measurements, stage overrides, subcontract work, expenses, budgets and client choices go to the right people in order, set up without code. Every decision is kept with who made it, when and why.ACCOUNTINGFull accounting with GST returnsKeep the books in the same system as your interiors jobs. Design fee bills, payment milestones and subcontractor bills arrive as drafts for your accountant, with full reports from ledgers to cash flow. For Indian entities, GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B are worked out from the posted invoices and bills.PROJECTSBudgets by OPEX and CAPEXEach interior project gets a budget by cost category, approved before it counts. Purchase orders, subcontractor bills and expenses fill it by themselves, and payment milestone and design fee invoices count as revenue. The project manager is told at 80 % and again over 100 %.DESIGNDesign brief confirmed by the clientWrite down what the client wants: styles, colours, who lives there, storage, appliances and each room's wishes with photos. Then send it to the client to approve on their own page. The design starts from a brief they confirmed, with each version kept.

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