Running your architecture firm can feel like three extra full-time jobs. Bookkeeping, billing, budgeting, cash flow, and profit. It's a lot. If you find the right accounting software for your firm, you can simplify these workflows and focus on what you love.
So how do you choose? The right starting point is to pick tools designed for the size of your architecture firm. By simplifying workflows and surfacing financial insights, you can build a better business.
QuickBooks Online plus Monograph is the best setup for architecture firms of 5-50 people. QuickBooks Online keeps the general ledger, and Monograph handles practice management. QuickBooks Online Plus has progress invoicing but no phase budgets or phase-level cost tracking, and Intuit lists estimates-versus-actuals only on Advanced. Firms of 1-4 people can run a general ledger alone, and firms at 100+ or with multiple entities should price an A&E ERP such as Deltek Vantagepoint or Unanet. Each tool below is rated on phase budgets, progress billing, WIP reporting, QuickBooks Online sync, and starting price.
How the 10 tools compare on phase budgets, billing, WIP, QuickBooks Online sync, and price
Feature and price cells come from vendor documentation as of October 2026, and "Not documented" means the vendor's pages don't state the capability:
Ajera, BQE Core, Vantagepoint, Unanet and Sage Intacct are quote only, so you need a sales call before you can budget for them. Third-party estimates for the quote-only systems conflict by multiples, so treat them as directional ranges at best. Get a written vendor quote before you compare them with anything else.
How to choose: three setups by firm size
At many A&E firms, month-end means reconciling invoices a project manager built from a phase spreadsheet against QuickBooks Online. The two systems share no data, so every percent-complete adjustment becomes a manual journal entry. Which setup fixes that depends on headcount and on whether you need the general ledger to leave QuickBooks at all.
1-4 people: run a general ledger alone
A sole practitioner or a four-person studio can bill from the ledger itself. QuickBooks Online Simple Start at $38/mo as of October 2026 covers one billable user, and Plus at $140/mo adds progress invoicing and basic project profitability for five users.
When two projects reach Construction Documents in the same month, the limits become clear. None of these ledgers documents phase budgets, so you keep percent complete in a spreadsheet and re-key the result into each invoice. PSMJ's 2026 ERP guidance says most firms outgrow QuickBooks and Xero past 5-10 employees.
5-50 people: keep QuickBooks Online and add practice management
Keep the ledger in QuickBooks Online Plus or Advanced and put phase budgets and timesheets in a tool built around phases. Draft invoices there too. Your CPA keeps the chart of accounts they already know. Deltek Clarity's 47th study found 29% of A&E firms still use Excel as their primary accounting tool, which is the pattern you replace with this setup.
Phase-level billing detail has to survive the sync for this to work. A tool that pushes only a lump-sum invoice into QuickBooks leaves you rebuilding earned-versus-invoiced reports by hand. Monograph sends invoices, bills and expenses to QuickBooks Online and pulls costs back. Check that handoff in any tool you shortlist, and use our guide to A&E project accounting to compare the options.
100+ people or multiple entities: price an A&E ERP
Sage Intacct carries its own general ledger, and Unanet runs project accounting with QuickBooks offered only as a one-time migration, so either one replaces your QuickBooks file. Deltek positions Deltek Ajera, covered in #4, as its small-firm ledger. Vantagepoint can also run its Front Office alongside an existing ledger and sync with QuickBooks Online through Unionpoint. Vantagepoint documents six standard revenue methods, including percent complete times estimated compensation.
The cost is implementation time and fees, which no ERP vendor publishes. BCS ProSoft, a Deltek partner, estimates 4-9 months from kickoff to go-live for Vantagepoint. Price that against the headcount you'll have in three years before you sign a multi-year term.
1 - QuickBooks Online + Monograph
QuickBooks Online Plus covers progress invoicing and job costing. It also includes 40 classes. Advanced, at $340/mo for 25 users as of October 2026, adds estimates-versus-actuals. Intuit's June 26, 2026 pricing blog says Advanced also tracks cost by phase and supports milestone-based progressive billing for project-based firms.
Monograph sets budgets at the phase level. MoneyGantt™, Monograph's signature view, puts the phase timeline and budget-to-cash progression on one chart. When a phase has used 80% of its budget but is only 50% complete, MoneyGantt™ tells you it needs a staffing or scope correction now, before invoice time.
How the QuickBooks Online sync works
Monograph's support article on what syncs and what doesn't documents the direction of each record as of August 11, 2026:
- Invoices and consultant bills: Monograph pushes these to QuickBooks Online.
- Expenses: Monograph pushes these to QuickBooks Online.
- Costs: Imported from QuickBooks Online into Monograph.
- Clients and consultants: Synced in both directions.
- Payment status: Synced both ways on QBO Plus and Advanced only.
- Projects and time entries: Not synced.
- Payroll: Not synced.
- Invoices created in QuickBooks Online: Not imported into Monograph.
Time entries and projects stay in Monograph, and QuickBooks Online keeps the ledger your accountant already uses. At month-end, you review hours and phase progress in Monograph and draft your invoices there, because invoices created in QuickBooks Online don't come back into Monograph. Once invoices, consultant bills and expenses cross to QuickBooks Online, your accountant reconciles and closes the books there. Payment status returns to Monograph only on QBO Plus and Advanced, so firms on those tiers see collections in both systems.
What firms report after switching
Customer-reported results show how firms changed their billing workflows:
- Studio Core Architects: The five-person firm moved from a workflow built on Excel and Word, with manual QuickBooks entry, and cut invoicing time from several days a month to under a day.
- Luna Architecture + Design: The firm documents its Desktop-to-Online move from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online, the same move entry 2 describes.
- Garrison Architects: The firm reports a billing cycle twice as fast with Monograph.
- Reach and ROI: Monograph serves 16,000+ architects and engineers across 2,000+ firms, and its benchmark data shows an average +20x ROI.
- Rossmann Architecture: The Rossmann Architecture story provides another customer account.
Firms that switch to Monograph point to the interface first. They find it clearer and easier to navigate than the tools they left, and that's what the results above come down to. When project managers can find their phase budgets without hunting, they keep entering time and reviewing budgets instead of drifting back to spreadsheets. If you're weighing a switch, ask whether your team will actually open the tool every week, because the numbers only improve when the data stays current.
Pricing is annual, and as of October 2026 the pricing calculator shows $300-$375/mo for a five-person firm, about $60-$75 per user. Monograph's pricing page reports a 21% increase in revenue per full-time equivalent, or FTE, in year one. That gain in revenue per FTE is a customer-reported figure. Add QuickBooks Online Plus at $140/mo as of October 2026 for the ledger.
2 - QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise
Intuit still sells QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise to new US customers in Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond tiers. Its FAQ was updated August 3, 2026. Pro Plus and Premier Plus closed to new US subscribers in fall 2024. Mac Plus also closed, and existing subscribers can renew. Intuit's September 18, 2026 statement says the 2024 release has no sunset deadline.
- Best for: Firms already on Desktop that run payroll inside Enterprise, since Gold and Platinum include Enhanced Payroll.
- Where it falls short for A&E: Monograph does not support QuickBooks Desktop, and Intuit's Enterprise pages don't document phase budgets or WIP reporting.
- Pricing as of October 2026: Gold starts at $2,210/yr, and Platinum starts at $2,717/yr. Diamond starts at $5,363/yr on a monthly plan. Intuit's page lists no Silver price.
At that price, the Desktop line only makes sense if payroll is already running inside it.
3 - Xero
Xero is a cloud general ledger with unlimited users on every US plan. Projects, with time tracking and project costing, sits only in the Established plan.
- Best for: Firms of 1-4 that want unlimited users and basic project costing without a per-seat fee.
- Where it falls short for A&E: Xero's product forum said on June 15, 2026 that deposits are live but fuller progress-payment and instalment workflows are not yet covered. No phase budgets are documented, and Monograph has no Xero connection.
- Pricing as of October 2026: Early costs $27/mo, and Growing costs $59/mo. Established costs $97/mo, effective October 1, 2026, with 80% off for three months on base plans.
Budget for Established at $97/mo if you want Projects, because Early and Growing don't include it.
4 - Deltek Ajera
Deltek describes Ajera as designed for small A&E firms and ships it with its own general ledger for payables and receivables. It also includes payroll plus time and expense. Each phase carries labor and expense budgets, with a total cost budget as well. Billing types include Percent Complete and Percent of Construction. The WIP report shows contract amount and prior billed, with current WIP by phase.
- Best for: Firms ready to leave QuickBooks Online entirely and run the ledger inside the ERP.
- Where it falls short for A&E: No QuickBooks Online sync is documented, only a payroll time export.
- Pricing as of October 2026: Quote only.
Ajera's cost stays unknown until Deltek quotes it. Get a written quote that covers implementation before you compare it with QuickBooks Online plus a practice management tool.
5 - BQE Core
BQE Core's Accounting add-on has its own general ledger, and billing methods include Progress and Percent Complete.
- Best for: Firms of 5-50 wanting phase billing and WIP in one tool.
- Where it falls short for A&E: BQE says Core doesn't sync with QuickBooks Online in real time and recommends keeping QuickBooks for bank reconciliation and payroll. Its AIA-style templates aren't official AIA documents.
- Pricing as of October 2026: Quote only, per user per module.
Ask BQE to quote the Accounting add-on separately, because Core's own general ledger comes only with that module.
6 - Wave
Wave is a free general ledger with a $19/mo Pro tier that adds tags for project profitability. The Tag Comparison report compares income with expenses for up to seven tags and reports profit. You can request a deposit on an estimate with Pro. Partial and instalment payments on a single invoice are documented.
- Best for: Solo practitioners and firms of 1-4 billing hourly with no phase structure.
- Where it falls short for A&E: Wave's help center documents no time tracking, project budgets, job costing, progress billing, or classes, and Pro's discounted card fees apply only to the first 10 transactions each month.
- Pricing as of October 2026: Starter is free, and Pro is $19/mo or $190/yr. Payroll is $40/mo plus $6 per employee or contractor.
Wave Pro is the cheapest paid plan in this list, and it still leaves you tracking phase budgets in a spreadsheet.
7 - Deltek Vantagepoint
Deltek builds Vantagepoint for medium and large A&E firms. Vantagepoint converts WIP to invoices under rules set per contract type.
- Best for: Firms of 100+ or multi-office practices, including Vision customers, since Vision 7.6 moved to sustaining support in January 2026.
- Where it falls short for A&E: Deltek removed the QuickBooks Integrations utility in 2025.4, so a QBO connection now runs through Unionpoint with Professional Services or a partner.
- Pricing as of October 2026: Quote only. Vendr, a third-party marketplace, estimates $40,000-$120,000/yr for 20-50 users plus $30,000-$80,000 implementation, and Deltek has not published either figure.
Get Deltek's written quote, implementation included, before you budget against the Vendr range.
8 - Unanet A/E
Unanet tracks time and expenses at every level from project through phase to task. It tracks accounting at those levels too. The platform includes labor and expense budgets, plus estimate-to-complete. It also tracks earned value. Billing types include Cost Plus and Fixed Price. Non-billable and Time and Materials are also available.
- Best for: Firms of 100+, matching named customers such as ISG at 350+ staff.
- Where it falls short for A&E: QuickBooks is not among Unanet's connectors, only a one-time migration, and its documentation names no AIA-style invoices or retainers. The cloud agreement defaults to a three-year term and requires 60 days' notice. Seat additions have a five-user minimum.
- Pricing as of October 2026: Quote only.
Unanet's three-year default term holds you to that quote far longer than the monthly and annual plans above, so negotiate the term before you sign.
9 - Sage Intacct
Sage Intacct is a cloud financial system with project accounting that bills time and materials, fixed fees, milestones, or percentage completion, with retainer invoices. Revenue recognition is a separate module listed as ASC 606 compliant, and Automated WIP Relief arrived in May 2025.
- Best for: Firms of 100+ or any practice consolidating multiple legal entities.
- Where it falls short for A&E: No phase budgets are documented, and partner Rand Group says each additional entity needs its own license. Cargas reports an average 90-day implementation, and BPM says three to six months.
- Pricing as of October 2026: Quote only. Partner entry estimates conflict at $9,000 and $12,000. Another estimate puts the entry price at $13,200 per year, and all are unverified.
Ask for a written quote that prices every entity you run, because each additional entity needs its own license.
10 - FreshBooks
FreshBooks includes unlimited time tracking and project budget-and-billing on every plan. Client retainers start with Plus, while project profitability is available only on Premium and Select. Deposits can be flat or percentage-based. Payment schedules allow up to 12 payments.
- Best for: Firms of 1-4 billing simple hourly or flat-rate work with retainers.
- Where it falls short for A&E: FreshBooks documents project budgets but not phase budgets. Billable clients cap at 5 on Lite and 50 on Plus, and every extra team member costs $11/mo.
- Pricing as of October 2026: Lite costs $23/mo, and Plus costs $43/mo. Premium costs $70/mo, effective March 5, 2026, with 10% off annual plans.
Count your team before you pick a plan, because every extra team member adds $11/mo to the plan price.
Test phase-level billing against your own QuickBooks Online file
Spreadsheet phase budgets and a standalone invoicing app hide the relationship between hours worked and fee earned until the client pays. Monograph reduces double entry between the project side and the ledger, and you can see exactly which records cross the sync before you commit. Book a demo.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best accounting software for a small architecture firm?
QuickBooks Online on its own works for firms under five people. Pick Plus at $140/mo as of October 2026 rather than Essentials at $85/mo, because Essentials has no Projects feature and no progress invoicing. Firms of 5-50 should add Monograph on top of Plus so phase budgets and timesheets stop living in a spreadsheet.
Do I need both QuickBooks and a practice management tool?
At 5-50 people, yes. The only way around it is a tool with its own general ledger, and even BQE Core tells its customers to keep QuickBooks for bank reconciliation and financial reporting. Monograph sends invoices and bills into QuickBooks Online. It sends expenses too, so your accountant keeps working there.
Are ERP systems like Deltek worth it for architecture firms?
Yes, at 100+ staff or across multiple entities. A smaller firm takes on implementation fees no ERP vendor publishes and, on an ERP with its own ledger, gives up the QuickBooks Online file its CPA already uses.
How much should an architecture firm budget for accounting software?
A five-person firm pays $140/mo for QuickBooks Online Plus as of October 2026, plus a Monograph annual plan that the pricing calculator sizes by headcount. A 1-4 person firm can stay on QuickBooks Online Simple Start at $38/mo or Plus at $140/mo. As of October 2026, Wave Pro costs $19/mo, and FreshBooks Plus costs $43/mo. Xero Established costs $97/mo. Those prices exclude payroll and extra FreshBooks seats. ERP vendors publish no list price, so get a written quote that includes implementation.
