Which project and phase did the hours go to? Not from memory this time.
Most practices set a fee per phase and find out how the phase really went on Friday afternoon, when everyone fills in a timesheet from memory. Daytide keeps the record while the work happens, from the models, drawings and folders people already use.
Where the time goes missing.
How architects and engineers usually bill: fixed fee by phase, some hourly work.
- Timesheets written on Friday
- A week of work across four projects, rebuilt from memory in ten minutes. The small things vanish. A call about a planning query, twenty minutes fixing someone else's sheet set, an hour of e-mail on a project that is supposedly finished.
- Phases overrun and nobody notices
- The fee was agreed per phase. Whether design development ate into the construction documents budget only becomes clear when the phase is invoiced, and then it is too late to do anything about it.
- Completed projects keep costing time
- Queries after handover, small revisions, a contractor on the phone. Rarely logged, never billed, and a real share of a senior person's week.
A day, as Daytide records it.
This is what one person sees for their own day. Pick an entry to see what the label was based on.
- 08:30 to 08:55E-mailNo single project25 min
Why here
Sorted automatically, from the project folder
- Revit, 2 h 15: “2417_STR_Central”
- Folder: ~/Projects/2417 Harbour Street/03 Models
- You confirmed job number 2417 on Monday
Modelling is the kind of work. Harbour Street is the project. Daytide keeps the two apart.
Why here
Sorted automatically, from the file name
- Bluebeam, 50 min: “2417 GA plans rev C”
- Job number 2417 is in the file name
- 12:00 to 12:45AwayScreen locked, not counted45 min
Why here
Sorted automatically, from the meeting window
- Teams call, 45 min: “Mill Lane design team”
- “Mill Lane” is on your project list
Why here
Sorted automatically, from the file and folder
- ETABS, 1 h 10: “2398 frame B”
- Excel, 40 min: “2398 load takedown”
- Job number 2398 is Mill Lane School
Why here
Not sorted. Daytide asks instead of guessing.
- AutoCAD, 30 min: “detail_copy_final”
- The file sits on the desktop and has no job number in its name
One tap in chat puts it on the right project.
Why here
Sorted automatically, from the project folder
- Outlook and a PDF reader, 1 h 25
- Folder: ~/Projects/2305 Quay warehouse/09 Post-completion
This project was handed over in the spring. The time still counts.
- Working time
- 8 h
- Sorted without asking
- 7 h 30
- Private
- 0 min
- Questions waiting
- 1
Tools the template already knows.
Anything not listed here is learned in calibration week. Daytide sees an unfamiliar tool, asks what it is for, and remembers.
- Modelling and drawing
- Revit, AutoCAD, ArchiCAD, Vectorworks, Rhino, SketchUp, Allplan
- Structural and analysis
- Tekla, ETABS, SAP2000
- Review and markup
- Bluebeam, PDF readers
- Practice management
- Deltek Ajera, Deltek Vantagepoint, BQE Core, Monograph
Project numbers in folder and file names are the strongest signal in this kind of work. If your folders start with a job number, Daytide picks that up in the first days and asks you to confirm each one once.
What the first week shows.
Hours per project, for the whole team
A team-level table of where the week went, by project. Usually the first time anyone has seen it without a timesheet in between.
What kind of work it was
Modelling, drawing production, review, coordination, e-mail. Kept as a separate list from projects, so you can see that a project took 60 hours and that 22 of them were coordination.
The time nobody logs
Work on projects you thought were closed, and short interruptions on live ones. These tend to be the surprise.
- Daytide: Yesterday about two hours went into a Revit model in a folder that starts with 2417. Which project is that?
- 2417 Harbour Street housing
- Mill Lane School
- Something else
- Not project work
What it will not tell you.
Site visits and meetings in a room are not on a computer, so Daytide cannot see them. It asks about gaps in the working day in chat, and one tap puts them on the right project.
Give it one normal week.
Install it, answer a handful of questions, and look at the picture on day seven. The trial runs for 30 days, so you see three more weeks after that before you decide anything.
No card needed to start. Want someone to set it up with you? Assisted onboarding is $250, credited to your first annual invoice.