The fee was agreed before anyone knew what the project was.
This is what we would actually do, in what order, and what it costs.
No discovery call is required to see the number.
What we would go looking for
These are patterns that recur in a design practice, written as things to
look for. They are not findings from a named engagement.
Additional services performed at a client's request, acknowledged verbally, and never converted into an amendment anybody could bill against.
Estimate-to-complete on percentage-of-completion projects refreshed optimistically, so revenue is recognized against a finish date the project team stopped believing in.
Effective multiplier reported firm-wide while one studio or discipline runs structurally below break-even inside the average.
Sub-consultant markup taken at a rate the prime agreement does not actually permit, discovered at audit or at fee dispute.
Retainage held past substantial completion on projects nobody is chasing because the design team moved on eighteen months ago.
The sequence
Five weeks for one operating unit. More units run in parallel rather than in
series, so a group does not take five times as long.
Week 1
Intake and reconciliation8 requests written for a design practice, alongside the 107 covering the operating spine. We tell you which findings the gaps will limit before any fieldwork starts.
Weeks 2–3
Full pass, not a sampleEvery project in scope is read rather than sampled.
Week 4
Quantification and challengeEach finding sized, and put to whoever owns it before it is written down.
Week 5
Report and walkthroughThe written report, ranked by annual value and by how hard each finding is to act on.
4 core requests written for a design practice, inside the full intake.
Anything you do not have can be skipped with a reason — skipping narrows what the
review can conclude, and we tell you where before the work starts rather than after.
Project list with fee basis and contract type — Lump sum, percentage of construction cost, hourly-not-to-exceed or cost-plus.
Percentage-of-completion schedule with estimate to complete — Per project. Revenue recognition depends on the ETC being honest rather than comfortable.
Utilization and effective multiplier by staff grade — Direct labor against raw and net multiplier, monthly.
Additional services requested, performed and billed — The three are rarely the same number. Unbilled additional services is where fee erosion lives.
If any of this is already happening
The review is always worth doing and rarely urgent. It becomes urgent when
something else is happening — and if one of these is, the sequence above compresses
to fit it.
A project that lost money with nobody able to say at which phase it turned
Ownership transition or an ESOP valuation needing a defensible WIP position
A fee dispute, or a claim that puts the indemnity policy in play
A merger approach, where effective multiplier and backlog are the first requests
A bank line renewal against work in progress
Who needs to be in the room
Signs it: Principal, managing partner or finance director
Will resist it: Project managers whose additional-services discipline becomes visible — worth telling them what the
review is for before they hear it from somewhere else.
Has been asking for it: The controller, who has been asking for honest estimates to complete
What it costs
Priced by operating unit — an entity, a location, or a business the accounts are
kept separately for. The second unit costs less than the first because by then the
intake is built, the chart of accounts is understood and the patterns are known.
Purchase order is the primary route — most
buyers this size raise a PO and pay against an invoice on terms. Card and bank
transfer exist for those who prefer them.