Architecture Firms: Cube vs Mosaic for Phase Fee Planning

Standard AIA-style phase breakdowns, schematic design, design development, construction documents, construction administration, each carry a different percentage of the total fee and a different staffing intensity, and firms often adjust those percentages project by project based on client type and building complexity. Cube lets you build this phase-by-phase fee logic directly as a formula tied to your project list, adjustable per project. Mosaic requires you to configure a phase structure that then applies more uniformly, which is faster to set up if your projects are fairly similar in structure, but harder to bend when one client negotiates a different phase split than your standard template assumes.

When a construction budget shifts after schematic design and the design team keeps refining a scheme that's now over budget for the client, the extra hours are real cost even before anyone decides whether to bill for them as an additional service. A model that only tracks billed revenue misses this cost until it already shows up as margin erosion at phase close.

Cube's spreadsheet foundation makes it straightforward to track budgeted hours against actual hours by phase and flag an overage in near real time, since that comparison is just a formula against your time-tracking data. Mosaic can surface a margin problem once it's already reflected in billing, but catching scope creep as an hours overage before the phase closes and before you've decided whether to bill for it is a more custom build.

Design staff get allocated to specific phases well in advance, a construction documents phase needs more technical staff hours than schematic design does, which means a headcount plan built on total project count rather than a phase-weighted staffing curve will misjudge capacity. A firm with ten active projects all entering construction documents simultaneously needs very different staffing than one with the same ten projects spread evenly across phases.

Build a phase-weighted capacity model in whichever tool you use, and revisit it whenever a project's schedule shifts, since a single delayed permit approval can bunch several projects into the same phase at once.

Cash typically arrives at defined milestones, phase completion or a monthly percentage draw, while payroll and overhead accrue continuously regardless of milestone timing. A project running long in a single phase, common when a client is slow to approve a submission, means cost keeps accruing without a matching milestone payment, which can strain cash even on a profitable project.

Model cash separately from recognized revenue, with milestone timing tied to actual, realistic client approval patterns rather than the contract's stated schedule, since client approval delay is one of the most consistent sources of cash timing surprise in design practice.

A firm with fairly standardized project types and phase structures will get more value from Mosaic's faster setup and lighter maintenance. A firm that regularly negotiates custom phase splits, tracks scope creep as an hours metric before it becomes a billing decision, or works on complex, irregularly phased projects will likely find Cube's formula-level control worth the extra setup time. Neither tradeoff is free, so weigh it against how much staff time you actually have for ongoing model maintenance.

Use these criteria to weigh the two tools:

• Choose Mosaic when your project types and phase structures are fairly standardized and you value faster setup and lighter maintenance.
• Choose Cube when you regularly negotiate custom phase splits or work on complex, irregularly phased projects that need formula-level control.
• Track scope creep as hours before it becomes a billing decision, so margin erosion is visible before phase close.
• Weight staffing by phase rather than project count, since construction documents need more technical hours than schematic design.
• Compare milestone cash timing with continuously accruing payroll, especially when a client is slow to approve a submission.

Most architecture firms apply a single overhead rate across all projects to load indirect cost, rent, insurance, non-billable design research, onto direct labor cost when calculating true project profitability. That single rate works fine when projects are similar in size and duration, but it can distort profitability on a very large or very small project relative to the firm's typical work, since overhead doesn't actually scale perfectly with project size.

Consider calculating overhead burden separately for outlier projects, especially a single large project that occupies a disproportionate share of the firm's capacity for an extended stretch, rather than applying the standard blended rate. Cube makes it straightforward to build a project-specific overhead adjustment as a formula variant. Mosaic's overhead treatment tends to apply more uniformly across the book unless you build a specific exception into the configuration.