One system that runs the practice the way architects actually work — first enquiry to paid invoice, along the RIBA Plan of Work.
Even at ARC's scale, a practice usually runs on more tools than anyone planned — a CRM here, spreadsheets for fees and resourcing there, a separate timesheet app, drawings in shared folders. Each was built for something other than architecture, and the same job gets keyed into several. None of them speak RIBA.
Front-of-house and delivery in the same system — the part the architecture ERPs leave out, and the part a busy practice loses most time to.
Every web, phone and referral enquiry triaged for fit before anyone's time is committed — with the source recorded, so you see where work really comes from.
Book straight into Outlook, then build a proposal the way you bill — by RIBA stage — and capture sign-off. Approval seeds the project and the invoice schedule.
RIBA 0–7 as the status everyone reads from, planning and building control as separate tracks, and a drawing register with revisions — not scattered folders.
Log time on site from a phone, watch time-vs-fee per stage, and push stage invoices straight to Xero — payment status flowing back without re-keying.
The hardest daily question in a practice ARC's size isn't where a job is — it's who has the capacity to take the next one, and what winning it does to everyone else. This is the view that answers it, across all three directors and both teams.
Meetings and calendars sync both ways through the Microsoft Graph API — booked in the system, no double entry.
Approved stages post as invoices automatically; payment status flows back. We've already built and run this connection for other clients.
Your data on a secured VPS we provision and maintain — not shipped to a US platform's servers.
Existing clients, projects and contacts brought across from spreadsheets and shared drives — you start with your live jobs already in place.
The architecture platforms sell you a licence and a login, then leave the implementation to you or a paid consultant. Studio Manager is configured to how ARC actually works, hosted, supported and evolved by a Dorset team you can pick up the phone to.
There are good products on both sides of Studio Manager. Here's the honest picture of what each gives you — and what it doesn't.
Flexible and familiar — but none of them know what a RIBA stage, a staged fee or a drawing revision is. You bend the practice to fit the tool, re-key across several, and still run fees and resourcing on spreadsheets.
Properly built for practices, with strong resourcing and forecasting. But they're built abroad and generic to every firm, the heavier ones carry a consultancy-led rollout a 20-strong studio doesn't need — and even the best still leave out front-of-house and the client portal.
Everything the ERPs do well — resourcing, capacity forecasting, RIBA fees, WIP — plus the enquiry-to-meeting front end and client portal they skip. On your M365 and Xero, UK-hosted, configured to your teams, and supported by people down the road.
We'll walk you through the working system, on your own RIBA workflow — and talk honestly about what it would take to fit it to ARC. No slides for slides' sake.
Book the walkthrough