Practice automation for architects: reclaim billable hours from project admin

Architecture is a discipline that sells expertise: design thinking, technical knowledge, project oversight, client relationships. And yet a significant portion of every project week goes to work that requires none of that expertise: updating drawing registers, chasing client sign off, coordinating consultant deliverables, preparing invoices to RIBA stage milestones, filing RFIs, and producing the documentation that surrounds the actual design work.

For sole practitioners and small practices, this administrative layer compounds quickly. You are the designer, the project manager, and the practice administrator at the same time. Every hour spent on project admin is an hour not spent on design, business development, or the work that clients actually pay for.

A note on where this comes from

10PM is a new business. The thinking behind it is not. It comes from more than fifteen years spent improving commercial processes, systems and ways of working inside high growth B2B companies. Today, I apply that same operational thinking to founder led professional services businesses where expert time is repeatedly absorbed by administrative work.

I have also built and run my own businesses, so I understand first hand what it feels like when client work has to compete with everything else involved in running a practice.

Where architects lose the most time

RIBA stage invoicing and fee management

Architecture fees are milestone based, structured around RIBA stages. Generating invoices at the right stage, for the right amount, sending them, tracking payment against retention terms, and following up on overdue amounts: this runs in parallel across every live project. For a practice with five or six active projects, the billing administration alone can consume four to six hours per month that should be chargeable time. Billing that triggers off project stage sign off is the kind of repeatable workflow that can often be automated, depending on your existing processes and systems.

Drawing register and document control

Maintaining a current drawing register, tracking revision history, ensuring consultants have the latest issue of every drawing, and managing the document flow between design team, contractor and client: this is essential project governance, and it is also entirely systematic. The same naming conventions, the same distribution lists, the same version control logic, applied to every project. Where the practice already works to a consistent structure, register updates and document distribution are strong candidates for automation, and can remove hours of overhead per project each week.

Consultant coordination and RFI management

On most projects, architects coordinate structural engineers, M&E consultants, landscape architects, and specialist subcontractors. Managing their deliverable schedules, chasing outstanding information, logging Requests for Information, and tracking responses: none of this requires design expertise, but all of it takes time. Structured coordination workflows, with chasing sequences and response logging, are the kind of process that can often be systematised so projects keep moving without you tracking every outstanding query by hand.

Client approvals and sign off cycles

Each RIBA stage requires formal client sign off before proceeding. Preparing the sign off package, sending it with the right covering note, following up if approval is delayed, and filing the confirmation: this is a predictable process that happens at every stage of every project. The approval request and follow up sequence can often be automated, which reduces delays and removes the need to track each project's sign off status in your head.

Common workflows that are often good candidates for automation

• RIBA stage invoice generation and payment follow up
• Drawing register updates and consultant distribution lists
• RFI logging, routing and response tracking
• Client stage sign off packages and approval chasing
• Planning application document compilation and submission checklists
• CDM documentation and Principal Designer record keeping
• New client onboarding: fee letters, appointment documents, project setup
• Site visit reports templated and distributed automatically

Why this admin piles up

Architecture practices run on a predictable structure: RIBA stages, drawing registers, consultant coordination, formal sign offs at every milestone. That structure is exactly what generates repeatable admin, and it is where expert time tends to disappear:

• RIBA stage billing creates avoidable admin and slows cash in
• The same information gets copied by hand between several systems
• Drawing revisions generate repetitive manual work
• RFIs and consultant responses are hard to keep track of
• Follow ups depend on memory rather than a system
• Directors spend too much of the week coordinating work that could run itself

Every practice is built differently, which is why the first step is not a tool. It is working out where your own time actually leaks.

The practice level case for automation

For an architect billing at £150 to £200 per hour, six hours of project admin per week is a large amount of expert time spent on work that does not need expertise. Across a small practice of three, that collective capacity adds up fast.

The most useful automations for an architecture practice are the ones that touch every project, every stage: onboarding, invoicing, coordination, approvals. These are high volume, consistent processes. The cost of building them once is spread across every project they run on.

How I work

I do not start with the technology. I start with how work actually moves through your practice, because the real problem tends to be the process, not the lack of a tool. Fix the workflow first. Then automate the parts that are genuinely worth automating, and leave the rest alone. Plenty of people can build you an automation. Far fewer will redesign the messy process underneath it first, and that is where most of the time gets won back.

The starting point: the Time Leak Audit

The 10PM Time Leak Audit maps where your billable time is actually going across your current workflows. It takes under two hours of your time, the written report follows within 48 hours, and it costs £950.

What you receive:

• A map of where time is being lost across your current workflows
• The operational bottlenecks that are costing you the most
• Practical recommendations, ranked by impact and ease of implementation
• A realistic estimate of the time that could be recovered
• No obligation to go any further

If the numbers support a Sprint, that is where the build follows. If they do not, you still have a clear picture of where your week goes and what is worth fixing first.

Common questions

Do I need to replace the systems I already use?

No. I work with the tools you already have rather than ripping them out. What automation does need is a connector platform to run the workflows (Make or Zapier, for example), and any AI steps run on an AI subscription such as Claude or ChatGPT. These are modest monthly costs, you own the accounts, and I flag exactly what is needed and what it costs in the Audit, so there are no surprises.

Do you build custom software?

No. I work with existing tools, automation and AI where they fit. If a job genuinely needs a developer, I tell you that, and who can do it.

What does the Audit involve?

A short discovery conversation about how your project week actually runs, then analysis, then a written report within 48 hours. Under two hours of your time. £950.

Will I be pushed into buying a Sprint?

No. The Audit stands on its own. You decide what happens next.

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