Verity for interior design firms
A design firm sells design and spends its time on sourcing, coordination and site. Verity shows where studio hours actually go, project by project.
Verity runs the firm. Design and visualisation tools stay where they are.
Verity / Studio
LiveLive projects
11
Studio hours logged
1,120
Hours against fee
58%
Projects over hour budget
4
Needs attention
Illustrative figures. Verity shows your own studio in this shape.
How the business runs
An interior design firm with several designers and many concurrent projects has an economics problem that a solo designer does not. The fee is agreed per project, usually fixed or percentage-based, while the cost is studio hours — and forty-two per cent of those hours going to sourcing, vendor coordination and site attendance means the firm is selling design and spending its time on procurement.
The second characteristic is concurrency. Designers carry several projects at once, and two designers on five projects each is not a workload number but a quality and timeline risk, because every project competes for the same attention at the same milestones.
The third is that vendor performance is a firm-level pattern, not a project-level accident. Delays affecting three projects traced to the same two vendors is a sourcing decision the firm can make once rather than a recurring project surprise.
The fourth is that project profitability is only knowable if hours are attributed. Four projects past their hour budget on a fixed fee is money already lost, and it is only visible when hours sit against the project rather than in a timesheet nobody reads.
Verity attributes studio hours to projects and activities, holds concurrency per designer, and records vendor performance across the whole firm.
What Verity calls these things
What gets in the way
Firm-scale design difficulties come from many projects competing for one studio.
Sourcing hours are invisible in the fee
Time spent finding, comparing and chasing materials is real cost against a design fee.
In Verity Hours are attributed to activity as well as project, so sourcing cost is measurable.
Fixed-fee projects run past their hour budget
Work continues, the fee does not move, and the loss is found at project close.
In Verity Hours run against a project budget with overrun visible while the project is live.
Designers carry too many concurrent projects
Concurrency rises quietly and shows up as slipped milestones across several projects at once.
In Verity Project load per designer is visible, so allocation is a decision rather than an accumulation.
Vendor problems repeat across projects
Each delay is handled as a project issue and the pattern across the firm is never seen.
In Verity Vendor performance is recorded at firm level across every project they touch.
Client revisions are absorbed
Additional rounds beyond the agreed scope consume studio hours without a fee conversation.
In Verity Revision rounds are counted against the agreed number with additional rounds flagged.
Project profitability is only known afterwards
Fee, hours, vendor margin and site time are reconciled long after the decisions that set them.
In Verity Fee against attributed cost is current, so a project can be corrected while it runs.
The complete system
One system across studio time, projects, vendors and fees.
People
Each person carries their projects, concurrency, hours logged and allocation across the coming weeks.
Why it matters here The firm’s cost is people and its risk is how many projects each one carries.
In practice Two designers on five projects each.
Workflows
Hours are attributed to project, phase and activity, distinguishing design, sourcing, coordination and site.
Why it matters here A design fee that funds procurement time is priced wrongly, and only attribution shows it.
In practice Forty-two per cent of hours not against a fee line.
Work
Each project carries its phases, deliverables, hour budget, revision allowance and current position.
Why it matters here A fixed fee needs an hour budget to be a commercial position rather than a hope.
In practice Four projects past their hour budget.
Relationships
Vendors carry performance across every project they touch: lead times quoted against delivered, quality issues, and pricing.
Why it matters here Vendor patterns are firm-level facts hidden inside project-level incidents.
In practice Delays on three projects traced to two vendors.
Orders
Fee stages, procurement margin, additional rounds and attributed cost sit against the project.
Why it matters here Profitability is fee minus attributed hours and procurement position, and both must be current.
In practice Fee against attributed cost, live per project.
Records
Specifications, selections, revisions and client approvals attach to the project and room.
Why it matters here What was approved and when is what governs a later dispute about a change.
In practice Client approval recorded against the selection it covers.
Reports and analytics
Studio utilisation, hours by activity, project margin, revision counts and vendor performance come from the records.
Why it matters here The firm is a capacity business selling fixed fees and needs both sides measured.
In practice Hours by activity across all live projects.
Verity AI
Verity AI answers from your own project, hours, vendor and fee records, respects permissions, and can create assigned follow-ups.
Why it matters here The useful questions are about where hours went and which projects are losing.
In practice "Which projects are past their hour budget?" returns four with fee position attached.
Communication
Approvals, revision requests and vendor chases attach to the project and selection they concern.
Why it matters here A revision request is the start of a fee conversation and needs to be on the record.
In practice An additional revision round recorded against the allowance.
Control
One permission model and one audit trail covering procurement commitments and client-facing approvals.
Why it matters here Committing client money needs a defined authority in a firm with several designers.
In practice Procurement commitments above a threshold routed for approval.
Locations
Site visits, installations and material holding are recorded against projects.
Why it matters here Site time is a cost that rarely appears in a design fee.
In practice Site hours per project against fee.
Work in motion
These already happen. Recorded, the firm can see which projects pay.
Setting an hour budget at the start is what makes overrun detectable later.
Counting rounds is the difference between an allowance and an open commitment.
Recording performance on receipt is what builds the firm-level vendor picture.
Milestone clashes across projects are the usual cause of firm-wide slippage.
The closed project is where the next fee proposal comes from.
Verity AI
Verity AI reads the same project, hours, vendor and fee records the firm creates as it works. It answers from your own studio, respects permissions, and can turn an answer into a reallocation or a fee conversation.
Verity / Ask
Verity AI only returns what the person asking has permission to see.
Without chasing
Each runs from the firm’s own records at the point the condition is met.
When
Project hours reach a share of the budget
When
A revision round exceeds the allowance
When
Designer concurrency passes a threshold
When
A vendor misses a quoted lead time
When
A procurement commitment exceeds authority
What you can understand
Utilisation, margin and vendor performance from working records.
Verity records the firm’s operations. Design and visualisation tools continue as they are.
One system, different ways of seeing it
Everyone works from the same records.
Principal
Which projects are paying?
Fee against attributed cost, hour budgets, studio utilisation, vendor performance.
Design lead
Can the studio carry this month?
Concurrency per designer, milestone clashes, allocation, deliverables outstanding.
Designer
What is on my projects this week?
Deliverables, revision rounds, selections awaiting approval, site visits.
Procurement coordinator
What is ordered and when does it land?
Orders committed, vendor lead times, deliveries against programme, performance issues.
Where it is used
Hours attributed to design, sourcing, coordination and site, so a fee that quietly funds procurement time becomes visible and priceable.
Hour budgets per project with overrun visible while the project is live rather than reconciled at close.
Project load per designer with upcoming milestone clashes, so allocation is decided rather than accumulated.
Lead times, quality and pricing recorded across every project a vendor touches, turning repeated project incidents into one sourcing decision.
Rounds tracked against the agreed allowance with additional rounds flagged for a fee conversation.
Fee, attributed hours and procurement position current, so a losing project can be corrected while it runs.
Plain-language questions across hours, projects, vendors and margin, with reallocation and follow-ups raised in the same step.
Getting there
Design and visualisation tools continue and are mapped during implementation. Projects, phases, fee structures, hour histories, designer allocations, vendor records and specifications are brought across.
Implementation runs about four weeks: discovery and mapping, configuration, migration, then an ongoing operations partnership.
Questions
Verity AI answers questions from your own project, hours, vendor and fee records: which projects are past their hour budget, how many hours went to sourcing, which designers are carrying the most concurrent projects, which vendors have missed quoted lead times. Each answer can become a reallocation or a fee conversation.
Hours sit against the project, phase and activity in the same system that holds the fee, the vendor orders and the deliverables. That is what makes live margin possible instead of a reconciliation after the project closes.
Because a design fee is priced as design. When forty per cent of studio time is sourcing and coordination, the firm is selling one thing and spending its capacity on another, and the fee basis needs to change.
Project load per designer is visible alongside upcoming milestones, so concurrency is a decision made in advance rather than a condition discovered when several projects slip at once.
Vendor performance is recorded across every project they supply, so lead-time misses and quality issues aggregate into a firm-level view rather than staying inside individual project histories.
Revision rounds are counted against the allowance agreed in the fee, and additional rounds are flagged so the commercial conversation happens rather than the hours being absorbed.
No. Design and visualisation tools continue as they are. Verity holds the firm around them — projects, hours, resourcing, vendors, fees and margin.
About four weeks: discovery and mapping of fee structures, phases, activity categories and vendor records, configuration, migration, then an ongoing operations partnership.
They are usually sourcing and site. Tell us how studio time is recorded today.