What's New?

This is our biggest update yet. Finances is rebuilt from the ground up, QuickBooks now stays in step with everything you do, and your Dashboard is all new.

A new Dashboard

Your Dashboard is now built around your day, and it's yours to arrange.

• A greeting from Walter each time you sign in, and a daily brief of what moved and what needs you.

• Needs attention: one list of everything waiting on you. That covers late invoices, unanswered estimates, overdue tasks, purchase orders waiting on vendors and expiring contractor documents. Snooze anything until tomorrow, Monday or next week.

• Widgets for your whole studio: Today, My tasks, Calendar, Projects, Procurement, Leads, Comms, Email, Money, Team & Time, For you, and Quick actions. Each comes with several views to choose from.

• 31 small tiles for the numbers you check most, such as what's outstanding, what's ready to invoice, margin this month, unread messages and arrivals.

• Project tiles: pin a project to your Dashboard and watch its tasks, finances and next steps turn through.

• Make it yours: drag, resize, duplicate and close widgets, or start from a ready-made Dashboard type for your role (Principal, Designer, Purchasing, Bookkeeper and more).

• Name it: choose what Walter calls you.

• Everyone sees only what they should: each person's Dashboard shows only the projects, figures and records their role can open.

Finances, rebuilt

Estimates, invoices, retainers, purchase orders, change orders, bills and expenses now share one editor, so everything looks and works the same way.

Estimates and invoices

• Options and alternates: offer finishes and alternates, and let your client choose. Prices, tax, freight and deposits follow their picks.

• Line by line: clients approve, decline or ask for changes on each line, then sign. Signatures, initials and multiple signers are all supported.

• Your deposit, your way: take a deposit on the whole document or line by line, and let clients pay it when they approve.

• Anything approved can be paid for: if a client approves one item and declines the rest, they can pay for that item.

• Convert to invoice: an approved estimate becomes a draft invoice with only the client's choices, and can make purchase orders for each vendor at the same time.

• Payment schedules in dollars or percentages, change orders with client approval, and reminders that go out on their own.

• Preview as client shows exactly what your client will see.

Getting paid

• Pay online: clients pay by card or bank transfer through WorkPay or Stripe, right from the invoice.

• Overpayments: record what the client actually paid; anything extra stays on their account as credit.

• Refunds and credits: refund a payment, take an amount off the balance, or credit the client's account. Each one does exactly what it says.

• Retainers: collect money before anything is approved, then apply it to invoices as you go.

• Ready to invoice: gathers your billable time, expenses and fees in one place.

Purchasing and procurement

• Purchase orders by vendor, with each vendor's own view, payment schedules and acknowledgements.

• Bills: match a bill to its purchase order and see price changes, freight and returns at a glance. Bill a price difference to the client in one step.

• Vendor returns with restocking fees and credits that are applied to the vendor's next bill.

• Expediting: track every piece from order to install.

• Reports: vendor, purchase order, product, installation, margin and variance.

Expenses

• Log card charges, checks and mileage, attach receipts, and bill clients with markup.

For design-build studios

• Retainage, cost codes, allowances and contingency, cost-plus billing, pay applications and lien waivers.

Bring your history

• Import past invoices, estimates and expenses. Past documents stay in your records and never reach QuickBooks.

QuickBooks, in step with everything

• Everything goes to QuickBooks when you save it:

  • invoices, estimates and payments

  • deposits, refunds, credits and retainer draws

  • purchase orders, bills, bill payments, vendor credits and expenses

• The right accounts, automatically:

  • Product money is held in Client Deposits until the piece is installed.

  • Design fees post to Design Income, and billed time posts to its service's income account.

  • Re-billed expenses post to reimbursable income.

  • Tax is never counted as income.

• Drafts never go. Archiving changes nothing in QuickBooks; only Void and Delete do.

• Sync Center: see what's synced, what's waiting and what needs a fix, in plain words. A record that differs from QuickBooks turns amber and says why.

• Before the first sync: your clients and vendors are matched to the ones already in QuickBooks, so nothing is duplicated.

Client portal

• Approve products: clients see "Review item" on pieces waiting for them, open the piece beside the list, and approve it or ask for changes. Once they answer, the piece shows Approved or Not approved.

• Clear amounts: clients only see what they owe and can pay, and a draft is never shown to them before you send it.

Comms

• Ask a question: send a message as a question. It waits in the Dashboard's Needs attention for the people you asked until they reply.

Tasks

• One rule for overdue: a task is overdue the same way everywhere. A finished task or one on an on-hold project is never overdue.

• Progress by estimated hours: a new setting in Settings › Tasks.

• Campus lessons now appear in Tasks for everyone assigned.

Leads

• A won lead leaves every open-lead count, and the default first stage is Discovery.

Settings and permissions

• Permission presets now match each role exactly: Standard contributor, Manager, Purchasing Agent and Bookkeeper.

• Protected statuses: the product, estimate, invoice and purchase order statuses Workroom relies on can't be renamed or removed, so nothing that depends on them breaks. Your own custom statuses stay fully editable.

• Settings › Dashboard: set your studio's default Dashboard for each role.

Fixes

• Email attachments: they always end in .pdf, including from your connected Gmail or Outlook.

• Automation emails: {company-name} now fills in your studio's name, and it's in the merge-field list.

• Dates: new documents and payments use your studio's own date, even late in the evening.

• Purchase orders: a new one keeps its project, and its bill saves.

• Header timer: it keeps its real start time after you reload.

Everything that has reached Workroom since the October 13 update.
Watch a demo of our new Spec Sets below!

Well hello friend. Welcome Spec Sets.

Spec Sets (Library)

• One Spec Sets window for spec sheets, schedules, room finish matrices and selection boards, opened from the Library.

• Ready-made layouts to start from (spec book, FF&E schedule, finish schedule by trade, budget by room and more), plus your own layouts saved and reused.

• Real PDFs, with sharp, selectable text and links that work. Also available as Word and spreadsheet files.

• Add mood boards, PDFs from the project's Documents, product attachments and your own cover to a Spec Set.

• Project schedules: save a schedule to a project, then post new versions to your Comms rooms. Each version shows what changed since the last one, and you can share a live link that always shows the latest version.

• Update schedules: when products change, refresh every schedule for that project from the Library in one go.

• Add to documents: file the PDF in the project's Documents, in a folder named Spec sheet, Schedule, Matrix or Boards.

• Add as product attachment: a spec sheet for a single product can be attached straight to that product.

Client portal settings

• A Client portal tab on every project. Choose who has access and which sections each person sees.

• Preview portal: see exactly what a new client will see, before you invite anyone.

• Clients see when you've written to them, with message counts, dots on their chats and a sound.

Automations: approval step

• A new Check step pauses an automation until someone approves it. They get an "Automation Needs Approval" task that says what it's about, with Approve and Not approve.

• Not approve stops the automation there. Approving later, even days later, lets it carry on.

Scheduled jobs (Settings › Assistant)

• Optional jobs that post into a team Comms room:

  • a weekday brief;

  • a weekly check of purchase orders against the Library;

  • a weekly install-readiness check.

Reinstate archived contacts

• Archived contacts, vendors and contractors now have a Reinstate button in the Archived view, which puts them back in your main list.

Improved

Estimates and invoices

• Totals now count sub-items correctly, so margins, client subtotals and PDFs agree with each other.

• When a client approves only some items, they're charged only for what they approved.

• Markup and the internal memo are hidden from clients by default. They appear only if you turn them on, in the client view and in PDF exports.

• New estimate and invoice numbers follow your numbering settings, and the settings preview shows exactly what the next number will look like.

• Invoices made from Ready to invoice carry the project code (INV-CODE-001).

• Editing an estimate is titled "Edit Estimate".

• The estimate editor opens faster.

Client portal

• Home always opens on a project, and Overview is its own page.

• Notifications and the side rail name the project they're about.

• Invoices and estimates open in the side panel.

• Form responses you choose to share show on the Overview, and the contract there opens when clicked.

• Rooms and phases from the project's settings show on the portal.

• Product names, photos and client prices show correctly, and archived products stay out of view.

Library

• Bulk edit offers your own statuses, rooms and vendors.

• Purchase orders fill Sidemark and your other Library fields from the product.

• Products clipped from the web land in the right fields.

• Inside a project, room choices come from that project's own rooms.

Budget: Allocated amounts in budget categories show as money ($54,361), like the columns next to them.

Apps and sidebar: Calendar, Leads, Quotes, Automations, Ready to Invoice, Forms and Asana are back on the Apps page, and switching one on shows it in the sidebar.

Confirmations: actions that create something, like Create POs, Reinstate or Add as sub-item, now use a green confirm box instead of the red delete-style box.

Fixed

Client portal

• Clients no longer see "That isn't available from your account" popping up again and again.

• A client with more than one contact record keeps a single login, so every project you share with them shows up.

• Hidden invoices stay hidden everywhere in the portal, including Waiting for you.

• A client's message always lands where your team can read it.

• Changes to a person's own portal sections save.

Invoices and payments

• A paid invoice opens in the editor with all its lines, including invoices made from Ready to invoice.

• Payments can be recorded on a new retainer; it no longer shows $0 due.

• Invoice numbers never pick up a retainer's prefix.

• Push to invoice and the expense picker on invoices work as expected.

• A card processing fee is added only when WorkPay is connected and the document passes the fee on.

• The send dialog points to the right place for email templates (Settings › Studio › Outbound email).

Contacts and team

• Contact edits save every field, and a failed save tells you why.

• Renaming a team member updates their name everywhere, Tasks › Workload included.

• Product changelog entries show the right person's name, once.

Calendar: contacts added as guests show in the event's guest list.

Timelogs

• Time on a paid invoice shows as Paid.

• The edit window shows the same phase as the list.

Contracts: an attached PDF opens for clients signing on their phone, older iPhones included.

Library: sub-items show again under their products.

Tasks: a project you add shows up right away, with its name.

A brand-new Tasks page

Tasks has been rebuilt from the ground up. You'll find it under Management; it uses the same tasks you already have, so nothing to move over.

Views

• List, Board, Timeline, Workload, My week and Projects: plan the way that suits you.

• Saved views: keep your favorite filters a click away.

• Changed since yesterday: see what moved overnight.

• Studio load and Walter's insight on the Timeline: spot crunch weeks before they hit.

Building the plan

• Add task lines everywhere, a quick right-click menu, and Select with a bulk bar.

• Delete goes to a Trash you can restore from, and Duplicate copies subtasks, people and estimates.

• Phases: open a phase panel, drag phases on the Timeline, add phases, and move everything after a phase in one go.

• Ad hoc tasks for work outside any phase.

• Tasks from a template: place a project type's phases and tasks, or pick individual task templates, starting on the date you choose.

• Repeating tasks: finish one and the next appears.

• Progress, Outside its phase warnings and fee hours against what you allocated.

• Task links with gaps, e.g. "starts 2 days after Paint finishes".

Products and deliveries

• Waiting on: link a task to the products it needs. You'll see live delivery dates and product photos straight from your Library.

• Delivery changes bar: know the moment a delivery date moves and which tasks it pushes late.

• Move this to after it arrives or Do it without product: two clicks when something's late.

• Create a task from products: select products in the Library and start a task that's already waiting on them.

Your team

• Adding someone to a task tells them. The project manager hears about new tasks.

• Project panel with a project manager and a team description.

• Files, Comments, Time and Activity on every task. The Time tab shows who logged each entry, with their photo.

• Edit-conflict check: if someone else changed a task while you were editing, you'll see both versions instead of overwriting.

• Studio closures show on the Timeline and in the task panel.

Clients and contractors

• Tell people: when dates move, let every client and stakeholder on the project know in one step, with Undo.

• Client approvals go from the task straight to the client portal.

• Preview as client and Draft a client update.

• Contractors get their own schedule link and can tell you whether the dates work for them.

• Install-day sheet, ready to print.

Export a PDF

• Redesigned, with your logo and studio name at the top.

• Save to files or Email it to everyone on the project.

• Saved export settings.

Library

• Add product now gives you three choices:

  • a blank product;

  • a piece from your room placeholders, with its room, category, quantity and budget;

  • a copy of a product you already have.

  Both of the last two ask which project to source to. The + under any product offers the same three choices.

• Copy a product's URL in one click.

• Drag to reorder now sticks.

• New products start in your studio's first status. Hiding that status from clients now works for them too.

• Product names: Tasks shows each product's own name, matching the Library.

Time

• The timer knows your task. Started from a task, it picks up the project's phases and rooms and selects the task's phase.

• Services in Track time and Log time:

  • A per-person rate always makes the service available to that person.

  • Team & billing assignments only narrow the list for the people they name.

• New permissions:

  • Review time and reopen it: reviewed time is locked.

  • Change a time entry's status.

• Logging time from a task works reliably.

Comms and the client portal

• Internal chats stay internal. A new chat keeps exactly the people you choose: unticked clients aren't added back, and the chat stays out of their portal.

• Faster everywhere:

  • Comms, the client portal and room opening all load noticeably faster.

  • The portal's sections load as you open them.

• The client portal overview shows your project brief properly.

Invoices

• Approved invoices stay editable. Only Paid locks an invoice now.

Team and settings

• Renaming a team member renames them everywhere, Tasks and project teams included.

• One look for project pills and avatars across the app.

• Automations: task triggers (created, status changed, completed, assigned) now fire from the new Tasks page too.

Sign-in and security

• Reset password has a fresh design and shows the password rules as you type.

• Sessions:

  • Each login stays on its own side of the browser.

  • Ended sessions are closed in live chat and notifications.

• Login link emails are just the button, with no long pasted link.

• Stronger protection across the app: each studio's records, files and links are walled off from every other studio's.

Fixes

• Contracts: signing fields sit exactly where they were placed.

• Uploads: task files upload reliably and appear in the Files tab, and errors explain exactly what went wrong.

• Date fields in Tasks open the calendar wherever you click.

• Removing a "Waiting on" product or task link asks first.

• Contractor schedule and shared task pages show "Powered by Workroom" and no support chat.