The Ofivio
Operating System

Winning the work and opening its file — a deliberately spare beginning that records only what is known on day one, and defers every commercial decision until later.

1

Only the principal opens a project

A new project is opened by the principal — the one account that owns the studio. From the projects area, Create Project starts an intensive intake wizard. It is guarded on both sides: the button is hidden for anyone who is not the principal, and the server refuses the request if it arrives from anyone else.

2

Seven steps, three phases

The intake runs in seven steps across three phases — Identity, then the Property (the site itself), then the Programme (what is to be built) — ending in a Review. It captures the facts a studio genuinely knows the day a job is won: what the building is, where it stands, what the authority demands, and how much accommodation it must hold.

Identity	the project’s name, type and engagement model
Site / Property	plot dimensions, orientation, soil, water table, roads and neighbours, utilities
Statutory	the authority, FAR, coverage, setbacks and the NOCs required
Programme	floors and the schedule of spaces the building must hold
Scope of Work	the four modules that decide what the whole project becomes (next chapter)
Timeline & Review	the broad dates, then a last look before it opens

3

What creation does — and deliberately does not do

The moment the wizard finishes, a project exists and the studio is taken to its Design dashboard. But nothing commercial has happened. There is no fee, no client, no aesthetic and — this is the point — no milestones. Those were all removed from creation on purpose. What creation does do is drop a handful of kick-off tasks — a pair of site visits, the first concept passes — straight onto the lead’s desk, so the work starts moving the instant the file opens.

The single most load-bearing choice in the whole system — the four modules of scope that decide what a project will become, and which of the studio’s engines switch on.

The eleven-stage backbone every project runs along — a discipline-by-discipline spine that expands itself to fit a villa or a tower from the same library.

1

Eleven ordered stages

Design is not one act; it is a sequence. Ofivio models it as eleven ordered stages, from the first site visit through to construction documents. Each stage knows whether it produces drawings, and the studio moves the project along the spine as the work matures.

1 · Site Visit	first read of the ground
2–3 · Feasibility	pre- and post-feasibility
4 · Concept	the idea
5–6 · Zoning & Master Plan	organising the site
7 · Schematic	the scheme takes shape
8 · Design Proposal	the proposal to the client
9 · Design Development	resolving it
10–11 · Working Drawings & Construction Documents	the buildable set

2

A package that expands itself

The quiet genius of the spine is that a drawing package is not a fixed list of sheets — it is a set of rules that expand against the actual building. A rule can say “one floor plan, per floor”; point it at a twenty-four-storey tower and it becomes twenty-four sheets, at a villa it becomes three. The same library serves the smallest house and the tallest tower, because the building’s shape does the multiplying.

The unit on which the whole business turns: a set is a discipline, its consultant and its own BOQ; a subset is a stage-bound slice of it. The client buys sets, not sheets.

1

Ten sets, one per discipline

The design is organised into sets — ten of them, one per discipline: Architectural, Interior, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Fire, Vehicular, Security and Landscape. A set is far more than a folder: it carries the discipline, the consultant who answers for it, and — almost always — its own Bill of Quantities. Interior nests beneath Architectural; the rest stand on their own.

A set ties together	one discipline · one consultant · one BOQ · one line of scope the client buys
A subset	a stage-bound slice of a set that holds the sheet rules for that stage
The hierarchy	Set → Subset → sheet rules → the sheets those rules expand into

2

The client buys sets

This is the fact to hold on to: the set — not the individual sheet — is the unit of everything that matters commercially. The consultant is engaged per set. The BOQ is priced per set. The issue that goes to the client is per set. And the line of scope the client agrees to and pays for is per set. Sheets are how the work is drawn; sets are how it is sold, supervised and settled.

Where the sets become a real drawing schedule — floors set, packages generated, and a living distinction between the work planned and the work actually drawn.

1

A command bar that never leaves

The Design Studio is the drawing room of the project. Across the top sits a command bar that stays with you as you work — it holds the running count of drawn-of-planned, the building’s levels as chips, and the two acts that matter most: Generate and Finalise. Below it, a rail of the sets you have switched on; select one and its full schedule opens in the table beneath.

2

Set the building, then generate

First you tell the studio the building’s shape — its basements, podium, floors, roof — and the schedule rebuilds itself around that shape. Then, set by set, you Generate: the sheet rules expand against those floors into real, numbered sheets. The studio hands each sheet a drawing number itself, composed from the project code, the discipline and a running sequence — so numbering is never left to a person to keep straight.

3

A schedule, not just a register

The table does something a plain drawing register cannot: alongside the sheets that exist, it shows greyed “ghost” rows for the sheets that *should* exist but have not been drawn yet. That gap — planned versus drawn — is the whole point. A register tells you what you have; a schedule tells you what you still owe. The command bar’s “N drawn of M planned” is that truth in a single line — and the project’s cockpit rolls it up across every set at once.

Two books in one — an internal estimate the client never sees and a proposed price they do — and the lock that turns the priced BOQ into the project’s one true construction number.

1

A dual book: internal and proposed

Each set that carries a BOQ carries two of them at once. The internal BOQ is the engineer’s honest estimate — costs, quantities, the decomposition into material, labour, rental and transport — and the client never sees it. The proposed BOQ is the client-facing book, the internal one carried across and marked up. The two are linked, item for item, so the margin between them is always visible to the studio and never to the client.

Internal BOQ	the engineer’s estimate — cost, quantity, rate, decomposition; hidden from the client
Proposed BOQ	the client-facing book — the internal items carried over with markup
Divisions	the tabbed sections a BOQ is organised into
The margin	the difference between the two books — the studio’s to see, never the client’s

2

The lock is the pricing event

Pricing a BOQ is not finished until it is locked. Locking snapshots the internal total, the proposed total and the margin onto the project — and that snapshot becomes the single source of the construction cost for everything downstream. The number the rest of the system builds on is the client-agreed proposed total from that snapshot, and it is read from there, never accepted from anything the browser sends.

Where the fee is finally composed from the four modules — and where a single act, the budget lock, brings the whole money side of the project into being.

1

Compose the fee from the modules

Only now, on the Budgeting page, does money enter the project. The fee is composed from the scope modules chosen at intake: a design fee (a rate per square foot, or a lump sum); a construction cost (the locked BOQ total — but only when you are executing); and a supervision fee (a percentage of the construction cost). Each module you switched on contributes its stream; the ones you did not simply are not there.

2

Lock order, and why it bends

The BOQ must be locked before the budget — but only if execution is in scope. A design-plus-supervision practice has no BOQ of its own to lock, and forcing one would have left it unable to invoice its design fee for months while it waited on a number it would never produce. So the rule bends to the engagement: no execution, no BOQ prerequisite.

3

The lock that creates the money

Locking the budget is the single event that brings the money side to life. Until the lock there are no milestones; at the lock, the whole schedule is generated at once — the design fee split evenly across its stages, supervision spread across the construction window, the construction cost front-loaded. The lock also freezes the totals, so if someone edits a rate afterwards the agreed quote does not drift. Unlocking is the principal’s alone, and it keeps the locked figures as an audit trail.

The schedule of payments the lock creates — and the strict rule that makes a milestone the single, un-double-countable channel through which the studio is ever paid.

1

The payment schedule appears

Out of the lock comes the milestone schedule: the concrete list of what the client pays and when, each milestone carrying its stage, its amount and the income stream it belongs to. This is the studio’s plan for getting paid, and from here the money engine (Part IV) takes over — invoices are raised against these milestones and nothing else.

2

One milestone, one channel

A milestone is the one and only channel through which cash is recorded. When a milestone is marked paid, the payment cascades in a single motion — it settles the milestone, settles the invoice raised against it, and deposits real money into a company account. Because there is exactly one path, a payment can never be counted twice or land in two places at once.

3

Adding a milestone rebalances the rest

The schedule is not frozen — you can add a milestone. But when you do, Ofivio proportionally shrinks the *unpaid* milestones to make room, so the quoted total never moves. Milestones that are already paid are untouchable. You can re-shape how the money is staged without ever changing what the client agreed to pay in total.

The bridge from drawings to commitments: finalising the schedule turns each subset into a dated, owned deliverable — with two dates, because a review that shares the delivery date never happens.

1

Finalise locks the schedule and spawns the work

When the drawing schedule is settled, Finalise locks the sheet count the way the BOQ lock fixed the price — and in the same motion it creates the deliverables. One deliverable is born for every subset that has sheets: a dated, owned commitment on the scope-of-work timeline. They arrive unscheduled and unassigned, waiting to be placed and given to someone.

2

Two dates, not one

Every deliverable carries two dates, and the distinction is deliberate. There is a pre-check date — the internal review, when the studio checks its own work — and a due date — when the client is owed it. The reason is blunt: if a deliverable had only a delivery date, the review would happen *on* the delivery date, which means it would not happen at all.

Where a deliverable becomes real work: dating and assigning it creates the task and a two-slot delivery folder — and three separate dates that keep the studio answerable for exactly what is its fault.

1

Dating a deliverable makes the task

On the scope-of-work board you drag each backlog deliverable onto its dates and hand it to someone. The instant it is both dated and assigned, Ofivio creates the assignee’s task — and, tellingly, it is due at the *pre-check* date, not the delivery date, so the work is finished in time to be reviewed. Assigning it also grants that person upload access to the project’s files: assignment is access.

2

A packet with two slots

The same act opens a Delivery Desk packet for the deliverable — a folder with two dated slots: a revision drop due at the pre-check date, and a delivery drop due at the client date. The packet is where the actual drawing files land on their way out of the office.

3

Produced, delivered, and the baseline

Three dates track a deliverable, and keeping them apart is what makes the board fair. The baseline is the very first promise, stamped once and never moved — re-dating a slip cannot erase it. Produced is when the studio’s file actually lands in the slot: the studio is answerable for *finishing the work*. Delivered is when the client actually receives it. The board judges the studio on production against the baseline — not on how long an unpaid invoice sat on someone’s desk.

The gates the work passes through to reach the client: the file that proves it is done, the sign-offs that cannot be skipped, and the issue that ties the deliverable, the scope row and the packet in one act — money permitting.

1

The file is the job

A deliverable is not done because someone says so; it is done because the file exists. The principal can require a file on a task, and when they do, Done is refused until a real file is attached. And the list of attached files is written only by the upload route — never by the browser — so “a file exists” cannot be faked. Ordinary work without the switch (a site visit, a call) still closes normally.

2

Two approval lanes

Sign-off runs in two lanes and never sideways. Internal approval is employee to principal — the studio checking its own work. External approval is principal to client — the studio releasing the work to the client. The approver is always the principal or the client; never a manager, never finance. For a delivery packet, the principal must approve what was uploaded before it can leave, and that gate cannot be overridden, because it exists to protect the client from unreviewed work.

3

The issue ties it all together

Issuing a set is the one act that reaches every surface at once. Keyed on the subset, the issue finds the deliverable that discharges it, ensures its bar on the scope board, ties the two together, stamps the transmittal onto the deliverable’s existing packet — and marks it delivered into the client’s portal. It does not raise a second folder; there is one packet, with two doors.

The execution half of the story: the locked BOQ becomes scopes and activities on the site, and the site reports its progress back as earned value — the S-curve of the build.

1

From the priced BOQ to the site

When a project is being built, the locked BOQ does not just price the work — it becomes the work. Each BOQ division turns into a scope of work on the site, and each scope into a chain of activities, sequenced finish-to-start. The planned cost of each activity is drawn from the division’s own priced total, so the site’s budget is the real budget, not a guess.

2

Earned value against the ground

As the site reports progress, Ofivio computes earned value: planned value against earned value — the priced work actually completed — against the real cost, which gathers labour, tagged procurement spend and stock issued to the activity. From those come the schedule and cost indices, the estimate at completion, and the S-curve that tells the principal, in one line, whether the build is ahead or behind and over or under.

Everything above, as one continuous motion — the operating model of the studio, from a job won to a project delivered.

HR’s command screen — the whole workforce at a glance, and every request waiting on a decision.

1

What HR sees first

The HR dashboard opens on the studio’s people: headcount, monthly payroll, today’s attendance, the department distribution, and — the part that needs action — the requests arriving in real time. Advance requests sit in their own panel; leave, warnings and more stream through the live feed.

2

The tabs

Across the top are the HR working surfaces as tabs — Overview, Staff, Tasking, Teams, Attendance and Leave — so hiring, the roster, attendance and the leave queue are all one click apart.

The one place a person is added — creating their login and their employee record together, so nobody is ever half a person.

1

Open HR → Add Staff

Hiring happens in exactly one place. From the HR dashboard, Add Staff is the single door — there is no other way to create a member of staff, and that is on purpose.

2

Fill in who they are

The form asks for the person’s full name, and the username and password they will sign in with. Then their department and designation, their salary structure — basic pay plus travelling, medical and food allowances — and their leave entitlements for the year.

3

Grant any extra roles

If the person needs a department dashboard — HR, Finance, Design, Procurement, Operations — grant it here as an extra role. Their base is always employee, with their own desk and pay; the extra role adds the department view on top. Save, and the login and employee record are written together.

Where	HR → Add Staff (the only door)
Creates	login AND employee record together
Primary role	always "employee"
Extra roles	HR · Finance · Design · Procurement · Operations · …
Salary	basic + travelling + medical + food allowances

Changing what a person is after they are hired — their details, department, designation or salary.

1

Open the staff record

From the roster, opening a person shows their full record. Edit changes their details, their department and designation, and their salary structure.

2

What a change touches

Because every part of the system reads the one staff record, an edit here reaches everywhere — a new department moves them on the org chart, a new salary structure flows into the next payroll run.

Giving someone a department dashboard without losing their employee home — one person, as many hats as the work needs.

When someone leaves — closing their access cleanly, without erasing the record they are part of.

The studio’s divisions — Design, Interiors, Execution, Procurement, Finance, HR — the frame every person and project hangs on.

1

Manage the department tree

Departments & Teams is where the studio’s structure lives. You add a department, name it, describe what it does, and it becomes a home staff can be assigned to and a lens the dashboards read.

2

Add a department

Add Department opens a small form — a name and a description. Save it and it joins the tree, ready to receive staff.

Smaller groupings inside a department — the pod actually working a project together.

The studio-wide view of who is present — the raw material payroll is built from.

1

See today across the studio

The Attendance surface shows the whole studio’s presence: who has checked in, who is late, who is absent, who is on leave. Where an employee marks their own attendance (Part II), HR sees all of it here.

2

Reports over time

Attendance Reports roll the daily record up over a month or a period, per person and per department — the evidence behind every salary the payroll run generates.

The decision side of time-off — HR’s single queue of every leave request awaiting an answer.

1

Open the Leave queue

On the HR dashboard, the Leave tab lists every request Awaiting decision — the employee, the type, the dates, the days, and the balance each draws on. It is the whole studio’s pending leave in one place.

2

Approve or reject

Answer each in place. Paid leave, once approved, does not dock the salary; unpaid leave is marked for deduction. Approving paid leave beyond a person’s yearly entitlement is refused by the system.

Who approves	HR
Sees	type · dates · days · balance
Paid leave	no salary reduction
Unpaid leave	deducted
Guardrail	over-entitlement paid leave blocked

The decision side of advances — where a pending request becomes cash, or does not.

1

Find the pending requests

On the principal’s Payroll screen, Pending Advance Requests lists each ask in full — employee, amount, reason, date — with Approve and Reject.

2

Approve pays; reject closes

Approve is the only action that releases cash; it is remembered and settled against a future salary. Reject closes the request with nothing moved. HR can see advances arriving but only Accounts (or the principal) may approve them.

The formal record when something goes wrong — issued to a person, kept in their file.

1

Issue a warning

HR can issue a warning against a staff member — a dated, written record of a disciplinary matter. It attaches to that person’s file and appears in the studio’s live record of what happened.

Turning a month of attendance into a slip for every employee — the first step of the payroll run.

1

Open Salaries for the month

The Salaries screen is scoped to a month. With that month’s attendance complete, generate the salaries — each person’s slip calculated from their structure and their attendance, present days paying and absent days not.

2

What a generated slip contains

Each slip carries the earnings (basic plus allowances), the deductions (an unsettled advance, unpaid leave, days absent), and the net — what the person is owed for the month. Nothing is paid yet; this is the calculation, ready to be batched.

From generated slips to money in hand — approve, move into HR custody, pay each person out, all recorded in the books.

1

Build the batch

The generated salaries are bundled into a batch for the month on the Payroll screen. The batch is the unit that moves through approval and pay-out together.

2

Approve it

The batch is approved first — a checkpoint before any money moves. Approval says the numbers are right and the run may proceed.

3

Send it to HR custody

The approved batch is sent to HR: the total leaves the studio’s salaries account and sits in HR’s custody, ready to disburse. This is a real movement of cash, journalled in the books — not a status change.

4

Pay each person out

From that custody, each employee is paid out one at a time. Every pay-out is journalled through the company ledger, so the salaries account, the batch and each slip all agree. Nothing moves silently.

Order	attendance → generate → approve → send to HR → pay out
Approve	a checkpoint before cash moves
Send to HR	debits the salaries account into HR custody
Payout	one per employee, journalled to the ledger

The one-off money that sits alongside a salary — a bonus earned, a loan advanced, a correction made.

Where hours are logged against work — the finer record beneath attendance.

1

Log and review hours

Timesheets record hours worked against projects and activities. Where attendance answers "was the person here", timesheets answer "on what, and for how long" — the input to project costing and to timesheet reports.

The papers HR issues to people — appointment letters, certificates, the studio’s formal correspondence.

1

Generate a letter

From Templates & Letters, HR produces the studio’s formal documents — an appointment letter, an experience certificate, a notice — from a template, addressed to a person, and issued onto their record.

Every employee’s landing screen — today’s work, meetings, attendance, and the quick actions for the things people need most.

1

What your home shows

Your home gathers your day: the tasks due and overdue, the meetings ahead, your attendance, and — down the right — your goals, calendar, chat and a live feed of what is assigned to you. It is built to be the one screen you can start the day from.

2

The quick actions

A column of quick actions puts the self-service functions one click away: My tasks, Request advance, My pay, Time off, Attendance and Documents. The rest of this part walks each of them.

The work assigned to you — and why finishing it is not the same as closing it.

1

Your assigned work

My Tasks holds the work assigned to you: what is due, overdue, in progress. You do the work here.

2

Finishing sends it for review

When you finish a task you do not close it outright — you apply, and it enters review. "Done" in Ofivio is meant to mean "done and accepted", not merely "I clicked a button".

3

The other side — the assigner reviews

The task now shows on the assigner’s board as awaiting review. They open it, check the work, and either approve it — which finally closes it — or return it with a note for another pass.

When money is tight before payday, an employee asks for an advance — and a principal or Accounts approves or rejects it. The full round-trip, click by click.

1

Where you start — your home screen

Every member of staff has the same home. Along the lower right is the column of quick actions. One of them is Request advance.

2

Click "Request advance" — the dialog appears

Clicking Request advance slides a dialog over your desk titled Request Salary Advance. It asks for three things and nothing more: the amount in rupees, the date you are requesting it for, and a short reason. The reason is what your approver reads when they decide.

3

Fill it in and submit

Enter the amount, set the date, write your reason, and click Submit Request. Behind the scenes the request is created as pending — you cannot mark your own advance approved, because approval is the step that releases cash.

4

Where it lands — the HR dashboard

The instant you submit, your request surfaces to the people who run the studio. On the HR dashboard it appears twice: in the Advance requests panel with your name and amount and a Pending badge, and in the live feed, which narrates it in real time. HR can see it but not act on it — the panel is marked View only, because only Accounts release money.

5

The decision — Approve or Reject

A principal opens the Payroll screen and scrolls to Pending Advance Requests. Each request is shown in full — the employee, the amount, the reason, the date — with a green Approve and a red Reject. Approve is the only action that moves cash. Reject closes the request with nothing paid.

6

The outcome

Either way you see the result on your own screen — the status changes from pending to approved or rejected. An approved advance is remembered and settled automatically against a future salary, deducted once, later, and never double-counted.

Who requests	any member of staff, for themselves
Who approves	the principal (Accounts release cash)
Fields	amount · date · reason
On approval	pay-out recorded, settled against a future salary
On rejection	closed, no cash moved

An employee requests leave; HR grants or declines it from a single queue. Paid leave never docks the salary; unpaid leave is deducted, plainly.

1

Where you start — Time off

From your home screen the Time off quick action opens your leave — your remaining balance for each kind, and the button to request more.

2

Choose the leave and the dates

Requesting leave asks for the kind — annual, sick, casual or unpaid — the start and end dates, and a reason. The number of working days is counted for you, and the request shows which balance it would draw against. Submit, and it travels to HR.

3

Where it lands — HR’s Leave queue

On the HR dashboard, the Leave tab is one queue titled Awaiting decision. Every pending request is a row: the employee, the type, the dates, the days, and the balance it consumes. An unpaid request is marked, in red, as deducted from salary.

4

HR approves or rejects

HR answers each request in place. Approving paid leave (annual, sick, casual) does not reduce the salary; approving unpaid leave marks it for deduction. The system refuses to approve paid leave beyond an employee’s yearly entitlement.

Who requests	any member of staff
Who approves	HR
Kinds	annual · sick · casual · unpaid
Paid leave	does not reduce salary
Unpaid leave	deducted, never double-charged
Guardrail	paid leave beyond entitlement is blocked

The first link in the pay chain — mark your presence, and that presence feeds payroll directly.

1

Clock in for the day

Attendance is where you clock in and see your own record for the month. Clocking in is not a formality: your presence is what turns a salary structure into a paid slip.

2

Why it matters to payroll

When salaries are generated for a month, the engine reads attendance directly. Present days pay; absent days do not. Run a month’s payroll before its attendance is complete and every salary comes out at zero — correctly.

Every employee’s own pay history — private to them, month by month.

1

Open My pay

The My pay action opens your own salary slips — each month’s earnings, the allowances, the deductions, and what was actually paid. It is yours alone: no colleague sees it, and you see no-one else’s.

The papers that belong to you — contracts, letters, records the studio has issued you.

What is on your day — the meetings you are a party to, and nothing you are not.

The handful of things about yourself you control — your photo, your contact details, your password.

1

Open My Settings

From the workspace menu at the foot of the rail, My Settings opens your own profile. Here you set your photo and phone, and change your password.

The studio’s one book of truth — ninety accounts, seeded ready-made for an architecture practice.

1

The seeded chart

A studio begins with a full chart of accounts already built: ninety accounts arranged the way a practice actually works — bank accounts split by purpose, receivables and advances, materials and labour, design and supervision income, and the expense tree a studio really spends against.

2

Reading it

The chart groups accounts into assets, liabilities, equity, income and expense. The accounting status panel shows the fiscal year, the account count, the vouchers posted, and whether the trial balance is in balance — a health check on the books, always in view.

Shaping the chart to your practice — a new account, a renamed one, a purpose set.

The studio’s real bank accounts — five, split by purpose, so money never blurs.

1

The five purposes

The studio keeps purpose-scoped accounts: a main account where client money lands, and separate accounts for payments, salaries, procurement and site labour. Each carries its balance and its detail.

2

Why they stay separate

Keeping them distinct is what lets payroll draw on salaries while the office bills are paid from payments, without the two ever mixing. A payment records which account it moved, so the books always know where the cash actually was.

main	client money lands here (1011)
payments	vendors and office bills (1012)
salaries	payroll (1013)
procurement	materials (1014)
labor	site wages (1015)

The accounting year the books are kept in — opened, active, and closed.

1

Open the year

The books run in a fiscal year — a start and end date. The active year is what every posting is dated into, and what the statements summarise. A new year is opened when the old one ends.

The one place a project’s money is set up — its fee, its scope, its supervision. Locking it is what generates the milestones.

1

Open the budget

A project’s money is configured once, on the Project Budgeting screen: which service modules are in scope, the design fee and how it is charged (a lump sum or a per-unit rate), and the supervision percentage.

2

The construction cost is derived

For an execution or supervision project, the construction cost is not typed in — it comes from the locked BOQ snapshot, the figure agreed with the client. You set the fee; the bill sets the cost.

The moment the money becomes real — locking the budget generates the milestone set for the scope.

1

Lock the budget

When the budget is right, lock it. Locking freezes the numbers and — the important part — generates the milestone set for that scope. This is the single trigger and the single generator; the BOQ lock fixes the cost, but the budget lock makes the milestones.

2

The right milestones for the scope

A design job produces design-fee milestones — concept, schematic, detailed, final. An execution job produces construction running bills — mobilisation, running bills, final bill. A supervision scope adds its instalments. The set that appears fits the modules, never the wrong kind.

Billing a milestone — the single channel through which a studio asks to be paid.

1

Open Billing

Billing & Invoicing shows the studio’s invoices — what is raised, what is collected, what is outstanding, project by project. New Invoice starts one.

2

Bill against a milestone

An invoice is raised against a milestone — you choose the project, the client and the milestone it bills. That link is the single cash channel: it is how the studio bills, and how a payment later finds its way home.

Where an invoice’s value actually lives — its lines, not a typed total.

Dispatching the invoice to the client — and gating it on the studio’s letterhead.

1

Send it

A completed invoice is sent to the client, who sees it in their portal alongside what they owe. From draft to sent is the studio formally asking to be paid.

Marking that the client has paid — the first half of banking the money.

Finance confirms the money — the step that actually credits the bank and writes the voucher.

The double-entry record behind every movement of cash — the studio’s audit trail.

1

Every movement, recorded

Every time money moves — a receipt, a payment, a salary, an expense — a voucher is written: the double-entry that debits one account and credits another. The voucher list is the studio’s complete record of cash, in the order it happened.

Every purchase and expense as it happens — the running record of the day’s spending.

1

The running ledger

The Daily Ledger captures spending as it occurs — a purchase, a site cost, an office bill — each with its amount, its project and its account. It is the studio’s day-book, the place a cost lands the moment it is incurred.

2

Add an entry

Adding an entry records the spend against the right account, so it flows into the ledger and the statements at once.

The bills that come every month — rent, utilities, software, insurance — set once, tracked always.

Settling a bill — moving the cash and booking it against the chart.

1

Pay it

Paying an expense records the cash out from the chosen account and books it against its category in the chart. The payments account is debited, the expense head credited, a voucher written — the bill settled and the books updated in one act.

The department-level money — advances given, receipts taken, all against the project.

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The advances desk

Advances & receipts is where department-level money is managed — an advance released to a department or a site, a receipt recorded against it. It keeps the money given out and the money accounted for in one place.

Site money asked for, approved and released — a two-step so approval and payment are distinct.

1

The request arrives

Site staff raise a fund request against a project — an amount, a category, a reason. It lands in the advances desk as pending, waiting on a decision.

2

Approve, then disburse

Approval and disbursement are two deliberate steps. Approving accepts the request; disbursing actually releases the cash and books it against the project. Rejecting closes it with nothing paid.

Who requests	site / department staff
Steps	approve → disburse
Approve	accepts the request
Disburse	releases cash, books it to the project
Reject	closes it, no money moved

Revenue against cost — the studio’s income statement, always current.

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The income statement

Profit & Loss reads the books directly: revenue (design, supervision, project income) against cost (materials, labour, salaries, overhead), down to gross and net profit. Because every posting hits the one book, it is live — not a month-end reconstruction.

What the studio owns and owes — assets, liabilities and equity, in balance.

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The position

The Balance Sheet shows the studio’s position: total assets against total liabilities and equity. It is the other face of the P&L — where the P&L is the year’s flow, the balance sheet is the standing stock, and the two reconcile because they read the same vouchers.

Every account’s debit and credit, proving the books balance.

1

The proof

The Trial Balance lists every account with its debit and credit totals, and shows them equal. It is the arithmetic proof that the double entry is intact — and it stays balanced because the system writes both sides of every voucher.

The money summarised the way you need it — by project, by period, by account.

1

Run a report

Financial Reports roll the books up across projects and periods — revenue, cost, margin, cash flow. Where the statements are the whole studio, reports let you cut the money the way a particular question needs.

Taking the numbers out — to Excel or PDF, stamped with the studio’s identity.

The bridge from the bill to the buying — turning priced lines into things to order.

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Select and send

From a project’s bill of quantities, you send the lines you need to procurement. Each selected line becomes a procurement item, ready to be sourced, quoted and ordered.

Every procurement item and where it stands — to buy, ordered, received.

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The item list

Item Tracking is the procurement team’s working list: every item pulled from the bill, its quantity and cost, and its state — still to buy, on a purchase order, or received. It is the studio’s answer to "what have we bought, and what is still open".

Recording that an item has been bought — with its bill number and date.

What the studio has spent on a project’s materials — the buying, summed.

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The purchase record

Costs & Purchases gathers what has been bought for a project and what it cost — the real material spend against the plan. It is where the procurement money is read back, project by project.

Plant and equipment hired rather than bought — tracked separately, because it comes back.

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Rental details

Some things are hired, not purchased — scaffolding, a generator, a crane slot. Rental Details tracks the equipment on hire for a project, its terms and its cost, kept apart from the goods the studio owns.

The vendors the studio buys from — the list every purchase order draws on.

1

The supplier list

Suppliers holds the vendors the studio deals with — their category, their contact, their payment terms. Every purchase order is raised against one of them.

2

Add a supplier

Add Supplier opens a short form — a name, the categories they supply, a phone and address, and the payment terms. Save it and it joins the list, ready to order from.

The formal order to a supplier — its line items, its expected date, its total.

1

Start a purchase order

On a project, New PO starts a purchase order. You choose the supplier, add the line items — each with its quantity, unit and unit cost — and set the expected date. The order’s total is the sum of its lines.

2

The order dialog

The purchase-order dialog gathers the supplier, the items and the date in one place, so an order is raised complete rather than assembled piecemeal.

Raised against	a supplier
Carries	line items (qty · unit · unit cost) + expected date
States	draft → sent → partial → received

Dispatching the order — moving it from draft to sent.

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Send it

A drafted order is sent to the supplier, which moves it from draft to sent and marks it as a live commitment. From here the studio is waiting on delivery.

Booking what has arrived — fully or in part — against the order.

Big-ticket purchases signed off by the client before the studio commits.

What the studio holds — every item in stock, across every store.

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The inventory

Warehouse inventory is the running count of what the studio has: the goods received, held, and not yet issued. At any moment it answers "what do we have, and where" — the bridge between buying and building.

Booking goods into the warehouse — the moment received material becomes held stock.

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Stock in

Stock In records goods arriving into a store — from a purchase order, or otherwise. It is the entry that turns "received against a PO" into "held in the warehouse", with the quantity and the store it landed in.

Issuing stock to a site — the material leaving the store for the job.

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Stock out

Stock Out records material issued from a store to a site or a project. It draws the inventory down and books the movement, so the warehouse always reflects what is genuinely on the shelf.

Moving stock between stores — without it ever leaving the studio’s count.

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Transfer between stores

Transfers move stock from one store to another — a central warehouse to a site store, say. The total the studio holds does not change; only where it sits does, and the transfer records the move.

The site’s command screen — scopes, activities and progress in one place.

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The site overview

The Operations dashboard is the execution project’s working screen: the scopes of work, the activities beneath them, the progress coming in from site, and the earned-value picture built from all three. It is where a build is run day to day.

The site broken into workable scopes — earthwork, masonry, finishes, the MEP trades.

1

Generate the scopes

A scope of work is a chunk of the build — earthwork, RCC, masonry, finishes, MEP electrical, MEP plumbing. Scopes are generated for the project’s divisions from templates, each ready to break into activities.

A scope	a division of the build (Civil / Finishes / MEP)
Generated from	templates, per BOQ division
Breaks into	activities

The tasks a scope is made of — each with its dates, cost and crew.

What actually happened on site — the percentage done, the hours, the crew that turned up.

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Report progress

As work happens, progress entries record it against an activity: the percentage complete, the hours worked, the crew present, and any issue noted. A steady stream of these turns a static plan into a living picture of the build.

Planned against earned against spent — knowing, not guessing, whether a project is on track.

The bill measured against what the site has really consumed.

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Compare the two

Estimate vs Actual sets the BOQ’s planned quantities and costs beside what the site has actually used and spent. It is the reconciliation that catches an over-run while there is still time to act on it.

Petty cash for the site — requested, approved, disbursed.

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Request, approve, disburse

A site does not run without cash for labour and consumables. Site staff raise a fund request against the project; it is approved, then disbursed — the cash released and booked to the project. Rejecting closes it with nothing paid. (The finance side of this lives in Part VI.)

The principal’s outbound axis — turning a thought into a tasked teammate.

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The assignment line

My Desk opens with a single line: say what needs doing and assign it to a person. Below it sits the count of what is open and overdue across the whole studio, and the people you assign to most, ready as chips. It is the fastest path from a thought to a tasked teammate.

2

Where it lands

The moment you assign, the task appears on that person’s own desk and in the studio’s live feed. My Desk is deliberately outbound — not an inbox of things done to you, but a launch-pad for work sent out.

Every task in the studio — who has what, what is due, what is on review.

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The whole board

The task command centre gathers the studio’s work in one place: assigned, in progress, on review, done. It is where a principal or manager reads the studio’s load and where the review gate (Part II) is answered.

Work scoped to a department, not a project — the month-end close, the stock count.

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Departmental work

Not all work hangs off a project. Department tasks carry the standing jobs — HR onboarding, a finance close, a warehouse count — scoped to a department rather than a commission. They live in the same board, tagged by the department that owns them.

When an assignee needs longer — asking, and the assigner answering.

Studio-wide chat, with a general room everyone shares — the day’s coordination.

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The general room

The Board Room is the studio’s chat: a general room everyone shares, and space for focused rooms. It is where the day’s coordination happens — the crane slot, the consultant’s markups, the reminder to upload site photos before leaving site.

Scheduling a meeting — with a project, a place, and the people who will attend.

1

The calendar

Meetings shows what is scheduled across the studio — a client review, a site walk, a design kickoff — each with its time, place and attendees. New Meeting starts one.

2

Schedule it

The meeting dialog gathers the project, the type (the office, on-site, or a video call), the date and time, and the attendees — resolved to real people, staff and clients alike. Saved, it lands on every attendee’s own calendar.

The studio’s running notes — snag lists, review actions, sketched decisions.

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Shared notes

Whiteboards hold the studio’s working notes — a snag list, the actions from a design review, a decision sketched out. They sit beside the work, so what was agreed is where the work is, not lost in a chat scroll.

The studio’s notice-board — the things everyone needs to know.

1

Post an announcement

Announcements are the studio’s notice-board: the Eid closure, the new timesheet policy, the running-bill inspection passed. Posted once, they reach everyone — a ticker across the top of every screen — so important news is never buried in one person’s inbox.

The studio narrating itself — every mutation, as it happens.

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What just happened

The live feed is the studio’s running commentary: a task assigned, a leave requested, an advance approved, a payment verified. Every meaningful action writes a line, so the studio tells you what is happening without anyone reporting it.

The owner’s read-only view of the whole studio — meant to be watched, not worked.

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The studio’s pulse

Where My Desk is for acting, the Dashboard is for watching — the studio’s pulse, read-only by design, so the principal sees how projects are tracking without being tempted to fiddle. Keep it open on a second screen and the studio narrates itself.

The studio’s work and delivery, for the person running the floor.

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The manager’s view

The Manager dashboard gathers the studio’s delivery: the projects in flight, the deadlines ahead, the team’s load. It is the view for the person who runs the floor day to day — enough to see what needs pushing, without the principal’s full reach.

The design head’s home — sets, subsets and the drawing schedule.

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The design lead’s view

The Design dashboard is where the studio’s drawing production is run: the disciplines in play, the schedule’s progress, the deliverables due. It is the design head’s command screen for the eleven-stage spine.

The books, the billing and the payroll, for Finance and the accountant.

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The finance view

The Finance dashboard opens on the money: revenue and profit, what is billed and collected, the payroll run, and the pending approvals — advances and payments waiting on a decision. It is the accountant’s working home.

The workforce and its requests — the HR head’s command screen.

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The HR view

The HR dashboard shows the people: headcount, attendance, the department distribution, and the requests arriving — advances and leave waiting in their queues. Hiring, the roster and approvals all begin here (Part III).

Items, suppliers and orders — the buyer’s home.

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The procurement view

The Procurement dashboard gathers the buying: the items to source, the purchase orders in flight, the suppliers, and the client approvals waiting. It is where the material side of a project is run.

What is held and what is moving — the storekeeper’s view.

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The warehouse view

The Warehouse view is the stock: what is held across the stores, what has come in, what has gone out to site. It is the count that keeps the buying and the building honest.

The home every member of staff lands on — their day, their work, their self-service.

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The employee view

The employee home is the one most of the studio sees: today’s tasks and meetings, attendance, and the quick actions for pay, leave and an advance. It is the subject of Part II, and the reason a studio feels like it works for its people, not just its principal.

Every client and the project they belong to — the studio’s book of who it builds for.

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The client list

Clients holds everyone the studio is building for: their company, their contact, and the project they are bound to. It is the studio’s record of its clients, and the place a new one is added.

Adding a client and giving them a login — a two-step that opens their window on the work.

The portal — their project, its packets, and what they owe, and nothing more.

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The client portal

A client signs in to a portal scoped to their project alone: its deliverables and packets as they are dispatched, the drawings sent for their approval, and what they owe. It is a window on their commission, opened without a single email.

The three things a client actually does — receive files, see progress, and pay.

The client’s line back to the studio — a question, a request, raised from the portal.

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Get support

From the portal a client can reach the studio — a question about a drawing, a request, a note. It keeps the conversation in the same place as the work, so nothing about their project happens in a channel the studio cannot see.

Your own details — photo, contact, password.

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Your account

My Account holds the things about yourself you control: your photo, your phone, your email, and your password. It is the part of your record that is genuinely yours to change.

The studio’s own identity — name, address, contact, the details every document carries.

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The studio’s profile

Organization Profile is the studio’s own record: its name, address, contact details and registration. These are the details that appear on documents and that every part of the system reads as "the studio".

The studio’s face on everything it sends — and the gate on every download.

1

Set the letterhead and logo

Branding & Communication is where the studio sets its letterhead and logo. These stamp every document the studio produces — an invoice, a letter, an exported statement — so anything leaving the studio carries its identity.

The studio’s plan — its seats, its features, and what it pays.

Deciding what reaches you — so the bell rings for what matters.

What of you is visible to whom — the controls over your own footprint.

Keeping the account safe — passwords, sessions, and who may do what.

The studio in your language and your region’s conventions.

How the studio looks — beyond the dark-or-light toggle.

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Appearance

Themes & Appearance holds the finer look of the studio — the theme (Part I), and the appearance choices that make the studio comfortable to spend a day in.

Connecting the studio to the tools around it.

The defaults every new project inherits — set once, applied always.

The finer shape of the interface — density, rails, type.

Each person shaping their own view — which pages, in which order.

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Make it yours

Customise lets each person tune their own view — which pages appear, in which order, hiding what they never use. The studio’s shape is shared; the way each person moves through it is their own.

The studio acting on its own — a rule that fires when something happens.

1

Build a rule

Automations let the studio act without a person: a trigger — a milestone date arriving, a new BOQ, a task falling due — and an action it fires. They are how repetitive coordination is handed to the system rather than remembered by a human.

Nothing is truly gone — deleted items kept, ready to restore.

1

Restore the deleted

The Archive holds what has been deleted across the studio, so a mistaken removal is a restore, not a loss. Deleting moves something aside; the archive is where it waits.

Who did what, and when — the studio’s memory of its own actions.

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The record of actions

The Audit trail records the studio’s significant actions — who changed what, approved what, deleted what, and when. It is the studio’s memory of itself: the answer to "how did this happen", always available.

The irreversible acts — kept apart, behind their own wall.

Opening a brand-new workspace — the studio that holds your projects, people and books. Whoever does this becomes the principal.

1

Start at the public site

Everything begins at ofivio.com — the public face of the platform. Along the top are Product and Pricing and the sign-in controls; the centre pitches the practice OS. To open a studio, look to the top-right and click Sign Up.

2

Choose a plan and name the studio

Sign Up opens the plan chooser. Here you do three things in one screen: pick the plan that fits the size of your practice (Business, for example, comes with twenty-five seats and unlimited projects), type your studio’s name into the workspace field, and choose your country so currency and date format are right from day one. Tick the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

A plan sets	seats, storage, and which features unlock
Workspace name	the studio name every teammate sees
Country	sets currency (PKR for a Lahore studio) and dates

3

Create the account

Complete the sign-up. The instant it finishes, an empty studio exists and you are its principal — the owner, the one account that sees everything. There is nothing else to set up; the studio is ready to be filled.

Getting into a studio that already exists — the same door for the principal, every member of staff, and every client.

1

Open the sign-in screen

Everyone reaches the studio through one screen. There is no workspace to choose — your account already belongs to exactly one studio, so signing in takes you straight to it.

2

Enter your credentials

Type the username and password your studio issued you, and click Sign In. If your studio uses Google accounts, Continue with Google sits alongside. A forgotten password is recovered from the link beneath the form.

The way back in when a password is lost — no administrator required.

The welcome a brand-new team member sees the very first time — and never again after.

1

The welcome

The first time anyone signs in, Ofivio greets them by name and offers two small, skippable things: a photo, so colleagues can put a face to the name, and a phone number.

2

Role and department are already set

The welcome says plainly that your role and department were set by whoever created your account, and cannot be changed here. This is where you settle in, not where you choose what you are. Skip it or complete it; either way it appears once and then steps aside for good.

The shell — the frame around every screen. Learn it once and you are never lost, because it is the same everywhere.

1

The navigation rail

Down the left edge is the rail: your workspace at the top, the departments you may reach, and your settings at the foot. It is your map of the studio — everything you can open is here, and nothing you cannot reach appears.

2

The centre and the right rail

The centre is always the page you are on. A right-hand rail carries the day’s context — your calendar, chat, the live feed — so the studio narrates itself beside your work.

The fastest way anywhere — type instead of click.

Hiding everything but the work in front of you.

Dark or light — a single control changes the whole application, with nothing to save or reload.

1

Light and dark, one toggle

Ofivio runs in either a light or a dark theme. It ships dark out of the box — easy on the eyes for long days at the desk — but every screen in this manual is shown in the light theme, for clarity.

2

One click switches everything

The sun-and-moon toggle at the top-right flips the entire application between light and dark at once — the desk, the dashboards, every page. There is nothing to save or reload, and your choice is remembered.

How the studio tells you something needs you — an approval, an assignment, a payment.

Leaving cleanly — where the way out lives, and what it does.

1

Open the workspace menu

Your preferences and the way out both live in the workspace menu at the foot of the rail. Open it and you find My Settings, Customise, and Sign out.

2

Sign out

Click Sign out. Your session ends cleanly on this device and you return to the sign-in screen. Nothing about the studio changes; you have simply closed the door behind you.