Run your studio,
not spreadsheets.
The project management platform built for architecture and design studios. Pipeline, multi-tier budgets, tasks, timesheets, capacity, billing, and clients — all in one place.
7-Phase Pipeline
Architectural stages out of the box — or define your own workflow.
Multi-tier Budgets
Flat fee, hourly NTE, or non-billable — picked per phase at project creation.
Tasks & Sub-tasks
Hierarchical work breakdown with billability flags and roll-up analytics.
Capacity Planning
8-week heatmap — reassign before anyone burns out.
Everything your studio needs. Nothing it doesn't.
Twelve modules, one platform. Purpose-built for architecture studios managing multiple projects, teams, and client relationships.
Project Pipeline
7 architectural phases — Discovery, Schematic, DD, CDs, Permitting, Construction, Closeout — or define your own. Every project moves through stages your studio already uses.
Kanban Board
Linear-style task management with drag-and-drop, 6 statuses, cross-project filtering, and task dependencies.
Tasks & Sub-tasks
Tabular task list with parent/child hierarchy, hour estimates, billability flags, and overrun / under-estimate analytics.
Timeline & Gantt
12-week visual timeline with task bars, blocker indicators, and critical-path visibility across the portfolio.
Timesheet & Timer
Floating timer attached to any task or sub-task. Weekly timesheet grid, billable / non-billable entries, and weekly reports.
Team Workload
8-week capacity heatmap showing utilization by team member. See who's light, who's full, and who's overloaded.
Client CRM
Client directory by type — Institutional, Hospitality, Residential, Government, Developer — with projects, tasks, and budget context.
Consultants
External consultant directory — structural, MEP, civil, landscape — with per-project assignments and contract tracking.
Expenses
Per-project expense tracking — reimbursables, consultant fees, materials — with markup rules and invoice pass-through.
Billing & Invoicing
Native time tracking, unbilled hours by project, invoice creation, and revenue analytics — all in one place.
File Management
Per-project file storage with templated folder structure, version history, and upload attribution.
Sustainability Tracking
LEED, Passive House, Net-Zero, WELL — track sustainability targets per project. No competitor has this.
Project creation
Multi-tier budgets, the way real contracts work.
When you create a project, you don't set one number — you build a budget per phase and pick the fee model independently for each. A single project can mix flat-fee Schematic with hourly-NTE Construction Admin and non-billable Closeout, exactly the way real architectural contracts are structured.
Each phase budget carries its own start/end dates, status (Not started → In progress → Complete), and notes. Burn rate, hours, and over-budget alerts roll up automatically.
Flat fee
Fixed amount for the phase. Burn tracks against the cap.
Hourly (NTE)
Hours × rate, capped at a Not-To-Exceed ceiling per phase.
Non-billable
Tracked for visibility but excluded from invoices and revenue.
From budget to billable hour
One connected loop: plan, do, bill.
The budget you set at project creation flows into the tasks your team works on, and the time they log feeds directly back into burn rate and invoices. No re-entry, no reconciliation.
Break the work down
Tasks within projects, with parent / sub-task hierarchy. Each task has its own assignee, due date, status, priority, and billable flag.
Log time on the task
Time recorded against the task or sub-task — never a vague project bucket. Floating timer or weekly timesheet grid.
Wall sections
running · 1h 24m
Burn, bill, repeat
Hours roll up: sub-task → parent → phase → project. Billable entries flow into invoicing; non-billable stays in utilization but never hits a client.
The same hour drives the timesheet, the burn rate, and the invoice — entered once.
Three dashboards
Built around the questions partners actually ask.
Three dashboards, each with its own tabs — sized to the question, not to a generic dashboard template.
Projects
“Where is the work and where is the money?”
Active
Stacked card per project with 4 metric bars — Hours, Budget, Tasks, Schedule — plus a task-health strip flagging overruns, under-est., and blocked tasks.
MoneyGantt
Contract money flow visualized as four nested layers — Paid → Invoiced → Logged → Planned. The gaps reveal WIP, collections lag, and scope creep.
Capacity
“Who can take more, and who's about to break?”
This week
Free / Busy / Over chips, plus a per-person stacked bar segmented by project.
Forward 8wk
Heatmap projecting load forward 8 weeks. Spot the red column 6 weeks out before it's a fire.
By team
Roll up by squad — Design, Tech, Interiors. Answer “should we hire?” in five seconds.
Tasks
“Where are we leaking hours, and where are we over-padding?”
All
N-level expandable tree, 6 filter facets, sortable on 9 columns. KPIs for total / billable / non-billable hours.
Overruns
Every task where logged hours exceeded estimate, severity-colored. Click → jump into the project.
Under-est.
Done tasks that came in below 70% of estimate. Tighten future proposals — stop leaving money on the table.
Firm performance
The KPIs that drive practice profitability.
Arcova speaks the language of firm owners. Not just task completion — utilization, realization, burn rate, and revenue per FTE.
72%
Utilization Rate
Hours logged vs. team capacity
$178K
Monthly Burn
Portfolio spend velocity
$21.3K
Revenue / FTE
Collected revenue per team member
87%
Realization Rate
Value billed vs. value worked
Your studio isn't generic. Your tools shouldn't be either.
Spreadsheets, Asana, Monday, Notion — great tools, wrong industry. They don't understand phases, consultant coordination, or why a blocked permit means 3 stalled deliverables.
“You track projects in spreadsheets with 47 tabs”
Generic PM tools give you boards and lists — you still end up building your own phase tracking system on top.
Configurable pipeline organized by your own project phases. We suggest 7 architectural stages as a starting point, but you define the workflow that fits your practice.
“A blocked permit stalls 3 other deliverables and nobody notices”
No concept of task dependencies. A task sits in "In Progress" forever while downstream work piles up.
Built-in dependency chains with automatic blocker detection. When task A blocks task B, everyone sees it immediately.
“You find out a project is over budget during the client meeting”
Budget? You mean that other spreadsheet? Generic tools track time, not architectural phase budgets.
Multi-tier budgets per phase — flat fee, hourly NTE, non-billable. Hours flow into burn live, so over-budget alerts fire before the client meeting, not during it.
“Your best designer is on 6 projects and about to quit”
Workload is invisible. You assign tasks, but there's no view of who's at 120% capacity this week.
8-week capacity heatmap per team member. See who's overloaded before it becomes a resignation letter.
“A client asks for "the latest drawings" and 3 people send different versions”
Files live in Dropbox, Google Drive, and email attachments. Versioning is "v3_final_FINAL.dwg".
File versioning per project with folder templates, upload attribution, and full version history.
“Time gets logged once for payroll, twice for the client invoice, three times for nothing”
Timer in one app, timesheet in a spreadsheet, invoice in QuickBooks — the same hour entered three times, reconciled never.
Time logs against the task. The same hour drives the timesheet, the budget burn, and the client invoice — entered once.
Enterprise-grade security
Your project files and client data deserve serious protection.
AES-256 encryption at rest and in transit
99.9% uptime SLA with redundant backups
Daily automated backups with point-in-time recovery
SOC 2 Type II compliant infrastructure
Built for productive studios
Architecture and design studios are production environments. Arcova gives you the visibility to manage pipeline, allocate resources, track budgets, and deliver projects on time.