Guides for architecture firms

Getting paid

• Following up on an unpaid invoice past 30 days

  An escalation plan from 30 to 90 days, five emails, and when to stop and read your contract.

• Chasing a late invoice: a reminder schedule and five emails

  What to send a week before the due date, on the day, and 7 and 14 days late.

• Progress billing and retainers for small architecture firms

  Bill monthly on percent complete by phase, take a retainer at signing, and show the client the math, with a calculator.

• Monthly cost vs budget for each project

  Compare what each project has cost with what it should have cost by now, and act on the gap, with a checker.

• How to read an AR aging report

  What each column of an accounts receivable aging report means, what to look for, and what to do with each row, with a builder.

Closing the month

• Month-end close for a small architecture firm

  A checklist, and how receipts reach each project: one folder per project, one row per receipt, two formulas.

Clients

• Follow-up emails for architects

  Seven templates for client sign-off, late information and scope questions, and a request log.

AI for admin

• AI for architecture firm admin

  The overview: which admin tasks AI handles well, which stay human, and how prompts, assistants and automations differ.

• AI prompts for architects' admin

  How to write a prompt that gives usable admin drafts, with a prompt builder that writes one for your task.

• Practice-management software and what to automate around it

  What Monograph, BQE CORE, Deltek Ajera and Deltek Vantagepoint cover, with sources, and the admin that usually sits outside them.

• Is your firm ready for automation?

  A ten-question check that tells you whether to automate a task now, tidy it first or write it down first.

• AI and client data privacy basics

  What the main AI chat tools do with what you paste, what never to paste, and a redaction tool that runs in your browser.

Winning work

• Client intake: one form, one reply, one folder

  The form questions, the same-day reply and a numbered project folder, with a generator for all three.

• Answering new project inquiries fast

  One person on duty, a reply that asks what, where and when, and a reply writer.

• Proposal follow-up: three emails and a schedule

  Three short follow-ups after a fee proposal, with a calculator for the send dates.

Running projects

• Meeting notes to tasks

  One action line format and a converter that turns pasted notes into a task list.

• Weekly client status updates

  A four-part email, the sheet it is written from, and a writer that drafts it.

• RFI and submittal logs

  Numbering, due dates that skip weekends, and a generator that builds the log.

• A project decision log

  Who decided what and when, with a writer for each entry and its confirmation email.

• Project file structure

  The same numbered folders on every project, file naming rules and a folder generator.

Free tools that go with them

• Admin Automation Scorecard

  Seven questions, about two minutes: a score and a cheat sheet for the admin tasks that take the most time.

• Invoice chaser

  Paste your open invoices: which reminder each overdue invoice needs, drafted for you to review and send.

• Admin Cost Report and financial scorecard

  The free report for your firm's admin hours, with a guide to the four firm-level ratios and their benchmarks.

• 25 Free AI Prompts for Architecture Firms

  Copy-paste prompts for client updates, supplier comparisons and the month-end summary.

En español

Six of these guides are also in Spanish. The Spanish guide index has more for firms in Latin America, including e-invoicing (facturación electrónica), progress billing and payment follow-up on WhatsApp.

How these guides are made

Every guide is built around something you can use: a checklist, a template or a formula. Claims are tied to a source you can open, and we say when something is our own suggestion rather than an industry rule. We do not publish results, client stories or time-saved figures.