An Interior Design Business Model

Design Manager is a flexible Project management and accounting package. Although there is a common utilization of Design Manager, the system is flexible enough to allow steps to be skipped. For example, say that one of your long-time Clients wants to order a chair. Since you have a good history with the Client, you do not have to give them a Proposal nor do you have to collect any deposit money from them. All that you have to do in Design Manager is enter the chair as a specification, print a Purchase Order to send to the Vendor, and an Invoice for your Client. You can skip the Proposal and Client deposit steps.

Parts of the system may also be ignored from the point of view of practicality. For instance, you might have a very small design business with little time to enter information into the software. Since you can mentally keep track of your Projects, you can choose not to bother entering acknowledgment information, receiving status, etc. In other words, it might be enough for you that Design Manager knows when the Items were ordered, how much they cost, and when you paid the Vendor for the merchandise. Design Manager tracks purchase order acknowledgments, expected shipping dates, back order quantities, received quantities, delivery dates, etc., however, you are not required to utilize all of those features. You can pick and choose the dates and order tracking information which is important for you to record and ignore the rest!

Moreover, all the features of Design Manager need not be utilized. For instance, if your company does not record and/or bill for time spent on a project, the Time features and associated functions can be left completely unused with no negative effects!

Although it can be used in many different ways, there is a basic "flow" of work through the system. This flow can be considered a basic model for an average Interior Design business. At its simplest, the order or "workflow" through the software is as follows:

1. Create a Client and Project.

2. Enter the specifications or items, which are the goods and services for which you will order for and sell to your Client.

3. Create a Proposal or estimate to give to your Client.

4. Get the approval from your Client and collect a deposit so you can begin ordering the merchandise.

5. Create Purchase Orders and Vendor deposit checks to send with the orders.

6. Obtain acknowledgments of the orders from your Vendors.

7. Receive the merchandise from the Vendor or from the company's inventory and/or deliver it to the Client.

8. Receive the Invoice or bill from your Vendor.

9. Give a final Invoice to your Client, remembering to apply the deposit received in #4 above.

10. Receive the final payment from your Client.