The money stays true
A project can look organized and still lose money quietly.
An estimate changes but the budget doesn't. A product costs more than expected. Three hours never get billed. A reimbursable gets forgotten. The client approves a change, but the old number is still sitting somewhere else.
In Materio, the financial side isn't bolted onto the project. It's built into it.
The same scope your team designs, approves, buys, and delivers also carries the estimates, prices, costs, hours, expenses, invoices, and payments behind it.
So as the project gets more real, the money gets more real with it.
Estimates & Budgets
A budget shouldn't be your best guess from six weeks ago.
Start putting numbers against the project as soon as scope exists, then keep refining them as selections, quantities, and real costs take shape.
What it does
Add estimates directly to the items in your scope and Materio rolls them into a live project budget.
Start rough when you need to. A furniture allowance. A tile budget. An estimated service fee. Then get more specific as the project develops.
Organize the financial picture by room and category, and keep the number connected to the thing it represents.
Why it's different
A spreadsheet knows numbers.
Materio knows what the numbers are for.
The $8,000 lighting estimate isn't just sitting in a row called Lighting. It's connected to the lighting scope your team is actually designing and purchasing.
When the project changes, you don't have to remember which separate budget file also needs attention.
The financial plan stays closer to the project that's making it change.
Where it fits
The first estimate may happen in Planning, but the budget lives through the whole job.
Design makes the assumptions more specific. Procurement introduces real costs. Changes affect the plan. Billing turns the work into revenue.
You start with a target. Materio helps you keep seeing whether reality still matches it.
Retainers, Deposits, Invoices & Credits
Not every dollar your client gives you means the same thing.
Materio handles the different ways money actually moves through a design project, without making you pretend every payment is just another invoice.
What it does
Collect a general-purpose retainer for future work, or take a deposit that's earmarked for specific project items.
Create branded invoices for what's ready to bill. Apply available retainer or deposit balances. Take partial payments when needed. Include multiple recipients on client billing.
And when money needs to move the other direction, issue a credit instead of trying to fake the accounting with a negative line item or side note.
Why it's different
A design business doesn't have one billing motion.
There are hours you haven't worked yet. Products you shouldn't order until the money is in. Partial payments. Returns. Overpayments. Credits.
Those differences matter.
Materio lets the financial record reflect what the money actually means instead of flattening every transaction into the same generic invoice workflow.
That makes the project easier for your team to understand and easier to explain to the client.
Where it fits
This is the client-money side of the project.
Before work begins, collect what needs to be funded. As work happens, invoice what's earned. As products move forward, use deposits appropriately. When something changes, keep the balances honest.
The client sees a clean bill. Your team sees the story behind it.
Cost-Plus Billing & Markup Cost-plus: Team Plus
Your profit shouldn't live in a secret spreadsheet.
Build markup into the work itself so the price you charge stays connected to what the project actually costs you.
What it does
Set a default markup for the project, then get more specific when the work calls for it.
Use different markup on a product in your Design Library, a particular scope item, or a billable expense. Add pricing while you source so the financial logic can start before the product even reaches the proposal.
Already know what you want to sell something for? Work backward from the selling price to the markup needed to get there.
Why it's different
The dangerous version of cost-plus looks like this:
Cost over here.
Markup formula over there.
Client price somewhere else.
Then the vendor changes the cost.
Now which number is right?
Materio keeps the cost, markup, and selling price closer to the item they belong to.
That means your pricing logic can follow the project instead of becoming a parallel math exercise your team has to maintain by hand.
Where it fits
Cost-plus touches almost everything.
Sourcing establishes costs. Design establishes what you're proposing. Procurement reveals what you actually paid. Billing establishes what the client owes.
The margin shouldn't disappear between those steps.
Change Orders Team Plus
Changes happen. Silent changes are the problem.
Once the work is underway, Materio can make changes to cost and quantity explicit so the project doesn't quietly get more expensive while everyone keeps working from the old agreement.
What it does
Turn on Guard scope with change orders when the project reaches the point where changes need formal approval.
From there, changes to an item's cost or quantity can be captured as pending changes instead of quietly rewriting the agreed scope.
See their effect on the project total, send the change to the client for approval, and keep the history together under Scope Changes.
When you need a record outside Materio, export the change-order history as a PDF.
Why it's different
Scope creep rarely announces itself as scope creep.
It looks like:
"Can we make that two instead?"
"This one is actually $900 more."
"We decided to change the stone."
No single change feels catastrophic.
The problem is when twenty of them happen without a clean financial trail.
Materio gives the change a moment. What changed? What does it cost? Has the client approved it?
The project can keep moving without pretending nothing changed.
Where it fits
Change Orders protect the bridge between what was agreed and what's now being delivered.
The scope can evolve without losing the financial history underneath it.
Change the work. Change the number. Keep both honest.
MaterioPay
Make getting paid feel like part of the project, not the awkward part after it.
Clients can pay invoices, deposits, and retainers online through a checkout experience that still feels like your firm.
What it does
Accept online payments directly through Materio using credit card or ACH.
Send the client to a clean payment experience tied to the invoice, deposit, or retainer they're paying. The payment comes back into the project so your team can see what's been funded and what's still outstanding.
MaterioPay payouts can also connect back to QuickBooks Online for reconciliation.
Why it's different
Sending an invoice is not the same thing as getting paid.
And when payment happens in a completely separate system, somebody still has to bring the answer back:
Did they pay?
How much?
What was it for?
Which project gets the credit?
The payment should close the loop.
MaterioPay keeps the money coming in connected to the thing the client was asked to pay.
Where it fits
MaterioPay sits at the end of the billing motion.
You define what's owed in Materio, the client pays it, and the project gets the answer back.
Invoice sent. Payment made. Project updated.
QuickBooks Integration
Your project software and your books shouldn't tell two different stories.
Keep the operational financial work in Materio, then sync the accounting records that belong in QuickBooks Online without entering them all again.
What it does
Connect Materio with QuickBooks Online and keep key financial records moving between the systems.
Invoices, expenses, client payments, and MaterioPay activity can sync into QuickBooks, with sync status visible from Materio so your team knows whether the record made it across.
When you need to inspect it in the books, jump to the corresponding QuickBooks record.
Why it's different
QuickBooks is good at being accounting software.
Your project team shouldn't have to turn it into project software too.
Materio keeps the day-to-day financial decisions closer to the design, scope, procurement, and client work that creates them.
Then the accounting record can move where your bookkeeper needs it without asking your team to type the same transaction twice.
Less re-entry. Less reconciliation. Less wondering whether the project and the books agree.
Where it fits
Materio runs the financial life of the project.
QuickBooks runs the books.
The integration lets each system do its job without making your team become the integration.
Time & Hourly Billing
If you worked it, you should be able to bill it.
Track time against the project while it happens, then turn unbilled work into client billing without rebuilding everyone's timesheet first.
What it does
Track project time with a built-in timer or add it manually.
Tie the entry to the project and the kind of work being performed, whether that's design, procurement, project management, travel, or another activity your firm bills for.
Set rates based on the person doing the work and the activity being performed.
For teams using daily timesheets, see and manage the time being logged across the firm.
Why it's different
Unbilled time usually doesn't look dramatic.
It's 20 minutes here. Forty-five there. The site call nobody logged. The procurement follow-up someone forgot by Friday.
That's how real work turns into free work.
When time is tracked inside the project, it already knows where it belongs.
And when it's time to bill, you're not comparing a timesheet app against a project spreadsheet against an invoice draft and hoping they tell the same story.
Where it fits
Time is another cost and another thing you sell.
Track it while the work happens. Understand where the team is spending it. Bill the hours that should be billed. Rates can lock per project through Dynamic Billing Rates.
Your team's time is part of the project. Treat it like it matters.
Expenses & Reimbursements Reimbursement billing: Team & Team Plus
The $38 run to the hardware store still counts. So does freight. Samples. Delivery fees. The thing someone put on a personal card because the project needed it right now.
Don't let small project costs quietly become your costs.
What it does
Record project expenses in Materio with the receipt, payment method, date, and tax attached.
Split one receipt into multiple line items when it covered different parts of the project, then tie those costs back to the scope they served.
When an expense should be reimbursed by the client, mark it billable and apply markup where appropriate.
Why it's different
Expenses are easy to lose because they arrive from everywhere.
A card. A receipt. An email. A reimbursement request. Someone saying, "I'll remember to add that later."
Later is expensive.
Materio gives project expenses somewhere to land while the context is still obvious.
What was it? Which project? Which part of the scope? Who paid? Is the client responsible for it?
Answer those questions once instead of reconstructing them at the end of the month.
Where it fits
Expenses are the little financial events happening between the big ones.
Capture them while the project is moving so they can become part of the actual project cost, client billing, and financial reporting instead of disappearing into overhead.
Invoice Auto-reminders Team & Team Plus
You already did the work.
You shouldn't also have to remember which client needs another "just circling back" email.
What it does
When an invoice stays unpaid, Materio can automatically follow up with the client instead of relying on someone on your team to notice and send another reminder.
Why it's different
Chasing money is tiny work with a huge mental footprint.
You see the unpaid invoice. Make a note to follow up. Forget. Remember at dinner. Draft the polite email tomorrow. Repeat.
The software already knows it's unpaid. Let the software remember.
Where it fits
Auto-reminders sit between invoicing and payment.
You ask once. Materio keeps the outstanding balance from quietly disappearing off your radar.
Scenario Mode Team Plus
Sometimes the client doesn't need a new project.
They need to see what happens if you take a few things out.
What it does
Enter Scenario Mode and temporarily hide line items from the financial picture without deleting them from the project.
Hide an item and see the relevant totals respond. Bring it back and the original information is still there. And hidden items can't accidentally end up on an invoice.
Use it to explore a different version of the project without destroying the version you already built.
Why it's different
Value engineering shouldn't mean:
Duplicate the spreadsheet.
Name it "Budget_FINAL_v4_REVISED".
Delete six rows.
Hope everyone remembers which version won.
A what-if should be allowed to stay a what-if.
Scenario Mode lets you ask, "What if we remove these?" and see the financial effect without rewriting the actual project before a decision has been made.
Explore first. Commit later.
Where it fits
Scenario Mode is for the moments when scope and budget need to negotiate.
The client wants to get closer to a number. Your team wants to explore alternates. You need to understand the impact before changing the real job.
See the tradeoff before you make it real.
Performance & Reporting
Revenue is nice. Knowing whether you actually made money is better.
See the financial plan beside what the project is really doing so you can understand not just what came in, but what it took to earn it.
What it does
Use the Finance Performance Report to compare the financial plan with the reality of the job.
See what you planned to invoice, collect in tax, spend, and earn beside what has actually happened through client payments and project spending.
Bring costs from the work itself into the picture, including purchasing, expenses, and time, so profitability reflects more than the number at the bottom of an invoice.
Review sales tax over time when you need that view too.
Why it's different
A project can have a big contract and still be a bad project financially.
Maybe product margins slipped. Maybe the team burned twice the hours. Maybe expenses piled up. Maybe costs changed but client pricing didn't.
You can't fix what you don't see.
Materio already has the financial events because they happened inside the project.
Reporting is where those events become an answer:
Did the project perform the way we thought it would?
Where it fits
This is the feedback loop.
Planning gave you the estimate. Design shaped the selling price. Procurement brought in real costs. The team logged time and expenses. Billing brought in revenue.
Now look at the whole thing together.
Not just what the project cost. Not just what you billed. What the project actually made.