How to set up quote and project tracking in an architecture practice

Example scenario: Picture a practice in Istanbul doing residential and interior work. One client is waiting for the preliminary design of their villa, another is in the permit process, and another wants a revision to the construction drawings. The drawing team is small; the people who talk to clients and go to the municipality are often the same people.

The drawing is not the only thing to track. Which stages the quote includes, which revision counts as in scope, when the presentation took place, which document went to the municipality, and what the client approved in which email: all of it belongs to the same job.

When these pieces sit in different places, the practice goes back to the archive with every new question. The client asks which facade option they liked last spring; the answer is in a presentation file, an email, or the project lead's memory. Project tracking gathers the answers to these questions on the record of a single job.

An architecture quote is about scope more than price: measured survey, concept, preliminary design, construction drawings, details, permit follow-up, and site supervision are separate items. The quote goes out as a text file, the client wants one item removed, a new version is prepared. Months later nobody remembers which version was signed.

This is exactly where the extra-work argument begins. The client thinks a revision is included in the quote; the practice thinks it is not. The reference is the signed quote itself, and it is sitting in an email attachment.

Another thing that gets lost is the quote awaiting a reply. The practice sends it, the client says they will think about it, and in a busy week nobody calls back. By the time someone does, the client is working with another practice. In Corex360 X AI brings the unanswered quote forward in the morning report; and you decide whether to follow up.

In Corex360 the quote is prepared on the customer card; the quote and the contract sit on the same customer card. We describe how a quote moves through the CRM in detail on the module page.

How much can be built on a plot, the setbacks, the height limit, and any special conditions are written in the zoning status and the plan notes. If the practice does not read them at the quote stage, a promise made to the client has to be taken back later, and that is the hardest conversation of all.

Vesya Corex Architecture, the architecture module of Corex360, brings zoning queries, plan note reading, quotes, and presentations together on the same core for architecture practices. When the zoning data sits next to the quote, the first conversation with the client rests on a document, not an assumption.

The quote is not the only place this information is needed; the whole life of the project draws on it. The same plan note is revisited when setbacks are discussed in the preliminary design, when the permit file is prepared, or when the client asks whether another storey is possible. When the document sits on the job record, nobody has to look for it again each time.

In architecture the stages depend on one another. Construction drawings do not start before the preliminary design is approved, and the permit file is not complete before the construction drawings are done. When one stage slips, every later date slips with it, and the client is often the first to notice.

In the Corex360 Projects module every step has an owner and a delivery date; when a step closes, the next lands with its owner and the date goes on the calendar. If delivery is near and the step is still open, the rule opens a task for the owner and carries it into the morning briefing. The same progress shows on the customer card, so whoever talks to the client does not have to walk to the drawing desk to find out where things stand.

In architecture most decisions are made in meetings. In the presentation the client wants to move the kitchen, gives an opinion on the facade material, and talks openly about the budget limit for the first time. If the meeting note stays in a notebook or on the project lead's phone, people try to remember who said what while the revision is being drawn.

In Corex360 the meeting note and any photo taken during the presentation are entered from the iOS or Android app and written on the customer card. The summary email sent to the client after the meeting lands on the same card's timeline. Whoever draws the revision reads from the record which decision was taken and when, even if they were not in the meeting.

Files named final, final revised, and final revised client approved on the office server are a running joke in every architecture practice. The joke ends when the wrong version reaches the site.

In Corex360 files are kept in Corex Drive, inside the record they belong to. The client's approval email is filed on the customer card; X AI reads incoming email and ties the conversation to the right card. Which drawing changed after which message is read on the same record's timeline. The logic of tying a file to its record is explained in what a document management system does.

In small practices the principal is both designer and manager. Part of the day goes to drawing, and part to asking whether that quote went out or whether the municipality replied. Those questions are taken from drawing time. As the practice grows, so do the questions. The project lead handles the client, the intern the drawings, the principal the municipality; everyone knows a piece of the job and nobody knows the whole. The morning report puts the pieces together in front of the principal.

In Corex360 X AI reports every morning: email read overnight, tasks opened, quotes awaiting approval, contracts about to end. This morning view is what practices most need from CRM software for an architecture practice; we told the manager's day hour by hour on that page.

We did not design this order on paper. Corex360 is the technology company of Savaş Grup, which also works in architecture; the group's practice, Vesya Architecture, keeps its project and site records on the Corex360 core. The section-drawing idea in our brand comes from the same roots.

The group's architecture firm, Vesya Architecture, runs presentations, proposals, contracts, projects and customer follow-up in Corex360, and its proposals are prepared with the Vesya Corex Architecture module. Projects and finance open from the Projects and Finance tabs of the customer card. Task management counts open, overdue and completed tasks and warns about tasks at risk. Interim reports go to the customer during the project.