Project management software for architects by practice size

Architecture project management for a 20 to 100 person practice

Architecture project management, in the sense that ranks on this search, is the business of the practice: phase fees, hours, staffing and invoices. It is a different purchase from the model, the drawing set or a site-photo app. A studio of about 20 to 100 people already has more than one project manager, a bookkeeper, and a stack of open phases, so the software question is which of those jobs share a system.

The shortlist below is Monograph, BQE CORE, Deltek Ajera, Harvest with QuickBooks or Xero, Asana or monday.com as the generic task-board contrast, and Odoo when project, timesheets and accounting should sit on one subscription. ArchiOffice is noted only because buyers still search for it. Each tool gets who it fits, what it does well, its limit, and the price published as of November 2026, or a clear statement that pricing is by quote.

A wider professional services comparison, including finance-led ERP options, is in the PSA software comparison. The Odoo and Monograph head-to-head is kept on its own page, linked below, so this guide can stay on the full shortlist.

How architecture fees split across phases, and where additional services go

AIA Best Practices describes a traditional fee rule of thumb of 10 percent schematic design, 25 percent design development, 40 percent construction documents, 5 percent bidding and 20 percent construction contract administration. The same paper says that split dates back at least 40 years and often underfunds construction administration because the phase lasts much longer than design. On a fixed fee, extra construction-administration hours have to come out of the earlier design phases.

Read the split as shares of the fee in the agreement. Schematic design is 10 percent, design development 25 percent, construction documents 40 percent, bidding 5 percent and construction administration 20 percent. Construction administration is the share the paper says often runs out, because that phase lasts much longer than design, and the unpaid extra hours come out of schematic design, design development and construction documents.

Additional services are the work that was never inside that split: a zoning study, an extra design option, or a prolonged site role the owner adds after the agreement. Treat each one as its own fee, its own time code and its own invoice line. If those hours land on the construction-administration code, the phase looks over budget and the extra service never gets billed.

Monograph describes phases and milestones, budgets and invoices drawn from timesheets. BQE CORE Foundations includes phased billing and cost and schedule by phase. Harvest publishes time-and-materials and fixed-fee projects, and Odoo Project can bill from time on tasks or from milestones. Asana and monday.com pricing pages describe task plans and, on higher tiers, time tracking, and those pages leave the architecture phase-fee model undescribed. Buy the tool that can hold a phase budget and a separate additional-service line if that is how the practice invoices.

Best project management software for architects, by who it fits

There is no single best project management software for architects. A 25 person studio that bills percent complete by phase has a different fit from a 70 person practice that wants the general ledger on the same hours. The table uses each vendor's page as of November 2026. Where that page publishes no price, the cell says pricing is by quote.

Read the fit column before the price column. A low seat price that cannot hold a phase fee pushes the fee math back into a workbook, which is the stack many of these firms already run.

Monograph for phase budgets and staffing

Monograph fits an architecture or engineering studio that wants phases, staffing forecasts and invoices from timesheets, and that can live with a firm-level price. The pricing page does not publish a per-user list. A calculator labeled Monograph Price shows USD 45 to 490 per month and changes with the employee count you enter. The plan includes onboarding, on-demand training, unlimited projects, unlimited reports and project accounting. Pipeline is a separate add-on. No Canadian dollar price is published on that page.

Monograph's own product description says the product is web-based, used by 16,000+ architects and engineers, and covers phases and milestones, budgets, staffing and forecasting, time tracking, expenses, invoices from timesheets and profitability reporting. The same October 2026 list quotes a user on the weekly review: "Every week, the team also uses the MoneyGantt to look at how much is owed to them, and how much time they have billed per project per phase to make sure they're not going over budget." (Monograph listicle). A separate first-person line on that page says: "Previously, I would sift through emails and use project staffing sheets to plan out the week for teams, that would take me nearly 4-5 hours to complete, but now it only takes me an hour, if that." (same listicle).

The limit is the shape of the price and the boundary of the product. You cannot multiply a seat rate by headcount from the public page, so a 40 person practice has to run the calculator. Pipeline, if the practice wants it, is extra. Monograph presents itself as practice management for architects and engineers, with project accounting in the plan. Confirm the calculator result in writing before you budget the year.

BQE CORE, Deltek Ajera and the ArchiOffice search

BQE CORE is the architecture practice management software BQE currently markets, from proposal through billing and finance. Foundations, the module described on the pricing page, includes time and expense, billing and invoicing, project management with phased billing, cost and schedule by phase, reporting and 24/7 support. Accounting, CRM, HR and Payroll are additional modules, each quoted, and payroll processing is described as for US-based businesses and powered by Gusto, which matters for a Canadian studio. Pricing is by quote. Third-party seat guesses are absent from BQE's pricing page.

BQE's public product story says time, invoices and the general ledger share one database, and that project managers can set projects up for the job in front of them. The architecture marketing page also states benchmark averages drawn from more than 1,400 A&E businesses: USD 170,478 revenue per employee, USD 41,914 profit per employee, 83 percent realization and 49.4 days average collection period. Treat those as BQE's published averages from that page, which points at its benchmarking report, and read them beside your own realization and aged fees.

Deltek Ajera pricing is by quote. As of 20 October 2026, Monograph's firm-management cost article reports that the Ajera page offers a demo and a sales contact. Pricing is by quote. Use that when a vendor shortlist still includes Ajera. Ask Deltek for a written scope, the accounting modules included and the implementation line before you compare it with a seat price from another vendor.

ArchiOffice still appears in old shortlists, but bqe.com has no current public ArchiOffice product page, so this guide gives it no price. If a proposal still uses the ArchiOffice name, ask whether the product you would buy is BQE CORE and which modules are in the quote.

Time tracking software for architects

Time tracking software for architects is useful only if the hour lands on a phase or an additional-service code that finance can bill. A timer with a project name and a notebook of phase percents is the pattern Monograph's cost article describes: QuickBooks or a similar ledger, a time tracker, and a folder of spreadsheets to reconcile the two. Time management software for architects, in the searches this page covers, means that same problem: hours, utilization and the fee left on the phase.

Harvest is the dedicated tracker on this shortlist, and it publishes USD prices only. Harvest states that annual prepay is a 20 percent discount. The published pairs are Teams at USD 9 per seat per month billed annually, which is USD 108 per seat per year, versus USD 11 month to month, and Enterprise at USD 14 annually versus USD 17.50 monthly. Free is 1 seat and 2 projects, and Enterprise Plus is custom.

Teams and Enterprise support time-and-materials and fixed-fee projects, timers and timesheets, expenses, invoicing, estimates, and billable and cost rates. Profitability reporting, timesheet approvals, an activity log and required notes sit on Enterprise, and paid plans integrate with QuickBooks Online and Xero. Extra invoices, projects, clients and tasks are usage-billed as the team grows. The public page leaves that usage schedule unlisted. Monograph's October 2026 cost article says Harvest has no phase budget at any tier, and that a fee billed by phase and percent complete sits outside an hours-to-invoice tracker.

Assume 40 paid seats and annual billing, before usage fees and tax. Harvest Teams is about USD 360 a month, or USD 4,320 a year. Harvest Enterprise is about USD 560 a month, or USD 6,720 a year. Month-to-month, those seat totals are about USD 440 and USD 700. That is the time-and-invoice layer. The phase percent still needs a home.

Asana's native comparison of estimated and actual time is on Advanced, at USD 24.99 per user per month billed annually or USD 30.49 monthly. Starter is USD 10.99 annually or USD 13.49 monthly. Enterprise is contact sales. Timesheets, user rates and project budgets are a Timesheets and Budgets add-on with no public price, so a 40 person Advanced subscription at USD 24.99 is about USD 999.60 a month before that add-on. monday.com lists time tracking on Pro and resource management on Enterprise, and its billing country sets the final price, so a 40 person firm should price its own country account directly. Neither page describes schematic design, design development, construction documents or construction administration as fee buckets.

Monograph and BQE CORE treat time as the input to phase profit. Odoo Timesheets bill once the Timesheets app is installed and connected to a project, which means the free one-app plan, limited to a single app, cannot be the whole architecture stack. The next section is the point where the tracker-plus-ledger stack stops fitting a 20 to 100 person firm.

When QuickBooks or Xero plus a tracker stops fitting

QuickBooks Online and Xero remain the ledger for many studios. They stop being the place where every architect enters time once the user cap, or the missing phase math, binds. As of 8 November 2026, QuickBooks Online US regular prices are Simple Start USD 38 a month for 1 user, Essentials USD 85 for 3 users, Plus USD 140 for 5 users and Advanced USD 340 for 25 users. A 50 percent discount for 3 months was on the page. Plans are monthly with no annual contract. Plus is the first US plan that lists track project profitability. Advanced adds advanced project financials and a construction financials solution.

A 20 to 100 person practice cannot put every timekeeper on Plus, because Plus caps users at 5 in both the US and Canadian editions. Advanced caps users at 25. A 40 person studio is past both caps, so time for the rest of the firm lives in another system, or the firm leaves those QuickBooks user limits. Harvest or Asana can hold the hours. They still leave the phase fee, the percent complete and the additional-service code to be reconciled by hand.

Move phase percent complete, utilization and the general ledger onto the same hours when the principal needs to see fee used before the phase closes. That is the job Monograph and BQE CORE describe, and the job an Odoo subscription covers only after Project, Timesheets and Accounting are all in use. BQE sells accounting as its own quoted module on top of Foundations. A quote that omits it is a project tool plus a ledger, which is the stack you already have.

State the two subscription lines separately before you add them. Advanced is USD 340 a month and still stops at 25 users. Harvest Enterprise for 40 seats is about USD 560 a month. Together those two lines are about USD 900 a month, and Advanced still cannot hold the other 15 timekeepers, who stay on Harvest while the phase workbook remains. Compare that pair with a quote for BQE or Ajera, a Monograph calculator result, and an Odoo subscription that includes accounting, using the same headcount.

Canadian prices, GST/HST and collection timing

Canadian practices should budget the Canadian list where the vendor publishes one. QuickBooks Online Canada regular monthly prices, shown as the amounts before the promotion, are EasyStart CAD 30 for 1 user, Plus CAD 110 for up to 5 users and Advanced CAD 220 for up to 25 users. A 90 percent off promotion for 6 months was on the page. Project profitability and multi-currency are on Plus. Time entry by client or project that can be added to invoices is not on EasyStart. The 5-user and 25-user caps match the US products, so a 30 person Canadian studio has the same breakpoint.

Xero Canada prices are in CAD, exclude tax and are billed monthly. The regular prices are Starter CAD 25, Standard CAD 60 and Premium CAD 80 a month, and a new-customer promotion of 80 percent off for three months was on the page. Tracking time and costs for projects is an optional add-on listed from CAD 10 a month, and Premium is the plan that includes multiple currencies. Harvest is priced in USD only. Odoo and monday.com set prices by country, so a Canadian practice should ask both for a CAD quote rather than convert a US list price.

The Canada Revenue Agency requires GST/HST registrants to show the rate and the tax amount, or to state that the total includes GST/HST, on invoices. The invoice date drives when the tax is reported even if the client has not paid. Place of supply sets the rate. Nova Scotia HST is 14 percent after 1 April 2025. A practice that invoices a client in another province has to apply that place-of-supply rate on the architecture invoice, including on an additional-service line.

Holdback can delay cash after the invoice goes out. This guide does not state a holdback percentage. What you can plan with is BQE's published 49.4 day average collection period, cited as its own benchmark, and the CRA rule that GST/HST follows the invoice date. A system that shows unbilled time and open receivables lets the principal chase the fee that is already earned and the tax that is already reportable. BQE's payroll module will not answer a Canadian payroll requirement, because BQE describes that processing for US-based businesses.

Odoo when project, time and accounting share a subscription

Odoo is the suite option on this shortlist. As shown to a US visitor in November 2026, One App Free is USD 0 for one app and unlimited users on Odoo Online, Standard is USD 24.90 per user per month on the yearly offer versus USD 31.10 monthly, and Custom is USD 49.00 on the yearly offer versus USD 61.10 monthly. The yearly discount applies for 12 months to the initial users ordered. Light users are quote-only through an advisor, and Odoo.sh hosting is extra. The page shows no CAD price.

Standard and Custom include all apps, including Project, Timesheets, Accounting and CRM, plus hosting, maintenance and email support. Implementation services, custom-code maintenance and some in-app credits are not included. Custom is the plan for multiple companies, Studio and the external API. Odoo says companies under 50 employees usually buy Success Packs directly and companies over 50 usually use a partner for that services layer. The license is not the implementation.

Assume 40 users on the yearly offer, before tax, hosting upgrades and any services. Standard is USD 996 a month for those initial users during the 12-month yearly discount. Custom is USD 1,960 a month on the same basis. The monthly rates, if you do not take the yearly offer, are USD 31.10 and USD 61.10 per user. Odoo Project can bill customers from time on tasks or from milestones, and project updates show profitability, milestones and resources. Odoo Timesheets and accounting are separate apps that connect to projects. Odoo project billing walks through that chain. The first app is free for unlimited users, and a practice that needs timesheets and accounting has left the free plan.

Phase fees, additional-service approvals and studio scheduling are configuration on top of those apps, which is why a license comparison is not the whole decision. The head-to-head with Monograph, including what each product leaves you to assemble, is in Odoo versus Monograph for architecture firms.

Choose by headcount, phase billing and the ledger

Start with three questions: whether you bill percent complete by schematic design, design development, construction documents, bidding and construction administration; whether additional services need their own fee line this quarter; and how many people must enter time against a project. If you bill by phase and by additional service, Harvest, Asana and monday.com remain the task and time layer, and the phase fee still lives somewhere else. Monograph, BQE CORE and a configured Odoo project are the products on this page that speak to phases, fixed fees or milestones in their own materials. When the configured Odoo path is the one you want priced, Flectic's Odoo package for architecture and planning practices is the offer for a studio of 20 to 100 people that bills by design phase. Open the Odoo package for architecture and planning practices and Book a free discovery call.

At about 20 people, QuickBooks Plus is already too small for every timekeeper, at 5 users, whether you pay USD 140 or CAD 110 a month. Advanced stretches the ledger to 25 users, at USD 340 or CAD 220 a month on the regular prices, and still does not publish an architecture phase-fee model. Between 20 and 50 people, run Monograph's calculator, request a BQE CORE quote that states whether accounting is included, and price Odoo Standard in your billing country for Project, Timesheets and Accounting together. Past 50 people, the same three questions hold, with a heavier data move and, on Odoo's own pricing note, a services purchase that larger companies usually place with an implementer. Ajera stays on the list if you want a Deltek quote beside those three.

Ask every vendor the same four things in writing. Where does a phase fee live, and can you invoice percent complete against it? Where does an additional service get its own code and its own invoice line? What is included at your headcount, in your currency, as of this month? And which system holds the general ledger? Architecture firms that share this pattern with other practices can also read how professional services firms connect time, delivery and finance. Then shortlist two products and price the implementation as its own line. The license tables above are not that line.

How Flectic can help

Flectic implements Odoo for architecture and planning practices of 20 to 100 people that bill by design phase, covering time tracking, phase fees, consultant costs and studio scheduling so principals can step in while a phase still has fee left. Phase records carry fee fields, additional services get their own approval and fee line, and Core is proposed at 10 to 12 weeks, with Growth at 12 to 16 weeks. See how the Odoo package for architecture and planning practices is scoped, then Book a free discovery call.

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