Logiciel bureau d'études : affaires, honoraires, régie

I Who it’s for

A tool designed for technical design offices with 3–30 people, not large engineering firms or solo engineers just starting out.

Engineering firm tools fall into two disconnected worlds: design and calculation (AutoCAD, Revit, Robot, structural, thermal or HVAC software) on one side, and management (Excel for fees and workload, accounting tools for invoicing) on the other. Orizen doesn’t replace your technical software—it takes over everything that isn’t calculation: sales, phase-based projects, fees, workload planning, profitability. Four profiles keep coming up.

Associate engineer / engineering consultancy manager, 3–30 people

You respond to tenders, size projects, monitor affairs, and on Friday evenings, you manually recalculate where each project stands in terms of fees and time spent in a spreadsheet that barely keeps up.

All in Orizen: tender pipeline, phased projects, fixed-fee and time-and-materials billing, workload plan. The design office dashboard updates itself.

Design engineer / project manager

You manage multiple projects in parallel, each at a different stage (one in sizing, another in execution monitoring), with co-contractors, a project owner and a prescribing architect to keep informed. Information scatters between emails and calculation notes.

A project = its phases, subcontractors, deliverables and progress. You can see where each project stands at a glance.

Office manager / design office management

You issue progress invoices by copying figures from one spreadsheet to another, juggling fixed-price and time-and-materials projects while hoping you don’t make a mistake.

Fee notes are generated from phase progress or logged time, pro rata, with no re-entry. The Pennylane export is one click away.

Management — control & profitability

You know your revenue, but not your margin. A fixed-price project can be a technical triumph and a financial drain: no one truly compares the hours sold against the hours engineers actually spend.

Timesheet by project and phase, margin = fees − logged time. Finally know which projects make or lose money, and your engineers’ workload rates.

II The 3 engineering firm workflows unified

Tenders, phased projects, fixed-price and time-and-materials fees — all in one tool, seamlessly.

The visual breakdown below: the unique challenges facing engineering firms (tenders and specifiers, fixed-fee vs time-and-materials, spreadsheet-based workload planning, opaque project profitability), how Orizen addresses each, a typical use case for a 3–30-person firm, and a day in the life of an equipped engineering office.

What you experience daily

The unique challenges of technical engineering firms

Win tenders and consultations, choose between fixed price and time-based, plan engineers’ workload and know if each project is truly profitable—this is a management job in itself, on top of calculating and designing.

Opaque project profitability (fixed fee vs actual time)

Some of your business is fixed-price, but the actual time your engineers spend isn’t. Without time tracking per project, you don’t know which projects are profitable and which are losing you money.

Workload planning managed in spreadsheets

Who is assigned to which project this week and next month? Without a shared workload plan, you only discover overloads and gaps too late—and you bid on tenders without knowing if you’ll have the engineers to deliver.

Progress-based fee notes recalculated manually

With each payment request, you have to revisit the fee amount for the phase, the pro rata progress for the fixed-price contract, or the logged time for the time-and-materials contract. The spreadsheet is recalculated manually, with the risk of error that comes with it.

Tenders and joint venture project management to track

Consultations, public tenders, architect prescriptions: applications take days for modest success rates. And when you're in joint venture for project management, your engineering consultancy fee share still needs to be allocated among the parties.

Orizen for engineering firms

Everything you need, in one tool

Each module is designed to adapt to the specific needs of engineering and project management in design offices.

CRM for tenders & prescribers

Track your public and private tender bids, consultations and prescribers (architects, clients): submission deadlines, tender documents, technical memos, client details. Alerts notify you before each submission deadline.

Tenders Specifiers Deadlines

Project management by phase

Structure each project into phases (preliminary studies, sizing, calculation notes, plans and deliverables, tender documents, execution monitoring) with milestones, progress and deliverables. You always know which phase each project is in.

Phases Milestones Deliverables

Fee quotes: fixed price AND time-based

Create fee quotes as fixed price (amount per phase) or time-based (daily or hourly rate by role: engineer, drafter, project manager), or both within the same project. Billing follows fixed-price progress or logged time-based hours.

Fixed price Time-based By role

Progress-based fee notes

Generate fee notes from phase progress (fixed price) or logged time (time-based): when a phase reaches its completion percentage, the note is calculated pro rata. Deposits, interim bills and final balances follow the same logic. Pennylane export included.

Progress Deposits Pennylane

Timesheet by project → actual profitability

Each engineer and drafter logs their time per project and phase. Orizen compares sold hours to actual hours spent, calculates the true margin (fees − charged time) and shows you, project by project, which are profitable and which are overrunning.

Sold hours Actual hours Project margin

Workload planning, joint ventures & client portal

See who is staffed on which project to anticipate overloads and lulls. Declare your co-contractors and subcontractors with their share to track your net engineering consultancy margin. The client portal monitors progress, with contracts and agreements signed online.

Workload planning Joint venture PM e-Signature

Typical use case

Profile: technical design office, 3–30 people

Structural & MEP design office

3 to 30 people Fees: €200k to €4M France

Before Orizen: 4 tools, no visibility on true margin

Tenders tracked in one spreadsheet, workload planning in another, fixed-price and time-and-materials fees recalculated manually, fee notes edited in accounting software. Every month-end, the associate engineer spent half a day piecing together where each project stood — never truly knowing which were profitable or comparing sold hours to actual hours spent.

With Orizen: everything is centralised

Pipeline: tenders, projects by phase and workload in one tool Fixed-fee and time-based fees managed from a single screen Margin per project visible: hours sold − actual hours spent Export to Pennylane for accountants with zero re-entry

A typical day with Orizen

From tender to execution tracking, seamlessly

Here’s how a partner engineer organises their day with Orizen.

08:30 — Morning

Pipeline and workload review

In 5 minutes, she sees this week’s tenders to submit, project phases nearing billing deadlines, and each engineer’s workload. Orizen alerts her to a discount due in 3 days and an overbooked drafter next week—just enough time to rebalance.

10:00 – New case

Fixed price + time-based fee quote signed online

A developer approves the mission. She creates the project with its phases, draws up the fee quote—fixed fee for sizing, time-and-materials for execution monitoring—and sends it for e-signature. The client signs immediately, the project is open and ready for staffing.

14:00 — Project progress

Valid deliverable and progress-based fee note

On a project in the calculation notes phase, she validates the deliverable and updates the progress. The phase reaches a milestone: Orizen suggests the corresponding fee note, pro rata for fixed fee and based on logged time for time-and-materials. One click, and it’s issued—no manual recalculation.

17:30 — End of day

Up-to-date profitability dashboard

Without lifting a finger, the dashboard reflects the real-time situation: committed and invoiced fees, hours sold vs hours spent, margin per project, engineer utilisation rates. Before the team meeting, management can see at a glance which projects are on budget and which are overrunning.

III How it works

A design office equipped in a day, not six months.

Three clear milestones: commercial foundation + projects in phases Day 1, first progress-based fee note Week 1, and profitability and workload management Month 1.

Day 1 — The foundation

Pipeline, projects and phases in place.

Import tender pipeline, prescribers and clients
Ongoing projects created with their phases and fee amounts
First fixed-fee and time-and-materials quote issued and signed online

Week 1 — The fee cycle

First progress-based fee note

Time tracking by project for engineers and designers
First fee note generated from phase progress
Pennylane connector configured, Orizen onboarding call

Month 1 — Steering

Management and partners monitor margin and workload.

Real-time dashboard (fees, hours sold vs spent, margin)
Engineers’ workload planning and deadline alerts for submissions and billable phases
Profitability analysis per project and per phase, fixed-price and time-and-materials

IV FAQs

Answers to the questions we’re asked most often.

What are the specific management needs of a technical design office?

A BET (structural, MEP/CVC, thermal, civil engineering, environmental, acoustic, geotechnical) combines unique workflows: a commercial cycle of public and private tenders, consultations, and prescribers (architects, clients); projects structured in phases (preliminary studies, sizing, calculation notes, plans and deliverables, tender documents, execution monitoring); fees billed either as a fixed fee OR on a time-and-materials basis (actual hours); and profitability determined by the gap between sold hours and actual hours spent by engineers. A generic CRM ignores projects and workload planning, while design software (AutoCAD, Revit, Robot) does not handle project management. Orizen connects these workflows in a single tool.

Does Orizen handle both fixed-fee and time-based (actual hours) fees?

Yes, and it’s central. Each fee quote can be set as a fixed fee (global amount per phase) or time-based (daily or hourly rate per profile: engineer, designer, project manager), or even a mix of both within the same project. For time-based billing, invoicing relies on recorded time; for fixed fees, it follows phase progress. You manage both models from the same screen, without switching between spreadsheets for time-based and fixed fees.

How does Orizen calculate the actual profitability of a project?

A BET’s profitability depends on the gap between sold hours and actual hours spent. Each engineer and designer logs their time per project and phase; Orizen continuously compares fees (fixed or time-based) with the actual time consumed, and displays the margin per project and phase. You immediately spot fixed-fee projects that are overrunning and adjust your pricing for future tenders, instead of discovering this at year-end.

How do progress-based fee notes work?

Fee notes are generated based on project phase progress: when a phase (sizing, calculation notes, tender documents, etc.) reaches a completion percentage or is finished, Orizen produces the corresponding note pro rata, aligned with the phase’s fee amount for fixed fees or the recorded time for time-based fees. Down payments, interim statements, and final balances follow the same logic—no more manually recalculated spreadsheets for each payment request.

Does Orizen track tenders and project management joint ventures?

Yes. The pipeline is designed for BET cycles: public and private tenders, consultations, prescribers (architects, project owners), with submission deadlines, documents (DCE, technical reports) and the project owner. When you work as a subcontractor within a project management team, you declare your BET share of fees and your co-contractors or subcontractors, which allows you to track your net share and allocate billing correctly.

How much does Orizen cost for an engineering firm?

Orizen is billed per active user (engineers, designers, project managers, management). The pricing remains in the range of industry-specific software but natively includes CRM for tenders, phase-based project management, fixed-fee and time-and-materials quotes, timesheets, workload planning, fee notes and client portal—without needing to stack additional modules. For a BET of 3 to 30 people, it’s a single, clear subscription rather than four separate tools combined.

V Our conviction

A design office isn’t managed like an industrial SME.

A design office has three interdependent workflows: tender and consultation sales with prescribers, phased study projects, and fees billed as fixed or time-and-materials. For years, these had to be managed in three separate systems—with hours of recalculation for each payment request and a workload plan stuck in a separate spreadsheet.

Design and calculation software (AutoCAD, Revit, Robot, structural, thermal or HVAC tools) are irreplaceable for calculations and drawings, but they don’t handle your sales, projects or fees. Industrial ERPs, meanwhile, ignore phase-based project management, time-and-materials fees and progress-based fee notes. For a 3–30-person engineering firm, none truly fit.

We’ve seen too many engineering firms discover that a fixed-fee project was a sinkhole because no one compared sold hours to actual time spent, overloaded an already busy engineer due to a lack of shared workload planning, or invoiced a late phase because progress wasn’t up to date.

So we built Orizen for technical design offices with 3–30 people. All three workflows in one tool, integrated workload planning, up and running in a day, hosted in France. Because a design office that wants to work with peace of mind doesn’t have time for an IT project, but can no longer settle for a spreadsheet that hides its true margin.