A three-bedroom flat in a city suburb was quoted as a lump sum for interiors. The fee was settled over tea. By the fourth month the couple had asked for the master bath to be flipped twice, the false ceiling to be redrawn after a visit to a showroom, and the wardrobe wall to move. The drafter redid the sheets each time. The site architect made eleven visits against a planned five. The invoice was still one number. Nobody in the studio could say whether the job had made money.
Where the drift begins
Design fees are set early, on a percentage of cost, a rate per square foot, or a lump sum. Hours accumulate later, in small pieces, at the drawing board. The fee does not record them. The principal sees the milestone invoice and the client's happy face. The team sees the extra renders, the revised GFC sheets and the weekend site call.
- Revision rounds. Mood boards approved on Monday are reversed by Friday, and the 3D visualiser redoes a scene.
- Site visits. Contractor questions, a misread detail, a wrong tile batch. Each takes half a day.
- Variation orders. The client adds a niche, a pooja unit or a pantry, and the BOQ changes with it.
- Approval cycles. Authority drawings go back and forth with the municipal office and the structural consultant.
- Handover snags. The snag list at the end takes more time than the concept ever did.
Start with a time sheet that people will fill
Time sheets die when they are long. Keep one line per entry: date, project code, stage, hours, and a flag for 'client change'. Stages should match the proposal: concept, design development, tender and BOQ, working drawings, site supervision, handover. Fill it at the end of each day on a phone or a shared sheet. Fifteen seconds beats an hour of memory on Friday.
- 1
Code every job
Give each project a short code and write the fee against it, with the stage split.
- 2
Capture by stage
Hours go against concept, DD, GFC, site or handover, never a single bucket.
- 3
Flag changes
A tick box marks a client-driven change. Count these per project.
- 4
Read monthly
The principal and the project architect sit for twenty minutes with the month's hours against the fee earned.
- 5
Act on the gap
If a stage has overrun, either invoice the extra, stop the work, or accept the loss on purpose.
Write the proposal so that hours have a home
A good proposal has four elements that protect the team. First, the scope by stage and the deliverables in each. Second, the count of revision rounds and site visits included. Third, the day rate or visit rate for extras. Fourth, the payment milestones tied to stages, not to calendar dates. The wording need not be fierce. It needs to be clear. Clients accept clarity more readily than a surprise.
What the team feels
Drafters and visualisers are the first to feel the drift. They redo sheets and renders in the evenings, with no extra pay and little notice. Site architects carry the chase from vendor to vendor. A modular kitchen studio adds factory visits, shop drawings and installation snags. Such people leave quietly for firms with fairer hours. Check late-evening log-ins and weekend work in your own office. If they cluster around two or three projects, those are the fee problems.
A fair way to share the overrun
- Pay time off in lieu for late nights above a stated limit, recorded on the same time sheet.
- Credit a project's profit to the whole team, not only to the principal.
- Let juniors raise a 'scope flag' without fear. Reward the flag.
- Hold a short project review at each stage end: planned hours, actual hours, reason for the gap.
- Rotate site visits across the team, so one person is not the permanent firefighter.
This links to performance management, since a studio that measures hours can also recognise efficient and careful work. A principal may also use the interior design firms page and the architecture practices page to see the roles in each type, and the wider architects and interior design hub for the sector view.
Different studios, different drift
An architecture practice sees drift in approvals and structural coordination. A landscape designer sees it in plant selection and monsoon delays. A 3D visualisation studio sees it in client-driven render revisions, where a changed camera angle means a full re-render. MEP and structural consultants see it when the architect revises the plan after services have been laid out. Name the typical drift for your studio and put it on the front of the time sheet.
