Building projects and work phases
Run several projects side by side, with work phases as work packages, tasks, schedules and budgets. The project status sits in one place, not in four heads.
Software for architects and engineering practices: one system for projects, team and fees.
A design practice runs several building projects at once, plans the work, documents the site and bills by the fee regulations at the end. teamspace runs all of that on one data foundation, from the work phase to the paid invoice.
- Projects, team and documentation
- Fees, billing and cash flow
In brief
What is software for architecture and engineering practices?
Practice software for design offices brings the commercial and the organisational side of a practice into one system. Instead of parallel point solutions, everyone works from the same data: projects and work phases, utilisation, leave and working time, site diary and travel expenses, fees, down payments and open items. Billing under the fee regulations is the part where general project software drops out.
- Fee calculation per HOAI 2021, fee zones I to V
- Building projects with work phases 1 to 9 as work packages
- Time logging on the work phase, plan vs actual per phase
- Change orders and special services on their own trail
- Down payment and final invoices, ZUGFeRD and XRechnung
- Open items, dunning process and security retentions
- Capacity planning, leave, sickness and working time
- Site diary, minutes and travel expenses on the project
- CRM for clients, specialist designers and tender procedures
The whole practice
A design practice is more than the fee invoice.
Six areas that belong together in the day-to-day. In teamspace they sit on one data foundation instead of five programmes and an Excel sheet.
Time logging, thought through twice
Project time is logged on the work phase, working time runs with check-in, check-out and an overtime account. Both in the same system, for costing as much as for the statutory records.
Utilisation and capacity
Who is on which site next week, who is at the drawing board, where it gets tight. Utilisation emerges from projects and absences, not from a wall calendar.
HR without a second programme
Digital employee records, leave requests with approval, sick notes and travel expenses. What otherwise runs by email and on paper sits with the same person as the hours.
Documentation that holds up
Site diary, minutes, photos and correspondence on the building project instead of on a shared drive. Released documents stay audit-proof in GoBD mode, for ten years.
Fees, billing and cash flow
Fee tables per HOAI, down payments at phase completion, change orders on their own trail, open items and reminder levels. The part where general project software drops out.
The day-to-day in the practice
Five programmes and an Excel sheet, or one system.
Point solutions that grew over time
- The fee sits in an Excel sheet, transferred into the invoice by hand
- Hours run in a second list, leave requests arrive by email
- Who is on which site and when sits on the wall calendar
- Site diary, photos and correspondence lie scattered across the drive
- Change orders blend into the basic fee, only accounts sees the open items
teamspace
- The fee emerges per HOAI from the fee zone and the eligible costs, with no step in between
- Project time on the work phase, working time, leave and sickness in the same system
- Utilisation across all building projects, absences already deducted
- Site diary, minutes and documents on the project, audit-proof in GoBD mode
- Change orders with their own plan vs actual trail, down payments and open items in one place
HOAI in detail
What sets HOAI software apart from a fee calculator.
A fee calculator gives you the number. There are three things it does not do that matter in the day-to-day of a practice.
The fee regulations do the maths, you transfer nothing
Enter the fee zone, the eligible costs and the refurbishment surcharge, and the fee regulations calculate work phases 1 to 9 and write them as invoice line items. No retyping from an Excel sheet.
Hours land on the work phase
People log their time directly on phase 5 or phase 8, in the office and on site. Plan vs actual per phase grows out of those entries, without a parallel timesheet beside it.
The margin is there before the project closes
Contribution margin and post-calculation per work phase and per project, with travel and third-party costs offset. Behind it sits the internal hourly cost rate per person, so profitability is visible while something can still be changed.
The HOAI fee
The HOAI fee is the basis: profitability is decided beyond it.
The basic fee results from the fee zone, the eligible costs and the commissioned work phases, since HOAI 2021 with the base fee rate as the reference point. The project's success, however, is decided by the change orders and special services: whoever spots them early, documents them cleanly and bills them consistently secures additional fee. teamspace runs them on their own plan vs actual trail, so the margin picture of the basic engagement is preserved.
Fee table · HOAI 2021
Residential · Building § 35 Fee zone
III
Eligible costs
1,200,000 €
Fee rate
Mid rate
Basic fee 142,000 €
Work phases 1 to 9 Fee cumulative
9 % Phase 1–2
15 % Phase 3
3 % Phase 4 Down payment
25 % Phase 5 Down payment
32 % Phase 8 Down payment
2 % Phase 9 Final
Phases 6 and 7 likewise as a share · hours are logged straight onto the phase
Change orders and special services
Change order 02 · Fire safety redesign + 8,400 €
Special service · Survey of existing building + 3,100 €
own plan vs actual trail · separate from the basic fee
What moves the margin
The fee regulations set the basic fee and it does not change. The outcome is decided by the second trail: every change order on its own plan vs actual trail, cleanly separated from the basic engagement.
Das Honorar gibt die Honorarordnung vor. Über die Marge entscheiden die Nachträge.
HOAI or agreement
Whether by the base fee rate or freely agreed: the target fee sits in the project.
Since the European Court of Justice ruling of 2019, the minimum and maximum rates are no longer binding. HOAI 2021 names the base fee rate, and the fee is still negotiated. For profitability that changes nothing: what counts is whether the agreed price covers the effort per work phase.
- Fee tables per HOAI 2021 and HOAI 2013, plus the Simon and RIFT tables, with service profiles and fee zones I to V.
- Intermediate values by interpolation, so quarter, mid and three-quarter rates instead of rounded figures from a side calculation.
- A freely agreed fee as a fixed price or as a percentage line item on a base value, with the same work phases underneath.
Either way a target fee sits in the project, with the actual effort per phase set against it.
Change orders
Spot change orders in time, document them and bill them cleanly.
Additional services arise in almost every project, whether from the client's change requests, new requirements or altered conditions. For them to turn into billable fee, change orders have to be spotted in time, documented traceably and kept cleanly apart from the basic engagement.
- Change order with reason, effort and fee, including the client's documented approval.
- A separate plan vs actual analysis for change orders and special services, so the profitability of the basic engagement stays transparent.
- Refurbishment surcharges and ancillary costs as their own line items, clearly shown and traceable at any time.
teamspace supports exactly these steps without extra effort, so no billable service goes missing.
Hours on the phase
Every hour belongs to a work phase.
Only on the work phase does an hour become commercially meaningful. An accepted fee quote becomes a project with one click, the work phases stand as work packages, fee shares and budgets are carried over. Your people log their hours straight onto them.
- Logging on the phase or the work package, with an hourly rate per person and role, in the browser and in the app.
- Plan vs actual per work phase emerges live from the logged hours, not in the quarterly report.
- Activate or exclude phases, for instance when phase 8, site supervision, is awarded externally.
That way it is always visible which work phases are on plan and where to steer.
Team and utilisation
A building project needs not only a suitable budget but also the capacity to deliver it.
When a new commission comes in, the fee is rarely the open question. What is open is which colleague will handle the phase and from when they have time for it. In teamspace the answer emerges from data that is maintained anyway: contracted hours minus leave, sickness and public holidays, set against the building projects already scheduled.
- Availability per person from contracted hours, absences and public holidays, instead of from the wall calendar in the corridor.
- Scheduling onto building projects and work phases, roughly across months or finely by the day, with a warning for over and under load in the chosen time window.
- Leave, sickness and working time with request, approval, cover and overtime account, on the same person as the project hours.
- External specialist designers and subcontractors in the same capacity pool, provided they hold their own licence, with their own hourly rate.
That way practice management answers the question about the next commitment from the system rather than from instinct.
Before the commission
Competitions, tender procedures and fee quotes cost hours before any fee arrives.
The work starts before work phase 1: assessing enquiries, preparing competition entries, submitting applications in public tender procedures, calculating fee quotes. That effort appears in no fee table, which is why it disappears from the costing in many practices.
- Fee quote from the fee tables, as a PDF in your own layout, with no detour through a spreadsheet.
- Enquiries, competitions and tender procedures as a sales activity with status, probability and follow-up date, so no deadline slips.
- Business development hours logged as internal time, kept apart from the billable hours. That makes visible what the phase before the commission actually costs.
When a quote becomes a commission, one click turns it into the project with its work phases.
The path of a building project
From the preliminary design to the final invoice.
One continuous path, without transfers between the HOAI sheet, the timesheet and accounting: the fee quote becomes the project, the logged hours become the billing.
- 1
Set up the project per HOAI
Record the fee zone and the eligible costs, and the fee table calculates the work phases. Activate or exclude phases, depending on the commission.
- 2
Log hours and travel expenses
People log their time on the respective work phase. Site supervision trips to the kilometre, receipts attached as a photo.
- 3
Follow plan vs actual per phase
Per work phase and per work package the dashboard shows planned hours, actual hours and contribution margin, up to date daily.
- 4
Down payments at phase completion
Once the phase is done, the down payment invoice goes out per the phase share, with a security retention where agreed. Not once someone gets around to the spreadsheet.
- 5
Final invoice in line with HOAI
The final invoice offsets all down payments, shows change orders separately and goes to the client as ZUGFeRD or XRechnung.
Getting started
Up and running in a few days.
We take master and project data over from Excel, including a one-off structuring of your building projects, fee tables and hourly rates. The basic setup takes a few days, and a dedicated process consultant stays with you until go-live.
Cash flow
Building projects run for years. Salaries do not.
Years often pass between the preliminary design and the final invoice, while staff costs run every month. What decides the year is therefore not the size of the fee alone, but the moment it arrives.
- Down payment invoices at phase completion, generated from the phase share instead of pieced together by hand at month end.
- Open items by status, from open through due and overdue to action required, each with a colour dot in one list.
- A four-stage dunning process from the payment reminder to collection, with a deadline, a fee and its own wording per stage, running automatically once released.
- Security retentions for delivery or for the later warranty period, held back per invoice and released afterwards.
- A cumulative invoice as an annex showing the order value, the services delivered, the invoices issued and paid, and the balance still open.
Practice management and accounts see in the same place what has been invoiced and what is still outstanding.
Profitability
Project profitability in view at all times.
Many planning practices only know after a project closes whether it was profitable. By then it is too late for corrections. As controlling software for architects and engineers, teamspace makes the margin visible while the project is still running.
- Plan vs actual per work phase, contribution margin and post-calculation per project, up to date daily.
- An internal hourly cost rate per person, held with its own version history, as the cost side behind every logged hour.
- Budget consumption and fee status across all projects at a glance.
- Spot deviations early and steer, before they reach the margin.
What your practice hour has to cost is still something you work out yourself or with your accountant. teamspace shows what it actually brings in, phase by phase.
Site supervision
Everything that arises on site belongs to the project.
Site supervision produces a steady stream of travel expenses, receipts, documentation and third-party costs. In teamspace each of them hangs on the building project, not in a collective claim at year end or in a separate notebook.
- Travel expenses to the kilometre or as a flat rate, recorded and assigned straight to the project, with the receipt photographed in the installable web app.
- Site diary with photos, tasks and a link to the work phase, documented centrally on the project and kept audit-proof in GoBD mode.
- Third-party costs and disbursements, for expert reports or structural design, managed directly in the project.
Costs, documentation and project information stay complete and traceable in one place.
Case Study
brandwerk: fire safety design across ten years of construction.
The brandwerk consulting group prepares and reviews fire safety concepts for new builds and refurbishments and accompanies clients, architects and general contractors through the construction phases, in building construction as well as on transport infrastructure. Nearly 50 fire safety experts work on projects that can stretch across a decade.
Starting point
Invoices were written in Word, emails were filed into project folders by hand, and there was no shared project structure. With terms running for years and well over a thousand emails on a single building project, what belonged to which project got lost. And because the practice works ahead of payment in more than half of its cases, every deviation spotted late counts twice.
Solution
Contacts, quotes, emails, projects and invoices sit in one place. Correspondence runs through the ticket system instead of personal mailboxes, quotes go out after approval, and the budget overview sets target against actual per work package. Deviations become visible while there is still time to turn them into a claim.
10 years
term of a single building project
50 %
of projects run ahead of payment
1,500
emails on one major project, on the record instead of in a folder
„We mostly work with the budget column."
Figures from the operations of brandwerk consulting group. How strong the effect turns out depends on the starting point and the implementation and is not guaranteed.
Three focal points
Architecture, engineering and planning practices.
Three profiles, three focal points. teamspace suits all three, with their respective ways of working.
Architecture practices
Architecture practices work along the work phases, often on several building projects at once. Beyond design quality, the clean allocation of services, hours and fees decides commercial success.
Braucht besonders
- Run projects structured along the work phases
- Document delivered services traceably
- Bill fees transparently and reliably
- Keep progress, budgets and open services in view
teamspace runs building projects structured by work phase, records time cleanly and bills services traceably, as one continuous basis for steering, evidence and fees.
Engineering practices
Engineering practices work on technically complex projects with many parties, long terms and high documentation requirements. Profitability here comes above all from sound planning and reliable figures.
Braucht besonders
- Transparency over effort, costs and profitability
- Structured collaboration in interdisciplinary teams
- Reliable figures for controlling and post-calculation
- Clear evidence for clients and internal steering
As software for engineering practices, teamspace is a central basis for projects, time and billing. Engineering practices see project status, utilisation and profitability at any time, without laborious analyses by hand.
Planning practices
Planning practices coordinate several disciplines and project parties. The effort for coordination and billing grows with every interface, especially when the information is spread across different systems.
Braucht besonders
- A central overview of all projects and parties
- Clear steering of tasks, time and responsibility
- One data foundation for steering and billing
- Less coordination, more planning certainty
teamspace bundles steering, time tracking and billing in one system. This way planning practices keep the overview even with many parties and steer projects profitably.
Public sector clients
Create XRechnung invoices without extra effort.
Anyone working for municipalities, federal states or federal authorities wins the commission through a public tender procedure and then has to meet the requirements for electronic invoices reliably. In teamspace the XRechnung emerges directly from the engagement, without an administrative process of its own.
- XRechnung with routing ID and all mandatory details, created directly from the engagement.
- A preview of the finished document before it is sent.
- Handover along the prescribed route, for example Peppol or the client's invoice receipt portal.
- ZUGFeRD for private clients, as a PDF with the data set embedded.
Public and private clients can each be served with the invoice format they require.
Scope
Features for architecture and engineering practices.
Included in the plan, without a module surcharge.
HOAI and fees
- Fee tables per HOAI 2021 and 2013, plus the Simon and RIFT tables
- Fee zones I to V, base fee rate and intermediate values by interpolation
- Eligible costs from your cost estimate, refurbishment surcharge as its own line item
- Work phases as a percentage or as an absolute amount
- Multi-discipline with several fee tables in one document
Recording and documentation
- Hours per work phase and work package
- Business development and internal time kept apart from billable hours
- Travel expenses to the kilometre or as a flat rate
- Receipt capture by photo in the web app
- Site diary and schedules on the project
- GoBD mode, audit-proof for ten years
Billing and cash flow
- Down payment invoices per phase completion
- Security retention for delivery and warranty
- Final invoice offsetting the down payments
- Open items by status, dunning in four stages
- Activity record as an annex to the invoice
- ZUGFeRD, XRechnung and the certified DATEV interface
An honest boundary
What teamspace does not do: tendering, CAD and BIM.
So that the selection goes quickly, here is the boundary: teamspace runs the fees, hours, costs and billing of a practice. The design work itself and the tendering stay in your specialist applications.
- No tendering and awarding, no GAEB interface. Bills of quantities, tendering, awarding and the settlement of construction work stay in your AVA programme.
- No cost planning to DIN 276. You carry the eligible costs over as a total from your own cost estimate into the fee calculation.
- No CAD drawing management, no BIM model server. Drawings sit on the project as files, models stay in the specialist application.
- No financial accounting. The posting data goes to the tax adviser through the certified DATEV interface; ledgers and the balance sheet stay there.
If you want a full suite with tendering and deep construction controlling, the specialist vendors in the sector are the better fit. If you want fees, time, costs and billing in one system that stands up in a few days and also runs the practice beyond the site, you are in the right place.
Your questions
Let us work through one building project together.
Bring a typical building project with its fee zone, eligible costs and a couple of change orders. In the first call you will see how the fee calculation turns into invoice line items and where your HOAI logic is reflected.
Modules
The modules behind the solution.
Seven areas mesh on one data foundation, from the fee quote through the hour to the paid invoice.
HOAI fee calculation
Fee tables, fee zones and work phases, generated as invoice line items.
Learn moreProject management
Steer projects and work phases in a structured way, with target vs actual per phase.
Learn moreProject time tracking
Hours straight onto the project and work phase, mobile and in the browser.
Learn moreProject billing
Down payment and final invoices straight from the project.
Learn moreCapacity planning
Utilisation and availability across all projects, bottlenecks spotted early.
Learn moreProject documentation
Site diary, minutes and photos on the project, kept audit-proof.
Learn moreCRM and contacts
Clients, specialist designers and suppliers with their project history in one place.
Learn moreWhat comes together on a building project.
Fees, hours, travel expenses and billing hang on the same records. The analyses emerge from those same transactions, not from parallel lists.
- HOAI 2021
- fee tables stored
- 1–9
- work phases per building project
- 19 €
- per user and month
- Frankfurt
- hosting in the EU
Fee zones I to V, refurbishment surcharge
Hours are logged straight onto the phase
office edition, annual price
ISO 27001 certified data centre
Why teamspace
What stands behind the software.
From Darmstadt since 1999
We have been developing teamspace in Darmstadt since 1999, self-funded and without outside capital, specialised in software for project-based professional services firms.
One system from the fee to the paid invoice
From the fee quote through the hour on the work phase to the final invoice, everything runs on one set of records. No HOAI sheet on the side.
Personal service
Experienced process consultants stay with you from the first requirements to go-live, with support that knows your billing.
In brief
Which software suits architecture and engineering practices?
What suits architecture and engineering practices is an application that runs the HOAI fee, the time logging on the work phases and the billing on one data foundation. Software for architects and software for engineers is essentially the same thing: teamspace combines fee tables per HOAI 2021, hours per work phase and down payment and final invoices in one system, so nobody has to transfer the fee from Excel by hand.
As practice software for architects and engineers it replaces the switching between fee calculator, timesheet and the invoicing programme. Documents go out as e-invoices, the open items sit beside them with their reminder level, and the posting data runs through the certified DATEV interface to the tax adviser.
What software for architects and engineers has to do
HOAI software runs fees, hours and billing on one data foundation.
Software for architecture and engineering practices, often called architect software, practice software for architects, engineering office software or HOAI software, is an application that runs the HOAI fee, the hours on the work phases and the fee invoice on one data foundation, so the fee does not have to be transferred from a spreadsheet into the invoice by hand. The fee emerges from the fee zone and the eligible costs across work phases 1 to 9, since HOAI 2021 with the base fee rate as the reference point and freely agreed. The client pays in down payments, and the final invoice offsets everything.
The margin is decided not by the basic services but by the change orders and special services that arise during the work. Software for a design practice runs them on their own plan vs actual trail, separated from the basic engagement, so the margin picture is preserved. And because years pass between the preliminary design and the final invoice, open items and reminder levels belong to it as much as the fee table does. teamspace is not pure accounting here, but the ERP for architecture and engineering practices that runs the building project, from the fee calculation to the paid invoice.
For every kind of practice
Building construction, structures, building services and infrastructure all bill by HOAI.
In the end it always comes down to the fee table, the work phase and clean billing. teamspace adapts to the kind of design work you do.
Architecture practices Building construction, housing and refurbishment across work phases 1 to 9.
Structural design Structures and building physics with their own fee tables, plan vs actual per construction section.
Building services engineers Heating, ventilation, plumbing and electrical as a multi-discipline project from one set of records.
Site supervision and project control Site monitoring with travel days, site diary and schedules on the project.
Interior and landscape architecture Their own fee tables, material costs as disbursements, site supervision with photos.
Civil engineering, infrastructure and experts A phase model for civil engineering, experts on a fixed or hourly fee.
Terms
Ten terms from the HOAI day-to-day.
Terms that keep coming up in fees and in billing.
- Work phase
- The HOAI divides design work into nine work phases, from basic evaluation to project supervision. Each phase carries a percentage share of the fee. In teamspace the phases stand as work packages that hours are logged to and that are billed.
- Fee zone
- The HOAI assigns every project by difficulty to one of five fee zones, I to V. Together with the eligible costs, the zone determines the fee under the fee regulations.
- Eligible costs
- The costs of the building works that the fee calculation is based on. From them and the fee zone the fee table gives the basic fee. The total comes from your own cost estimate and is carried into teamspace as a value.
- Base fee rate
- Since HOAI 2021, the value the fee table states as a reference point, after the minimum and maximum rates lost their binding force through the 2019 ruling of the European Court of Justice. The fee is agreed freely, and the fee regulations remain the usual basis.
- Refurbishment surcharge
- A percentage surcharge on the fee for conversions and modernisations. In teamspace a separate percentage line item, shown separately from the basic fee.
- Down payment invoice
- An interim invoice at phase completion, for the corresponding share of the fee. The final invoice offsets all down payments at the end.
- Security retention
- An amount held back per invoice that secures delivery or the later warranty period. In teamspace it is carried as its own line item and released afterwards.
- Special services
- Services beyond the basic services of the HOAI, agreed freely. In teamspace they run on their own plan vs actual trail, so the margin of the basic engagement stays visible.
- DIN 276
- The standard for cost estimating in construction, structured into cost groups. It provides the basis for which costs are eligible. teamspace does not calculate the cost estimate itself but carries the result into the fee calculation.
- VgV
- The German procurement regulation governs how public clients award design services above the thresholds. In teamspace applications and quotes run as a sales activity with deadlines, and the invoice later goes out as an XRechnung.
Other sectors
Solutions for other professional services firms.
teamspace comes in versions for six sectors. Here are the five beside architecture and engineering practices.
Management consulting Days of clever minds, utilisation across teams and fee invoicing. Software vendors Your own product on a release cycle, licences and maintenance as recurring revenue. IT service providers Projects and ongoing operations, every hour on the right contract. Systems houses IT service providers that also trade: hardware and licences alongside services. Agencies Fees plus third-party money on the budget, margin per client up to date daily.
Fit
Which practices teamspace suits, and which it does not.
Less of a fit
- Practices that expect tendering, bidding and awarding in the same system.
- Cost planning to DIN 276 and construction controlling at the depth of a full suite.
- Contractors with materials management, stock and production.
- Practices looking only for accounting, without project and fee management.
A good fit
- Architecture, engineering and planning practices billing by HOAI or by free agreement.
- Practices with work phases, down payment invoices and change orders kept apart from the basic fee.
- Multi-discipline projects across architecture, structures and building services, with travel expenses and a site diary.
- Practices that want to run open items, utilisation and HR alongside the fee.
Frequently asked questions about software for architects and engineers
Is teamspace suitable for architecture and engineering practices that have to cost in line with HOAI, record project time and issue e-invoices?
Yes. teamspace calculates the HOAI fee from the fee zone and the eligible costs across work phases 1 to 9, logs project time straight onto the work phase and creates down payment and final invoices from it as ZUGFeRD or XRechnung without an extra tool. For small and mid-sized practices that want exactly those three things joined up in one system, it is a lean solution that is quick to start with. Very large practices with deep construction controlling, tendering and extensive site documentation will find more specialist depth in dedicated full suites.
Which software suits an engineering practice of around twelve people that bills by HOAI and records time?
At that size a practice needs three things in one system: the fee calculation per HOAI, time logging on the work phases and billing including down payments. teamspace covers exactly that chain and brings travel expenses, a site diary, CRM and employee records with it. The basic setup takes a few days, and the price is 19 € per user and month in the office edition (annual price). Anyone who also needs tendering and cost planning to DIN 276 in the same system should look at a sector-specific full suite.
What is architect software?
Architect software is an application that runs the HOAI fee, the hours on the work phases and the fee invoice of an architecture or engineering practice on one data foundation. teamspace calculates the fee from the fee zone and the eligible costs, logs hours straight onto the work phase and creates down payment and final invoices, with change orders kept apart from the basic fee.
What is HOAI software?
HOAI software holds the fee tables per HOAI 2021, calculates the fee from the fee zone and the eligible costs across work phases 1 to 9 and turns that into the down payment and final invoices. teamspace joins this HOAI calculation to time logging on the work phase and to project controlling, so the fee does not have to be transferred from a spreadsheet into the invoice by hand.
What is the base fee rate under HOAI 2021?
The base fee rate is the value the HOAI 2021 fee table states for a fee zone and the respective eligible costs. Since the 2019 ruling of the European Court of Justice, minimum and maximum rates are no longer binding, but the fee regulations remain the usual basis for the agreement. teamspace holds the fee tables of HOAI 2021 and 2013 as well as the Simon and RIFT tables, including intermediate values such as the quarter, mid and three-quarter rate by interpolation.
Can we map a freely agreed fee that departs from the HOAI?
Yes. A freely agreed fee is carried as a fixed price or as a percentage line item on a base value, with the same work phases underneath. The target fee therefore sits in the project and is set against the actual effort per work phase, regardless of whether the fee regulations or the negotiation set the price.
Does teamspace calculate the office hourly rate or an overhead factor?
No. teamspace does not allocate an overhead factor and does not compute a notional office hourly rate. What is held is an internal hourly cost rate per person, with its own version history; from it come project costs, contribution margin and post-calculation per work phase. What your hour has to cost is still something you work out yourself or with your accountant. What it actually brings in is what teamspace shows.
Does teamspace have tendering or a GAEB interface?
No. Bills of quantities, tendering, awarding and the settlement of construction work stay in your AVA programme. teamspace runs the practice side: fees, hours, costs, change orders and billing.
Does teamspace support cost planning to DIN 276?
teamspace does not calculate the cost estimate to DIN 276 itself. You carry the eligible costs over as a total from your own cost estimate into the fee calculation, where together with the fee zone they determine the fee.
Does teamspace work with BIM or CAD?
No. teamspace is not a BIM model server and not CAD drawing management with layer logic. Drawings and models can be filed on the project, but the work on them happens in the respective specialist application.
Does teamspace support HOAI 2021?
Yes. Fee tables per HOAI 2021 are stored, and fee zones I to V, eligible costs and refurbishment surcharges can be configured. The logic can be adjusted per building project if special rules apply.
How does time logging per work phase work?
People log hours straight onto the respective work phase. Plan vs actual per phase and per work package updates continuously. More on time tracking and project hours.
What does HOAI billing as software do?
HOAI billing as software turns the fee zone, the eligible costs and the work phases into the down payment and final invoices, without anyone transferring the fee from a spreadsheet by hand. In teamspace the HOAI billing emerges directly from the project: down payments at phase completion, change orders shown separately, and a final invoice that offsets everything.
Excel or software for HOAI billing?
Excel calculates the fee reliably but stops at the number. The hours sit in a second list, the down payments are put together by hand, change orders blend into the basic fee, and nobody sees the open items in the same place. HOAI software runs fees, hours and billing on one set of records: the fee becomes invoice line items, the hours are logged on the work phase, and plan vs actual emerges continuously instead of after the project closes.
How do we keep an eye on cash flow on long building projects?
The down payment invoice is created as soon as the work phase is done, not at month end. Open items sit in a list by status, from open through due and overdue to action required, and the dunning process works through four stages from the payment reminder to collection once released. Security retentions are held back per invoice and released later, and the cumulative invoice shows the order value, the services delivered, the invoices issued and paid and the balance still open.
Can the business development phase be mapped, so competitions and tender procedures?
Yes. Enquiries, competitions and tender procedures run as a sales activity with status, probability and a follow-up date. The fee quote emerges from the fee tables and goes out as a PDF in your own layout. The hours of this phase are logged as internal time, kept apart from the billable hours, so the effort before the commission stays visible. When the quote is accepted, one click turns it into the project.
Can we see who is free next week and who is on site?
Yes. Availability emerges from contracted hours less leave, sickness and public holidays, set against the building projects already scheduled. Scheduling runs roughly across months or finely by the day, and the system warns about over and under load in the chosen time window. More on capacity planning.
Does teamspace cover HR and working time as well, not just projects?
Yes. Digital employee records, leave requests with approval and cover, sick notes, working time capture with check-in, check-out and an overtime account, and travel expenses all sit with the same person as the project hours. A practice does not need a second programme beside the project software for that.
Is the time tracking suitable for engineering practices?
Yes. Time tracking for engineering practices logs hours straight onto the work phase or the work package, in the browser and in the app. Plan vs actual per phase emerges continuously from the entries, with an hourly rate per person and role. More on time tracking.
Does teamspace replace accounting for architects?
No. teamspace is not accounting for architects with its own ledgers and balance sheet. It runs fees, hours and invoices and hands the posting data to the tax adviser through the certified DATEV interface. Financial accounting stays with the adviser, while the documents are created without double entry.
Can we run site supervision and the site diary in the same system?
Yes. Project documentation runs site diaries, minutes, photos and schedules directly on the project. The installable web app suits site supervision on location, with an active connection.
How do down payment invoices work?
On reaching a phase completion, for example after work phase 4, a down payment invoice is created for the corresponding phase share. A security retention can be carried as its own line item. The final invoice offsets all down payments at the end.
Can we run several disciplines on one building project?
Yes. A building project covering architecture, structures and building services runs as one project with several fee tables, each discipline with its own phases and its own final invoice. More on multi-project management software.
How does teamspace handle public sector clients?
Public sector clients require the XRechnung. teamspace creates it in the standard format with the routing ID, and it is sent via Peppol or to the client's invoice receipt office. More on e-invoicing.
How are change orders and special services handled?
Change orders and special services are recorded apart from the basic fee, documented per building project and shown separately in plan vs actual, contribution margin and the final invoice. That keeps their commercial effect visible and evidenced.
Where is the data stored?
All data is processed in an ISO 27001 certified data centre in Frankfurt am Main, exclusively within the EU. The certification applies to the data centre, not to teamspace itself. The contracting party is 5 POINT AG, based in Darmstadt; released documents stay audit-proof in GoBD mode.
What does teamspace cost for an architecture or engineering practice?
The office edition with project management, project time tracking, billing and CRM costs 19 € per user and month, and the enterprise edition with capacity planning, incoming invoices and the DATEV interface costs 24 €. These are annual prices per activated user; on a shorter term a surcharge applies of 10 % half-yearly, 15 % quarterly and 20 % monthly. All details and the price calculator are on the pricing page.
Can existing project data be migrated from Excel?
Yes. Master and project data can be imported from Excel or other sources. On request the customer success team handles the migration, including a one-off structuring of your building projects, fee tables and hourly rates.
How quickly can a practice get started with teamspace?
The basic setup with HOAI templates, people, hourly rates and the first building projects takes a few days. Workshops, a guided pilot phase and a dedicated process consultant until go-live are part of the onboarding.
Is teamspace suitable for small architecture practices too?
Yes. teamspace scales from a one-person practice to several locations. Small practices typically start with project management, time tracking and invoicing and add CRM or the digital employee record later, without a data migration.
Which analyses do owners and project leads see?
Dashboards show project status, utilisation and profitability up to date daily. Per work phase you get the target vs actual comparison, contribution margin and post-calculation, and per person the utilisation across the building projects. More on project controlling.
First call
Software for architects and engineers, assessed in 15 minutes.
In 15 to 30 minutes we go through your HOAI logic, your travel and site supervision routines and your billing. You get a clear view on whether teamspace fits your fee and change order business.