Phase-shaped projects, milestone-based billing, change orders that work like change orders.
Design work doesn't fit a flat "hours on a project" model. A typical engagement has discovery, concept, design, revisions, and delivery — each with its own scope, its own approval gate, and sometimes its own billing. Tempough's project model has phases, milestones, and change orders as first-class concepts, so the structure of how design studios actually work matches the structure of how the tool tracks them.
A project breaks into phases (Discovery, Concept, Design, Revisions, Delivery). Each phase has its own start/end, its own hours budget, and its own status. Time entries roll up per phase so you can see whether Discovery is on track without filtering a giant list.
Milestones can be tied to invoice triggers — concept approved = 30% invoice, final delivery = remaining 70%. Mark the milestone complete and a draft invoice generates. No double-entry between project management and billing.
When the client asks for a 3rd round of revisions, log it as a change order on the project. Affects the budget, captured in the project history, and shows up in the margin report so a year of "small" change orders doesn't silently kill the engagement's profitability.
Email warnings at 80% and 100% of budget. Per-phase or per-project. Catches scope creep on a Tuesday instead of at end-of-month invoicing review.
Most design work is fixed-bid by phase or by project, not T&M. Tempough lets you bill fixed but still track internal cost (designer rate × hours logged), so the margin report tells you whether a fixed-bid engagement actually paid out.
Upload logo, set accent color, customize copy on outbound invoices. Client portal also accepts brand styling. White-label tier removes "Powered by Tempough" entirely.
Not the full feature list — the ones that map directly onto how design studios actually work.
Each phase has its own dates, budget, status. Time rolls up per phase.
Milestone completion auto-drafts an invoice. Configurable per project.
Logged on the project with scope/budget impact. Shows in margin reports.
Email warnings at thresholds. Per-phase or total. Catches creep early.
Track internal cost on fixed-bid work to see if it actually paid out.
Logo, accent, custom copy. Client portal also accepts brand styling.
Team Pro is the sweet spot for design studios — phases and milestones come standard at Team, but branded invoices (which matter when you ship things with a studio name on them) require Team Pro. Document distribution at Team Pro is also useful for the "send-and-track signed MSAs" workflow.
The audience-specific case for switching from Harvest.
Timer + invoices
Retainers + approvals
Utilization + margin
Forecasts + QBO
Billable hours + matters
Retainers + channel reports
Phase-gate work + change orders
Time billing + tax-season capacity
No credit card. Cancel any time. Full feature set during the trial.