Plan, staff and bill your appointments stage by stage
Onplana lays an appointment out in RIBA stages 0 to 7 or the AIA phases from schematic design to construction administration, quotes the fee per stage against each client sign-off, recognises that fee when the sign-off happens, and records every approved hour against the stage it was spent on.
Written for practices that sell their work by the stage
Architecture practices on the RIBA Plan of Work
Appointments written stage by stage, a fee share per stage, and a client sign-off at the end of each of Stages 1 to 4 that everyone treats as the moment the scope stops moving for free.
US architecture firms on the AIA phases
Schematic design through construction administration, an owner approval closing each design phase, and the familiar fee split that nobody checks against the hours until the job is over.
Engineering consultancies on staged appointments
Structural, building services and civil teams whose deliverables follow the architect's stages, with their own fee per stage and their own hours to account for.
Multidisciplinary design studios
Several disciplines on one appointment, each logging time against the same stages, so the question of which stage is eating the fee has one answer instead of three.
Two templates, in the stage names your appointment uses
Both are ready-made in the New Project dialog, on every plan, Free included. Every task carries estimated hours, because hours are how a stage gets measured.
RIBA Plan of Work (Architecture)
8 phases, 22 tasks with hours, 6 milestones
Phases: Stage 0 Strategic Definition, Stage 1 Preparation and Briefing, Stage 2 Concept Design, Stage 3 Spatial Coordination, Stage 4 Technical Design, Stage 5 Manufacturing and Construction, Stage 6 Handover, Stage 7 Use.
Milestones: Stage 1 sign-off, brief agreed; Stage 2 sign-off, concept approved; Stage 3 sign-off, planning submitted; Stage 4 sign-off, contract awarded; Practical completion; Handover complete.
Every task in the templateAIA Design Phases (Architecture, US)
5 phases, 17 tasks with hours, 6 milestones
Phases: Schematic Design, Design Development, Construction Documents, Bidding and Negotiation, Construction Administration.
Milestones: Schematic design approved; Design development approved; Construction documents approved; Contract awarded; Substantial completion; Final completion.
Every task in the templateWhat changes at the next stage sign-off
Four records that never meet
- The fee schedule lives in the appointment letter and a spreadsheet beside it.
- The programme lives in a desktop scheduling file one person can open.
- The hours live in a timesheet tool that does not know which stage they were for.
- The stage is invoiced when somebody remembers the client signed it off.
- A change after the sign-off is drawn into the next stage and nobody prices it.
One record from the quote to the sign-off
- The stages, the tasks and the hours start from the template.
- Each stage fee is a quote line tied to that stage's sign-off.
- Hours are logged inside the stage and approved before they count.
- Completing the sign-off recognises the fee, beside the project's cost in the margin report.
- A change after sign-off becomes a new quote line, not unbilled hours.
How it works
Step 1
Start the project from the stages you work to
Pick the RIBA Plan of Work or the AIA design phases template when you create the project. Every stage arrives as a phase (an epic), each task inside it carries estimated hours, and the sign-offs sit on the Gantt as milestones. The templates, grouping the task list by phase and filtering the Gantt by it are on every plan, Free included; adding, renaming and reordering phases and moving tasks between them is on Professional and up.
Step 2
Quote the fee per stage, against the sign-offs
On the deal, add one milestone line for each stage's share of the fee, each linked to one of the template's milestones. The client accepts the quote on a private link, and when you win the deal the lines become the project's milestone schedule. Hourly work and additional services can sit on the same quote as time-and-materials lines, priced from your rate cards with a client or project rate, or a markup, where you have agreed one.
Step 3
Log and approve the hours inside each stage
Time lands on the task, and the task belongs to a stage, so each hour knows which part of the appointment it was spent on. Weeks go through an approval chain before they count (Professional and up). When approval cards are on for your workspace, the Onplana bot in Microsoft Teams puts a submitted week in front of its approver as a card, and the decision made there is the one the web records.
Step 4
Recognise each stage fee at its sign-off
When a sign-off milestone completes, the fee share linked to it is recognised as revenue for that period, and the margin report sets it beside the project's cost: its approved hours, each priced at the person's cost rate. A fee amount that is not linked to a milestone is never counted, and the report names it, so a stage fee with nothing to close it shows up instead of vanishing.
Proof
Onplana's RIBA Plan of Work template carries all 8 stages of the RIBA Plan of Work 2020, Stages 0 to 7 as the Royal Institute of British Architects publishes them, with 22 estimated tasks and 6 milestones, and has been a built-in template since September 2026.
The stages are not ours: the RIBA Plan of Work is published by the RIBA, and the AIA phases follow the basic services of the AIA owner-architect agreements. You do not have to take the rest on trust either: both the RIBA template and the AIA template list every task and milestone they create, before you sign up.
What it costs, and what it does not do
- The RIBA and AIA templates: every plan, Free included.
- Rate cards with a cost rate and a billable rate on each: every plan, Free included.
- Grouping and filtering by phase: every plan. Adding, renaming and reordering phases: Professional and up. Timesheets with an approval chain: Professional and up.
- The Microsoft Teams app: every plan, Free included. Approval cards for a timesheet week come with timesheets.
- Clients, the pipeline, quotes accepted on a private link, fee per stage, client and project rates, the margin report and accounting export: Onplana Services.
Per-seat prices are on the pricing page and, for Services, on the Services page.
What Onplana does not do
- It does not invoice, and it does not post to your general ledger. Invoice numbering, tax, credit notes, receivables and payment stay in your accounting system. Onplana prepares the lines: accounting export sends approved time, expenses and recognised fees to Xero as draft invoices, or to a CSV for any other system. QuickBooks is coming next.
- It does not bill part of a stage. A stage fee is recognised whole at its sign-off. Progress billing within a stage, 60 percent of design development because it is 60 percent done, is not built.
- It does not yet report profit by stage. The margin report groups by client, project and person, and nothing yet totals hours, cost or progress per stage. Every hour is on a task inside its stage, so the comparison with a stage’s fee share is a sum you make from its tasks for now.
What practices ask us
Does Onplana invoice our clients or replace our accounting system?
No. Onplana does not raise invoices, number them, work out tax, chase payment or post to your general ledger. Your accounting system keeps all of that. What Onplana does is prepare the lines: accounting export sends the period's approved time, expenses and recognised fees to Xero as draft invoices, one per client, or to a CSV file for any other system, and claims what it sent so the same month cannot be billed twice. QuickBooks is coming next.
Can we bill 60 percent of a stage because it is 60 percent done?
Not today. A stage fee is a milestone amount, and a milestone amount is recognised whole when its milestone completes, so a stage bills at its sign-off rather than in instalments. Many small practices bill exactly that way. Progress billing within a stage is planned for after the accounting connections are complete, and we would rather say so now than have you find it in week three.
Will it tell us which stage made money?
Not as a report row yet. The margin report groups revenue and cost by client, by project and by person. Every hour sits on a task inside a stage, and each task carries its estimate and progress, but Onplana does not yet total hours, cost or progress per stage, so setting a stage against its fee share is a sum you make from its tasks, not a column the report gives you. A cut by stage is planned once a practice has run real appointments on these templates.
Our appointment uses different stage names or a different fee split. Does that matter?
No. The templates are a starting shape. On Professional and up, rename a stage, add one (pre-design, say, or a Stage 0 you price separately) or remove one; on any plan, the fee lines on the quote carry whatever split your appointment states. The AIA template names the customary 15, 20, 40, 5 and 20 percent shares in its task notes because owners recognise them, not because Onplana enforces them. One thing does not rename: the product's own labels around a stage still say Epic.
We plan in Microsoft Project today. Do our stages come across?
Your schedule does, with its tasks, dependencies, resources and costs, and a .mpp or Project XML file imported into a new project brings its baseline too. The stages arrive as summary tasks rather than as phases, because that is how Microsoft Project holds them. Use the templates for new appointments; an imported plan keeps its own structure.
Which plan do we need?
The two templates, and grouping and filtering work by phase, are on every plan, Free included. Changing the phases themselves is on Professional and up, timesheets with approvals on Professional and up, and rate cards on every plan, Free included. Clients, the pipeline, quotes, fee per stage and the margin report are Onplana Services. Clients and pipeline are no longer missing. Onplana Services is Onplana with the commercial layer added, clients, deals, margin and expenses, and it is available now, so a firm that wants the pipeline and the engagement in one place can start there.
The step-by-step version is in the docs: run an architecture or engineering practice in Onplana. For firms whose work is billed by the hour rather than the stage, see Onplana for professional services.
Clients, pipeline and margin live in Onplana Services, which is Onplana plus the commercial layer, and you can start today, free and with no card.
Put one live appointment in and watch a stage close
Start from the template your appointment follows, quote the stage fees against its sign-offs, and see the first one recognised in the margin report beside the project’s approved hours.
Start free