Custom software · Architects and interior designers

Build a practice system around your stages, your drawings and your BOQ.

A design practice runs on two things that never sit in the same place. The drawings, which live in CAD files and email threads. The money, which lives in a BOQ, a quotation, a vendor order and a stage invoice somebody raises late.

Between them sits the site. A carpenter needs a detail, and a client changed the laminate on Sunday. A vendor’s plywood has not arrived, and the supervisor’s only record is a WhatsApp group with two hundred photographs in it.

Software for a design practice has to hold both sides. Stages, drawing revisions, BOQ, quotations, client approvals, vendor orders and site progress, with a portal where the client sees what he signed. That is what GullySystem builds here.

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Who this is for

Design practices we can build for.

An eleven-site firm keeps a project file that a two-person studio would drown in. What we build depends on which of those two you are. If you franchise your brand to partner studios, the royalty and territory side sits on the franchise businesses page.

Architecture practices
Interior design studios
Turnkey interior contractors
Residential interior firms
Commercial and office interior firms
Retail and showroom fit-out firms
Hospitality design firms
Modular kitchen and wardrobe businesses
Design and build firms
Landscape architects
Lighting designers
Acoustic and specialist consultants
Structural and MEP consultants
Project management consultants
Furniture and joinery manufacturers working with designers
Multi-city design firms
Practices with an in-house workshop
Practices running partner studios under one brand

What can be built

The modules, and what each one covers.

Nothing here is a fixed package. Each module is built, left out or changed to match how your organisation already works.

Enquiries and the first meeting

Enquiries arrive from the website, Instagram, a builder, a past client or a relative. They can sit in one register with a follow-up date against each.

Client and contact
Source of the enquiry
Property type and location
Carpet area
Scope asked for
Budget range indicated
Expected start
Designer assigned
Meeting and site visit dates
Status and next follow-up

Project stages

Brief
Concept
Client approval
Design development
Working drawings
BOQ and quotation
Order
Execution
Snagging
Handover

Your stage names go in as you use them. A practice that works in five stages should not be made to work in seven.

Drawing register

Revision C went out by email on a Thursday. The carpenter is still working from a printout of revision A.

Drawing number and title
Discipline
Revision letter and date
Status: for approval, for construction, superseded
Who issued it
Who received it and when
Reason for the revision
File attached
Current version marked
Superseded versions kept

The system does not draw. AutoCAD, SketchUp and Revit stay where they are, and the register tracks the files they produce.

Drawing issue and transmittal

Issue list per recipient
Client, contractor, consultant and vendor copies
Issue date
Acknowledgement
Hard copies issued
Drawings pending issue
Drawings awaiting client approval

Consultant coordination

Structural from one office, plumbing and electrical from two others, and the set waits for whichever is slowest.

Consultant and discipline
Drawings expected from each
Due date
Received and pending
Comments issued back
Revisions awaited
Consultant fee and payment status
Coordination meeting notes

Statutory approvals

Authority and application type
Documents submitted
Application date
Queries raised
Responses filed
Fees paid
Sanction received
Conditions attached to the sanction
Renewal or revalidation date

The software records the file. It cannot move an application through an authority, and no schedule it shows is a commitment about when sanction will come.

BOQ

The BOQ is the spine of an interior project. Everything after it, the quotation, the vendor order, the measurement and the final bill, is the same list seen from a different side.

Room-wise and area-wise items
Item description and specification
Unit: running foot, square foot, number, lump sum
Quantity
Material specification and make
Your cost rate
Client rate
Margin per line
Civil, carpentry, electrical, plumbing and finishing heads
Optional and excluded items
Revision history

Quotation

BOQ
Rates
Quotation
Client discussion
Revision
Approval
Advance
Work order

Quotation versions
Room-wise summary
Inclusions and exclusions
Payment schedule
GST
Validity
What changed between versions

Client approvals

Every approval that lives only in a WhatsApp message becomes an argument when the bill goes out.

Design and layout approval
Material and finish approval
Quotation approval
Variation approval
Shade and sample approval
Date and person who approved
Approval against a specific drawing or line
Pending approvals holding up work

Materials and finishes

A shade code decided in the studio has to reach the carpenter who is standing in front of the sheet.

Material category
Make and product code
Laminate, veneer and paint shade codes
Plywood grade and thickness
Hardware make and model
Tile size and finish
Fabric and upholstery references
Sample photographs
Room and item it applies to
Client approval status
Supplier and rate

Vendors and purchase orders

Vendor register by trade
Rate cards
Purchase order against a BOQ line
Delivery date promised
Advance paid
Delivery to site or workshop
Short and damaged material
Vendor bill
Payment due and paid
Vendor performance history

Sheet material moving between two of your own sites is the leak most studios cannot find. Recording the transfer is the only fix, and it needs somebody at site to do it.

Site visit reports

Instructions given standing on a slab are forgotten by Friday. A dated note with a photograph is not.

Visit date and who visited
Observations
Instructions to the contractor
Photographs
Issues raised
Action owner
Next visit date
Report sent to client and contractor

Budget against actual

The quotation said one number. Six weeks of substitutions, site changes and extra hardware said another.

Budgeted cost per BOQ head
Committed cost through purchase orders
Actual spend
Labour cost
Variation value
Margin as it stands today
Cost overrun by head
Projected final cost

Variations and extras

Change requested by the client
Change caused by site conditions
Cost effect
Time effect
Client approval before the work starts
Added to the bill
Variations still unapproved

The software can refuse to let a variation be marked approved without a record. It cannot make a client agree to pay for one.

Stage-wise fees and billing

For an architecture practice the fee is tied to stages, and drawings keep going out whether or not the last stage was settled.

Fee basis: lump sum, per square foot, or a share of project cost
Stage-wise split
Invoice prompt when a stage is marked issued
Invoice raised
GST and TDS
Payment received
Outstanding by client and by stage
Reimbursable expenses
Retention held

Client payments

Payment schedule against milestones
Advance received
Stage payments due
Overdue payments
Payment against variations
Receipts
Work held for payment
Final settlement

Client portal

Most of the calls a studio takes are questions the client could answer himself if he could see the file.

Project status by stage
Approved drawings
Approved quotation and BOQ
Material selections
Approvals pending with the client
Site progress photographs
Payment schedule and receipts
Variations and their cost
Queries and responses
Handover documents

What a client sees is set by you. Most practices show progress and approvals, and keep vendor rates and margins out of it.

Snagging and handover

Snag list
Assignment
Rectification
Client check
Closure
Handover
Defect liability

Snag by room and item
Photograph
Team responsible
Target date
Client sign-off
Handover checklist
Warranty documents and manuals
Defect liability period and visits

Studio workload

Which designer is on which project, and what happens when two sites reach working drawings in the same week.

Projects per designer
Stage each project is at
Tasks and due dates
Drawings pending
Site visits due
Approvals awaited
Overdue items
Leave and availability

Design library

Standard details
Specification templates
Standard BOQ items and rates
Vendor rate cards
Material references
Project photographs
Reusable room templates
Past quotations

Role-based access

Principal architect or owner
Project architect
Designer
Draughtsman
Site supervisor
Purchase
Accounts
Contractor
Consultant
Client

Practice dashboard

Live projects by stage
Enquiries and conversion
Value of work in hand
Project cost against budget
Margin by project
Fees billed and pending
Overdue client payments
Vendor payments due
Delayed sites
Approvals pending with clients
Designer workload

WhatsApp, email and reminders

Site visit report to the client
Approval request
Drawing issue notice
Material delivery confirmation
Payment reminder
Snag list to the contractor
Weekly progress summary

Drawings and site photographs are heavy files, so what goes out on WhatsApp is usually a link rather than the thing itself. A message is also no substitute for the client’s signature on a variation.

What connects to what else

Tally or your accounting software
Payment gateways
Cloud drives holding drawings
Email
Website enquiry forms
Existing project software

Drawing files stay on the drive you already use. The system holds the reference and the revision, not a second copy nobody updates.

The journey

One connected workflow, end to end.

Every stage below can sit in one system, so nobody re-enters what the last stage already captured.

Enquiry
Site survey
Brief
Concept
Approval
Working drawings
BOQ and quotation
Work order
Vendor orders
Site execution
Variations
Snagging
Handover and final bill

Built in phases

You do not have to replace everything at once.

Each phase is usable on its own, so the system earns its place before the next part is built.

1
Projects and drawings
The project file, stages, the drawing register with revisions, site visit reports and consultant coordination.
2
BOQ and money
BOQ, quotations, client approvals, variations, stage-wise fees and the payment schedule. This is where a studio stops losing money.
3
Site and vendors
Vendor orders, material at site, execution tracking, labour cost and budget against actual.
4
Portal and analytics
The client portal, snagging and handover, workload planning, dashboards and the messaging that saves the evening phone calls.

How we work

How a build actually runs.

01
Understand
We go through a finished project file with you, including the parts that only exist in a WhatsApp group.
02
Map
Stages, drawings, approvals, BOQ heads, vendors, site roles and the handover points between the studio and the site.
03
Design
Screens drawn for two very different people: a designer at a desk and a supervisor holding a phone in a half-built flat.
04
Build
Modules in the order that helps a live project first, which usually means BOQ and approvals before anything else.
05
Test
Your team runs a real project through it, from enquiry to a stage invoice.
06
Deploy
The system goes live, with designers, supervisors and accounts trained on their own part of it.
07
Improve
The client portal, the library and the reporting, once the project file is being kept properly.

What we can build

Systems we can put together for you.

Architecture practice management software
Interior project management systems
Drawing and revision registers
BOQ and estimation software
Quotation systems
Vendor and procurement management
Site progress applications
Client portals
Variation and approval tracking
Stage-wise billing systems
Design and specification libraries
Practice dashboards
Multi-tenant platforms for design firms

Common questions

Questions owners ask before starting.

What does custom software for a design practice actually do?

It holds the project file: stages, drawings and their revisions, the BOQ, approvals, vendor orders, site progress and the money against each. The drawing work stays in your CAD software.

Can it manage drawing revisions?

Yes. Each drawing carries its revision, its status, the date it was issued and who received it, so the site can be told which version is current.

Will it replace AutoCAD or SketchUp?

No, and it should not try. It tracks the files those produce, who has which revision, and what was approved. The design work stays where your team already does it.

Can we build a BOQ and turn it into a quotation?

Yes. The BOQ carries your cost and the client rate on each line, and the quotation is built from it, so the margin is visible before the quotation goes out.

Can clients see progress without calling us?

Yes, through a portal showing stage status, approved drawings, site photographs, pending approvals and payments. You decide what appears on it.

Can it track vendor orders and site material?

Yes. Purchase orders against BOQ lines, delivery to site, issue to a room, and the balance lying at site. The site has to record it, though, and that habit takes a few weeks.

Can it handle stage-wise fees for an architecture practice?

Yes. Fees are split by stage and an invoice is prompted when a stage is marked issued, which is usually the week the invoice should have gone out.

Can it record variations the client asked for?

Yes, with the cost effect and the client’s approval against each one. It will not persuade a client who has changed his mind about paying.

Do we need custom software, or will a product do?

If your work is mostly residential interiors, our interior design management system may already fit, and adapting it costs less than building. Custom makes sense when your stages, fee structure or workshop make a product awkward.

Can it work across more than one office?

Yes. Projects, teams and vendors can be tracked per office, with a consolidated view for the partners.

Can site supervisors use it on a phone?

Yes. Progress, photographs, material receipts, attendance and snags are meant for a phone, because that is the only device on site.

Can we start with only the BOQ and costing part?

Yes, and many studios should. Get the BOQ, quotation and vendor orders right first. The portal and the dashboards are worth more once that data is real.

Your trade

How we work with this trade.

Architects

Already built

Software we already run for this work.

If one of these fits, it is cheaper and faster than building from scratch. We will say so.

Interior Design Management System

Build the project file your practice keeps meaning to keep.

Every design practice already has a system. It is spread across a shared drive, four WhatsApp groups, a quotation in Excel and the memory of whoever visited site last.

Walk us through one finished project, from the first meeting to the final bill. The place where the file broke is usually where the build starts, and we will point at it before anybody writes code.

Tell us how you work

Tell us how your architects and interior designers runs today.

We will tell you what can be digitised, what can be connected, what is worth automating, and what you should leave alone.

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