Guides / Design agreement
What the fee gate does
The gate is a habit, and Casework's job is to hold you to it. Here is exactly what the product enforces about an unpaid design fee and what it leaves to you.
What you need first
- A design agreement that has been approved and sent
Giving drawings away at a twenty percent close rate is four jobs of free design for every one you win. This page is what Casework actually does about that, in plain terms, so you never assume a lock that is not there.
Know what is not enforced
Casework does not lock the drawings, the elevations card or the take-off behind a paid fee. You can draw whenever you like. The waiting is your decision and your agreement says so in its own clause. What the product does is refuse to let the fee go quiet.
Watch the row that will not leave your inbox
The moment an agreement goes out, the job appears under Design fees in the inbox reading Chase the design fee, with the day it was sent. It stays there every day until you mark it paid. There is nothing to tick off and no way to mark it read.
- 1Chase the design fee, one row per unpaid fee
- 2How long it has been waiting
Let the link close itself
A design agreement link lasts seven days. If the client goes quiet it expires rather than sitting open on a page carrying their address, and the inbox tells you a few days out with a row reading that the agreement link is closing. Drafting it again mints a fresh one.
Let the credit follow the money
The proposal takes the design fee off the first payment only when the fee was marked paid. A fee that was invoiced and never received is not credited, because crediting it would take money off a contract you were never given.
Let the stage carry the answer
Deposit paid is a real stage on the rail, not a note. It is what the dashboard filters on and what the follow-up figures count, so "how many jobs have actually paid for drawings this quarter" is a number on your screen rather than a guess.
Change the fee in one place
The figure, the credit percentage and the clauses live on the Terms tab in Settings, and every agreement drafted after you change them carries the new wording. Documents already approved keep the terms they were approved with, because that is what the client agreed to.
What happens next
With the fee in, the drawings start. The Proposals section picks the job up at the take-off sheet, which is where the build price comes from.