For design-build firms
The plan set is already on your desk
Design-build holds both ends of the flooring decision: the drawings and the client sitting across the table from them. The awkward part is the middle — turning a floor somebody likes into a number, and then into a different number when they change their mind.
A design-build firm chooses the floor twice: once on the drawing, once in the room. SquareTally measures every room off the architect's PDF, prices the material from your own vendor sheets, and renders each room in the floor that was chosen — so the client sees the decision before anybody orders against it.
Start from the drawing you already have
The plan set arrives as a PDF because that is what architects issue. Calibrate it by clicking the two ends of a dimension already printed on the sheet — 22 feet 6 inches — and every other distance on the page becomes known. Then trace each room that gets a floor, corner by corner.
Square footage comes from the traced polygon, so an L-shaped room or a bay window is measured as drawn rather than rounded into a rectangle. On a validated real plan set this produced 152.6 sq ft against the 153 sq ft the architect had annotated — 99.7%. There is no CAD file to chase and no CAD background required; the takeoff page covers the measuring in detail.
Options are most of the work
Nobody in design-build prices a floor once. The client wants to see white oak against walnut, then wants the study in herringbone, then wants to know what happens if the herringbone stops at the great room.
A project in SquareTally is one client address or plan set, and inside it the layout options, revisions and re-renders are unlimited on every plan. The billing counts projects, so the third version of a room is free and the conversation stays about the floor.
The pattern changes the order, not just the look. Straight and plank layouts commonly carry 10% waste; herringbone and chevron carry 20%, because every board is cut at an angle and the offcuts rarely start the next run. On a 2,000 sq ft job that is 200 extra square feet of hardwood — a real line in a real budget, and a number worth having before the client falls in love with the pattern.
Every room, rendered in the floor chosen
Once a room is measured and a product assigned, SquareTally renders that room in that floor, keeping the doors and windows where the plan puts them. It is the picture that usually does not exist at quoting time: the client has a sample in their hand and a drawing on the table, and has to imagine the join between them.
The renders are labelled as illustrative visualizations, and that label is meant literally. They are not photographs of the client's house, and they are not a substitute for laying a sample down in the room's own light before a species is signed off. What they are good at is the comparison — this room in plank, this room in herringbone, side by side.
Re-rendering a room is unlimited within a project; after five goes at the same room SquareTally asks you to confirm before it makes another, since each one costs real compute. On the Solo plan renders carry a small SquareTally mark; on Pro and Studio they are unmarked, which is the version you would put in front of a client.
Material and labor approve on different clocks
Each job writes two draft estimates into your own QuickBooks Online: material, grouped by product and laying style with waste applied and rounded up, and a labor skeleton left at $0 for you to price. Both arrive as drafts, and nothing reaches a client until you send it yourself.
Two documents rather than one matters more in design-build than anywhere else. The material selection often gets signed off weeks before the crew is scheduled, allowances get set against material alone, and either half can be revised without reopening the other.
What it does not do
Worth knowing before a demo. A room carries one product and one laying style, so a contrasting border or a feature strip inside a single room is quoted alongside the room rather than inside it. There is no carpet seam planning and no commercial CAD workflow — this is built for residential hardwood off a plan set. And the renders illustrate; they do not photograph.
Questions design-build firms ask
- Can I price straight from the architect's plan set?
- Yes, from the PDF as issued. Calibrate against a dimension already printed on the sheet, trace each room, and the square footage comes from the traced polygon — an L-shape or a bay measured as drawn. No CAD file, no CAD background.
- How many options can I show a client?
- As many as the conversation needs. A project is one client address or plan set, and layout options, revisions and re-renders inside it are unlimited on every plan. Billing counts projects rather than versions.
- What do the renders actually show?
- Each measured room in the floor chosen for it, with the doors and windows kept where the plan puts them, labelled as an illustrative visualization. Not a photograph of the house, and not a replacement for a sample seen in the room's own light.
- Why two estimates instead of one?
- Because material and labor get approved on different timelines. Material goes over as a priced draft grouped by product and pattern; labor goes over as a skeleton at $0 for you to price. Either can be revised without disturbing the other.
- Does herringbone change the quantity?
- Yes. Waste follows the pattern: commonly 10% straight, 20% herringbone, at rates you set. The same 2,000 sq ft in herringbone is roughly 200 extra square feet of hardwood.
- Can one room have two woods?
- Not today — a room carries one product and one laying style. Rooms can differ from each other freely, so a herringbone study beside a straight-plank great room is the ordinary case.
Read next
- For hardwood dealers — pricing a job from vendor sheets, zones and dealer tiers.
- Flooring takeoff software — measuring from a plan set, and waste by laying pattern.
- Estimates in QuickBooks Online — what the connection writes, and what it never touches.
Bring a plan set, we'll take it off
Twenty minutes on one of your own jobs. We calibrate it, trace the rooms, price two flooring options and render them, live.
Request a demoPrefer email? support@squaretally.com