Are you losing money (and sleep) over ordering mistakes? You’re not alone.
In this episode, Rebecca pulls back the curtain on the behind-the-scenes chaos that can come with managing orders — and she’s not afraid to admit the costly mistakes she made early in her career. From mismatched fabrics to budget blowouts, Rebecca reveals the biggest ordering pitfalls designers face and, more importantly, how to avoid them.
Here’s the kicker: You don’t need fancy software to get organized, but you do need a system. Whether you’re a solo designer or running a small team, you’ll learn how to set up scalable order tracking, when to outsource, what cross-check systems to implement, and how to protect both your profit and your peace of mind.
This episode is packed with practical advice you can implement right now to run a more organized, profitable, and stress-free design business.
episode highlights
- Rebecca’s $10,000 custom sofa mistake (and the lesson that stuck)
- The tools + software that make order tracking easier
- When outsourcing order management makes sense
- The simple system every designer should have — even if you’re just starting out
- How regular check-ins and documentation can save you thousands
- Bonus tips on bookkeeping, credit card setups, and staying tax-ready
Episode Resources
Read the Full Transcript ⬇️
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;29;05
Rebecca Hay
You cannot grow your business if you’re constantly putting out fires, panicking, dealing with missing orders or wrong items or budget oversight systems don’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to make it complicated, but you need something, and it needs to be consistent. All right. I’m Rebecca Hay, and I’ve built a successful interior design business by trial and error podcasts, online courses, and so many freaking books.
00;00;29;07 – 00;00;59;25
Rebecca Hay
Over the last decade, I’ve grown from an insecure student to having false starts to careers. And now I’m finally in the place where I want to be. Throughout my journey, it’s been pretty obvious that I’m passionate about business and helping other entrepreneurs do the same. Each week, I’ll share tangible takeaways from my own experience and the experiences of other badass women to help you build your confidence and change your business.
00;00;59;28 – 00;01;24;28
Rebecca Hay
Hey hey hey, it’s Rebecca and you are listening to Resilient by Design. Today we are talking about managing orders internally. This is a topic that I don’t believe I’ve really covered, at least not in any great depth on the podcast yet. So I feel like it is time. I actually ran into a designer at the Interior Design show in Toronto back in January.
00;01;25;00 – 00;01;42;07
Rebecca Hay
She said, I’ve got a bunch of topics, ideas that I would love for you to record for the podcast, and this was one of them. So if you’re listening and this is you, you know who you are. I would say that this is the tip of the iceberg. This is a big topic, and it’s something that I don’t want to overwhelm you with.
00;01;42;07 – 00;02;06;06
Rebecca Hay
But there are certain aspects that we need to talk about because while I was planning or preparing this episode and sort of taking notes on what to talk about, what became glaringly obvious to me is that the bulk of the mistakes that I’ve made in my business, I mean, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but a lot of the mistakes I’ve made have come from errors in the ordering process.
00;02;06;07 – 00;02;28;19
Rebecca Hay
I don’t realize the volume of mistakes, whether they were financial or they just made me look bad or what have you came from the errors that we have made. And so I feel like this is definitely a worthy topic. So today I’m going to dive into the behind the scenes of managing orders, tracking procurement, and keeping everything organized.
00;02;28;19 – 00;02;57;13
Rebecca Hay
When you are juggling vendors, clients, and potentially a growing team. Before we jump in, I’m going to share a story. All right, a story from my early days in the industry. So early, in fact, just before I even went out on my own and launched my own interior design firm. It’s actually a story that when I sit down to think about what were some of the biggest mistakes that I’ve made in ordering, this is top of mind.
00;02;57;13 – 00;03;18;00
Rebecca Hay
It’s still like the trauma of it is still there. And some of you maybe heard me share this story before, but there’s a reason I’m going to share it again. It was so impactful, and I honestly think about this any time that I’ve set up systems for a new project, any time I am tweaking my process, I think about this.
00;03;18;00 – 00;03;46;10
Rebecca Hay
So here’s the story. When I was working as a designer’s assistant here in Toronto, one of my main responsibilities was handling orders. We had incredible clients and we did a lot of incredible custom furniture. It was a real learning curve for me when I was first starting out, because coming out of design school, I worked for a home staging firm for a short time in Vancouver before I came to Toronto, and I started to work with a designer as his assistant.
00;03;46;10 – 00;04;09;08
Rebecca Hay
And it was a learning curve because I did not learn in school anything about really furniture. I’m not going to lie fabrics, let alone ordering them. And then custom like talk about a steep, steep learning curve. What did I do? I did my best to learn on the job, ask questions, and keep moving forward, but it was a fast pace.
00;04;09;09 – 00;04;27;26
Rebecca Hay
You guys know if you run a design project, there can be a lot of demands on your time and no one ever has enough time to get anything done. And I was juggling a lot like I was juggling all of that, plus the invoicing plus sourcing, plus pickups, plus plus, plus project management. Like, I was doing a lot of things.
00;04;27;26 – 00;04;51;11
Rebecca Hay
And so sometimes I would cut corners and this one particular story, it was a beautiful condo project in a very expensive neighborhood in Toronto, and we had this gorgeous custom sofa planned for the client’s study or their den. We were doing a lot of furniture for that house, but this one particular sofa and it was meant to anchor the entire space.
00;04;51;12 – 00;05;13;00
Rebecca Hay
It was a neutral gray classic style. I don’t even remember the style. I remember the fabric so well though, and you’ll find out why in a second. I hadn’t had that much experience with ordering fabrics. I had been doing it, but I was under a ton of pressure because we had multiple projects. And so even though I’d done it before, I was thinking, you know what?
00;05;13;01 – 00;05;41;15
Rebecca Hay
This project is not that big. I’ve done this a million times, and I was so eager to get this over into production because lead times were getting longer and longer, and the client was moving in. What did I do? I made a classic rookie mistake. I skipped the first and most important step when it comes to custom furniture, which is Bipoc facing placing a CSA for the fabric.
00;05;41;18 – 00;06;01;28
Rebecca Hay
For those who don’t know what a CFA is, it is cut for approval. They send you a cut of the fabric from the board that you’re going to order, because chances are you need like 15, 20 yards or more. And so there’s either a bolt or a couple of bolts, depending on how big that bolt of fabric would be.
00;06;02;00 – 00;06;27;27
Rebecca Hay
And they cut a piece of it off and they send it to you in the mail. The physical mail, so that you can confirm that fabric is the right dye lot for what you need. And when I say dye lot, I’m just breaking this down for those who are like, what is she talking about? Every run of fabric, even if it’s the same code, might be slightly different because the dye mixture could slightly vary.
00;06;28;00 – 00;06;51;17
Rebecca Hay
And so the idea is, especially with something like a neutral or a solid, you’re not always getting a fabric that matches that sample that you picked up in the showroom, which we refer to as memo samples in the industry. So I had the memo sample from credit, and what I had done is I cut a little square of that sample that we borrowed air quotes from the showroom, which we never returned.
00;06;51;19 – 00;07;10;15
Rebecca Hay
And I sent that in a purchase order to my supplier. So he’s like, okay, so he knows when he receives the fabric, this is what’s going to feel like this is it. This is the name of the fabric. But also like, this is the color and the texture and everything. But instead of taking the first step, which takes two weeks, I will tell you I typically place a cutting for approval.
00;07;10;15 – 00;07;28;01
Rebecca Hay
You usually wait two weeks till you get it in the mail because it’s like snail mail. Or maybe they express it, but still. And then once you receive that cut, you confirm, okay. Yep, I’m happy with this. You can go ahead and then you proceed with the order. I skipped the CFA. And so what that means is I went straight to ordering.
00;07;28;01 – 00;07;49;26
Rebecca Hay
I said that’s fine. Come on. Like, what can be off about it? It’s a frickin medium gray so far, right? Have you ever had that thought? You’re like, okay, fine, maybe I’ll wait. And like I’m sure and most here’s the thing. Most of the time when I would place a CFA, the sample would cover, the cutting would come, and it was exactly the same as the memo sample.
00;07;49;29 – 00;08;07;13
Rebecca Hay
So in my mind, as the newbie, I’m like, well, this is silly. What a waste of time. We don’t have two weeks to spare. I was getting pressure from my boss, pressure from everybody, pressure from the clients, the contractors. Like, let’s get everything ordered and done. And let’s be honest, probably lot of pressure for myself. Just trying to check one more thing, one more box off the list.
00;08;07;16 – 00;08;25;22
Rebecca Hay
Just want to get the order done so I can move on to the next thing. I was like, well, all the other times I’ve done this, the fabrics been exactly the same as a sample. Like, what are the chances that there will be a variance? Oh well, joke’s on me. So I ordered the fabric. That was my first red flag.
00;08;25;23 – 00;08;43;06
Rebecca Hay
I shouldn’t have done that. I should have followed the regular process. Second mistake I made. Because you can’t just make one mistake, right? I got a phone call from my supplier, and he said, hey, Rebecca, I just wanna let you know I received the fabric that you ordered for the sofa. And it’s not exactly the same color as the sample you sent me.
00;08;43;09 – 00;09;04;00
Rebecca Hay
And I will never forget this conversation. Gerard. Love him. He’s retired now. Oh, I wish he hadn’t retired. But anyhow, he’s amazing. And I remember thinking or saying out loud. Gerard, is it gray? And I was like, well, yeah, it’s gray, but like, it’s a slightly different tone. Like it’s a little bit purpley pinky. And I said, if it’s gray, it’s fine.
00;09;04;00 – 00;09;22;25
Rebecca Hay
Gray is gray. Just make the sofa. He’s like, okay, I just wanted to confirm because, you know, it’s my job to let you know if it doesn’t match now. Good thing I had sent him that memo, right. Because otherwise, if he didn’t know what what he was matching it to, he would have just done it. But it doesn’t matter anyways because I ignored him.
00;09;22;27 – 00;09;56;07
Rebecca Hay
Because I was so anxious to keep moving. So he had my back and I brushed it off. Fast forward three months to delivery day. The sofa arrives and guess what? It wasn’t exactly the gray we expected. It had a very distinct purple undertone that completely clashed with everything else. With the carpet that we brought in, the Turkish rugby brought in from LG with the sofa, custom pillows that we had made with the drapery, like literally everything was off.
00;09;56;10 – 00;10;20;20
Rebecca Hay
I looked at my boss, he looked at me and we were horrified. What can we do? We had the carpet company bring a bunch of other carpets that we could see. We flipped out the pillows. We did everything we could because otherwise we would have had to eat. He would have. And I may have lost my job. A $10,000, a brand new custom sofa, not to mention any ripple effect if we’d have to replace other things.
00;10;20;23 – 00;10;42;00
Rebecca Hay
And not to mention that we would have added three months to this timeline, it would have destroyed the project. We got lucky, we made it work. But the heart palpitations that I can still feel from that day have never left. Oh, we dodged a bullet, but only by the skin of our teeth, and it required a ton of last minute scrambling.
00;10;42;00 – 00;11;03;07
Rebecca Hay
And you know what? That is just one example. Over the last decade, I can tell you that most of the biggest, costliest mistakes in my business have come from issues in the ordering process, hardware arriving the wrong finish because we didn’t verify lighting that is way too small for the space, because I didn’t look at the dimensions in the CAD plan.
00;11;03;10 – 00;11;29;15
Rebecca Hay
Duplicate chandelier showing up when we only needed one because someone missed the fine print. The list literally goes on, and the common thread on almost all of these mistakes is that the cross checks didn’t happen. And here’s the thing it doesn’t matter if you’re using old school Excel spreadsheets or the fanciest procurement software on the market. If you don’t have the right systems for verification, mistakes are going to happen.
00;11;29;17 – 00;11;56;18
Rebecca Hay
So today I’m going to share what I’ve learned the hard way about managing orders internally, and the tools that can help when it makes sense to outsource, and maybe when it makes sense to do it in-house, to do it yourself, and most importantly, how to create those critical cross-check systems that prevent expensive mistakes. So let’s start with software, because that is probably one of the biggest questions I get is what software do you use to track orders?
00;11;56;21 – 00;12;21;07
Rebecca Hay
The software that I have used for over a decade is design docs. However, they have been purchased by Studio Designer and I understand that they are folding it into studio designer. So I’m not telling you to run out and get design docs, but there are lots of programs like that, like program design files, like my domain, like Studio Designer.
00;12;21;07 – 00;12;47;23
Rebecca Hay
There is a laundry list of programs, but we start with tools. I want to make sure you understand you don’t need the fancy software and systems. You can track orders using spreadsheets and many designers do. But what I found is it did get a little messy. If you don’t stay on top of the input and stay on top of who’s doing what, here’s what you need in a system.
00;12;47;23 – 00;13;09;26
Rebecca Hay
So as you go out into the world and you’re looking for the best system for you, some of you are already aware of this and some of you are just starting out. So here are some of the things that I recommend a software or program include. And if it’s not a program you need to be doing with your QuickBooks and spreadsheets, purchase orders POS, you need to have a system that can generate purchase orders.
00;13;09;26 – 00;13;30;24
Rebecca Hay
You cannot skip this vendor tracking, so you can track where orders are at what time, and one that can have a library of your vendors. You don’t have to reenter the information every time. Shipping and delivery status. So something where you can go in and you can toggle something to find out the status of where is something at once you’ve placed an order that is a big one.
00;13;30;24 – 00;13;47;01
Rebecca Hay
I get a lot of designers asking like, oh my gosh, how do I track all this? Where do what? How do I know where everything is? I just have this robust spreadsheet. But like, if I wasn’t updating it, I didn’t trust it. That’s why I do like a program, honestly. And I did love design docs for this project based budgets.
00;13;47;03 – 00;14;04;23
Rebecca Hay
Some programs now will allow you to build up the budget. And I can tell you, once we started doing that, oh, we could see the variance very quickly. It was really wonderful. We could also start to see where we were constantly under budgeting for things, or maybe over budgeting though that’s pretty rare. And then invoicing. I think that goes without saying.
00;14;04;23 – 00;14;24;21
Rebecca Hay
A system that can create invoices for you and one that can track your margin or your markup because you want to make sure that the program you’re using is going to show you what your cost is versus the retail or what you’re charging your client and a platform. And there’s no ad for this. I do not have an affiliate for this program, but of course I’m open if they want to reach out to me.
00;14;24;24 – 00;14;47;10
Rebecca Hay
But one platform that’s getting a lot of popularity among design studios right now is called programa. It’s visual. It’s modern. And it’s specifically built for interior designers, which means it understands our workflow. What I love about it is that it does integrate the design process with procurement. Everything’s in one place. You want to go check that out, but there are other great options depending on those specific needs.
00;14;47;10 – 00;15;05;07
Rebecca Hay
As you know, design docs was the one that I used for over a decade. I still have it, but I am now having to download all of my data from a decade because I haven’t been downloading all the invoices every year. And this is just a sidebar for those of you who are thinking, okay, I’m just going to get a program and everything, go live in there.
00;15;05;10 – 00;15;25;09
Rebecca Hay
What happens the day that that program no longer exists? You need seven years of back data for the CRA and whoever it is that you’re filing your taxes to. Now, I have to go in and pull that out of the program, because I won’t have that program in three years from now. It won’t exist, and I’m not gonna be able to go in and pull that data.
00;15;25;09 – 00;15;42;15
Rebecca Hay
So that’s something to consider to get in a cadence. And that’s not I didn’t have this as a part of the podcast. I wasn’t going to share this, but it just got me thinking, you want to make sure on a monthly basis, like you are also downloading and saving to a Google Drive or hard drive, a printed copy of invoices, vendor invoices, but also the ones you send to clients.
00;15;42;22 – 00;16;01;17
Rebecca Hay
Okay, there’s studio designer. As I mentioned before, it’s been around probably the longest. I would say it’s probably the most comprehensive, so it can be overwhelming for someone just starting out. You can also look into I’ve again, there is a long list of lots of programs. You want to test them out a little bit, find what works for you, and then move on.
00;16;01;19 – 00;16;17;10
Rebecca Hay
The biggest mistake that I made in the early years was constantly thinking the grass is greener. So I had design docs, but then I would get frustrated with it. So then I would like, okay, well let’s try this other one and I would sign up for a free thing and I would start a project in there. And then I realized, oh shoot, that doesn’t have this thing.
00;16;17;10 – 00;16;34;07
Rebecca Hay
Okay, let’s go back to design docs. Oh, what about studio design? And I was like, get on the phone. And I would be talking to designers about, how are you? Do you like Ivy has been purchased by House. What does that mean? Look, it was so time consuming mentally that I recommend just get a program that works and just so nice is better the devil you know and just go.
00;16;34;12 – 00;16;57;10
Rebecca Hay
But I would also say invest in a system or a program before you absolutely need it. Because by the time you’re drowning in orders, you are not going to have the time or the capacity to implement a new software. I literally started my business and with my very first project I used design docs. Was it expensive for me?
00;16;57;12 – 00;17;22;27
Rebecca Hay
Heck yes. Was it worth it 1,000%? Organizing your orders and placing those orders in an organized fashion so that you can grow and scale? And I do believe part of my ability to scale so quickly in under five years, like in under five years, we were doing like seven figures in revenue, but I could only manage all that volume because we already were using a program.
00;17;23;00 – 00;17;43;23
Rebecca Hay
I want to talk about outsourcing. So outsourcing is another area where designers are always asking like, maybe, can I just outsource this? I don’t want to do this. This is so annoying. I hate admin, I hate that entry, hate tracking orders. Like, oh, it’s like a suck of my brainpower, I can relate. So my answer to your question is yes.
00;17;43;25 – 00;18;09;10
Rebecca Hay
If you’re scaling, you’re finding yourself spending too much time in the weeds of order management. You can outsource. The benefits are super clear, right? It’s going to free up your time to focus on what you’re best at design, working with your clients, building those relationships also is going to keep you organized. It is going to bring consistency to tracking all of the products that you are reselling, and communication with your vendors and clients.
00;18;09;13 – 00;18;34;01
Rebecca Hay
It also helps keep vendors accountable, right? So when you have a dedicated person following up, it’s actually so much better than doing it yourself. There is something about having you as like, it’s like you’re behind the barracks in a way, right? Like that person who you’ve outsourced it to, whether it’s a third party company or an administrative assistant, they are the buffer between you and your client and between you and your vendor.
00;18;34;07 – 00;18;57;07
Rebecca Hay
And oftentimes what I find is you will get paid faster and your vendors will respond quicker. I don’t know why. It’s just is okay. Who might you hire? So there are a few options you could technically hire someone who that is their specialty, like a free freelance procurement specialist who works with multiple design firms. I have a designer friend who did that for years.
00;18;57;12 – 00;19;18;26
Rebecca Hay
She had somebody who managed her QuickBooks and her design docs and placed all of her orders, and she did it for a few other designers, and that was her specialty. And she did a great job until she retired. And then she was no more. You could if it’s not a specialist who only does that. You could find a virtual assistant, someone who has training in interior design, project management.
00;19;18;29 – 00;19;47;20
Rebecca Hay
They don’t have to be a designer. This is not a role for a designer. When I was first starting out, I tried to get my junior designers to do the ordering for like a few years. It was like year three when I realized this isn’t working. A designer like myself is not trained and skilled at managing these Excel spreadsheets at the order, tracking at the follow up, at being so diligently organized like they want to be creative.
00;19;47;23 – 00;20;09;24
Rebecca Hay
And so what I found was that was when the most of the mistakes were happening in my business, because I didn’t have the right people in the right seats. It wasn’t until I brought on like an operations manager, administrative assistant who that was their specialty. Did ease and flow come to my business so you could bring in a virtual assistant, someone who could do it remotely, or you could bring someone in person, full or part time.
00;20;09;24 – 00;20;28;03
Rebecca Hay
They don’t have to be full time. I can tell you none of your first hires really need to be full time a studio coordinator. Or you could call them an operations manager. Really, it’s just an administrative assistant or I mean, there’s all kinds of fancy titles. You can call the person whatever you want. It could be ordering specialist procurement, whatever.
00;20;28;09 – 00;20;53;08
Rebecca Hay
Ideally, you want to find someone who is not a designer, but maybe like likes, the design space is open to learning, obviously, and who is super organized. Ideally someone who’s been in the industry ordering before or in an industry ordering managing vendors like that is the skill set you need. You need someone who’s going to follow up, who’s going to pick up that frickin telephone right?
00;20;53;11 – 00;21;33;16
Rebecca Hay
And you need someone who’s going to stay on top of whether it’s your Excel spreadsheet or your program. So when I made this transition, I would say about like seven years ago, it was transformative. Instead of spending like 15 to 20 hours a week on procurement tasks myself or overseeing a junior designer do it with me. I mean, I moved to spending maybe two hours a week in just oversight meetings, having a having an order tracking meeting once a week that is 15 plus hours that I was able to then dedicate to other things like this podcast, like the design work, like the client meetings, right?
00;21;33;17 – 00;21;57;04
Rebecca Hay
Or the business development. I’m going to share. But and this is a big but, you can’t just hand over chaos and expect organization in return. You still need to have systems in place before you outsource. I mean, this is what I learned. I just thought someone was going to swoop in here with a superwoman cape or Superman cape and just be like, I got this, Rebecca.
00;21;57;06 – 00;22;19;04
Rebecca Hay
Now those people exist. I didn’t have them. I couldn’t find them. Your procurement person, your ordering person should be implementing and improving your system, right? Not creating one from scratch, ideally while also trying to manage the orders. However, if you don’t have process in your business and you don’t have an ordering system, they can help you develop it.
00;22;19;04 – 00;22;39;13
Rebecca Hay
It’s just going to take a little bit of time, and you want to make sure that nothing gets missed when they’re actually placing the orders. Always maintain visibility with this hire. So you have regular check ins like in my studio, we have weekly order tracking meetings where the lead designer and the admin would meet. Initially it was with me for a long time, and then I was able to remove myself from these meetings.
00;22;39;20 – 00;22;58;26
Rebecca Hay
But we would meet either on zoom or in person and review one project at a time. What is the status of everything that’s been ordered? Ideally, the admin trader would prep all of that, so all the statuses were up to date ahead of that meeting. So all it was was the designer answering questions like, yes, it’s this finish.
00;22;58;26 – 00;23;13;25
Rebecca Hay
No, we can’t delay that. What if it’s back ordered okay I’ll reselect. You know, all of those things. Wait, I noticed you haven’t ordered the lighting yet. What’s going on with that? Like, where are we at with this blah blah blah blah blah. And that way you can discuss any issues and make sure nothing falls through the cracks, through the cracks.
00;23;13;25 – 00;23;41;06
Rebecca Hay
I highly recommend a weekly order tracking status meeting. It will be a game changer. And at the beginning, even if it’s just you. Like I know some of you listening do not have a team are not ready to hire, so it could just be you. But get that in your calendar. Get that as a repeat event where like let’s say every Thursday morning you’re going to sit down and you’re going to go through all the orders and check in on anything, do any follow ups you need and update your tracking sheet, whether it’s a spreadsheet or you’re using it inside a software.
00;23;41;11 – 00;23;58;21
Rebecca Hay
Oh, okay. It’s a good one, guys. Oh, I realized how much more information there is. We’re going to like we’re going to just focus on these key areas and we’ll come back for more. Don’t worry. More. So feeling like I need like a bonus in power process when as it pertains to this, I don’t really go into the detail of it.
00;23;58;21 – 00;24;32;18
Rebecca Hay
I feel like it could be useful. Anyhow, that’s a sidebar. Okay, let’s talk about accuracy, especially when there’s multiple people involved. You heard me mentioned earlier that a lot of the mistakes that I made were from missing those cross checks and not having that accuracy. That is what I spent a lot of time on. Behind the scenes bettering is our practices for ordering who does what and then who does the other, and then what, and then who sends it to what, and building out our robust step by step system so that we can avoid all these mistakes.
00;24;32;24 – 00;24;56;14
Rebecca Hay
This is truly where the rubber meets the road. How do you make sure mistakes don’t happen when multiple people are involved in the ordering process? So first you need a shared system that everyone uses constantly. So it could be a master tracker that’s linked to each project. It could be in Excel, it could be in a program. You need a unique purchase order numbers for every single order.
00;24;56;17 – 00;25;13;21
Rebecca Hay
Yes. You need to create a purchase order. If you don’t know what that is, send me a DM. I’m going to figure out how to teach everyone about the basics of this stuff, because I didn’t know this shit when I started. I was like, appeal. What? What is QuickBooks like? I literally knew nothing, guys. I literally knew nothing.
00;25;13;25 – 00;25;29;27
Rebecca Hay
I mean, I went to school for political science and English cultural studies. I went, I taught Spanish in Spain. I was an actress. Then I went to school for interior design. They did not teach any of this, by the way. None of the ordering. Then I was thrown into, okay, can you call in and place the order for all the stuff?
00;25;29;27 – 00;25;46;17
Rebecca Hay
And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, how do I even who do I call? I have to do it on the phone. Do I have to wear where’s the log in? Like, oh my god, like tacos. Deep learning curve. But I think back to that time when I first started working as a designer’s assistant like, Holy heck, no wonder I was stressed all the time.
00;25;46;20 – 00;26;07;04
Rebecca Hay
Yikes. Back to pose. You need to use a purchase order for every order you place, even if your vendor does not ask for one. And this can get tricky because you want to move fast. And let’s say you’re ordering furniture from an online source where you don’t need to send them a physical purchase order. Just go online, right?
00;26;07;04 – 00;26;36;07
Rebecca Hay
Enter the credit card details. Boom! I ordered it from Amazon. Boom. Wayfair, boom, crate and barrel boom. I don’t know McGee and co like whoever you’re ordering from. Boom boom boom, quick and easy. Great. The purchase order is your first step to checking for any errors or mistakes. That is like your holy grail. Once you finalize what you’re going to order, you need to create a purchase order so that the person, especially if there’s somebody else helping you, references that before they order it.
00;26;36;14 – 00;27;03;16
Rebecca Hay
And what we do in our firm is the purchase order is created by the admin, and then the senior designer or the project lead or myself has to go through it for accuracy before an order is placed. What does this do? It does slow down your ordering process, but it’s going to result in more accuracy. Another way to make sure mistakes don’t happen is in this shared system that you’re going to establish, you need clear status updates.
00;27;03;16 – 00;27;28;20
Rebecca Hay
So what are your tags or your dropdown options that you will have? It could be something as simple as ordered, shipped, received. You could throw in damaged, returned. I mean the list goes on for us. It would often be ordered and we’d put the date there was ordered shipped and a date if we have one received. And then we had one which was at MIT.
00;27;28;20 – 00;27;49;22
Rebecca Hay
Men like held at mcmenamins our receiver. So we know that it’s been received, but only at the receiver. It’s not at the client’s house. So then we would have another tag which was like on site and we would say the date that arrived on site. And even I think I don’t know if we did this, but it would be a good idea to say who received it or who inspected it on site, because you know how these things go, especially with long projects.
00;27;49;26 – 00;28;23;23
Rebecca Hay
Okay, so then you need to define your roles, but you need a shared system in a shared process. What do we do? Definitely do purchase orders. Then you need to define the roles. So in my studio we have explicit documentation of who places the orders, who confirms with the vendors, who reviews the purchase orders for accuracy, who updates the tracker, who receives and inspects deliveries, and what is the process for that fine little tip is we have little stickers, and then we put the sticker on the box and the person signs it and dates it.
00;28;23;25 – 00;28;45;24
Rebecca Hay
Who inspects it? You could get a stamp too, and like, do fun things like that. I like fun stuff like that. I love the organization. So one practice that’s been game changing for me is implementing that weekly order status check in every Thursday, the admin will present, as I mentioned to the project, lead the order status like the update.
00;28;45;24 – 00;29;00;09
Rebecca Hay
So they’ve spent the entire week making sure everything is up to date, ideally in a perfect world, and then they would review it together. I think it’s important to review it together versus sending it to someone, because then you can address any questions that come up and that’s really important. I think that doing it on zoom works too.
00;29;00;09 – 00;29;25;04
Rebecca Hay
You could do it on zoom or in person, but most importantly, you need to document everything. So every client approves selection, every change. If there’s a change order, every conversation with a vendor, keep a written copy, a digital copy of all the invoices, the receipts organized by project. And this is what I said. I didn’t do very well and now I’m having to pull things out of my program, keep things organized, and I cannot stress this enough.
00;29;25;04 – 00;29;44;02
Rebecca Hay
The time that you spent on documentation is going to save you tenfold in preventing mistakes and resolving issues when they do arise. Okay, the very last tip I’m going to share here, but as I know I’m covering a lot of ground today, I’m realizing as I was sharing this, it’s one thing to type it all up and have it in my Google doc and I’ve got my bullet points.
00;29;44;02 – 00;30;09;17
Rebecca Hay
Here’s what I want to talk about. But then once I start talking it through, I’m like, oh yeah, this is a big area. Like, I’m so glad that I’m finally starting to talk about this on the podcast. If you guys are liking this, by the way, can you let me know? Because I there’s so much more gold where this came from because I spent a lot of hours, hundreds and hundreds of hours over the last nine years, probably really leaning into bettering these processes.
00;30;09;20 – 00;30;29;25
Rebecca Hay
Okay. Bookkeeper. Accountant, should your bookkeeper reconcile all the purchases on the company credit card? And first of all, I did an episode a while back. I don’t know where it is of the things you need to start a design business. One of them is get yourself a business bank account and a business credit card. Don’t do it through your personal.
00;30;29;25 – 00;30;46;11
Rebecca Hay
Keep it separate. It’s going to make everything so much easier. But the short answer is yes. You need a bookkeeper to be reconciling, which is like matching the transactions that you’re doing, the purchases you’re making with your bank statement or your credit card statement, your bookkeeper. And if you don’t have one yet, this is what you can do.
00;30;46;11 – 00;31;01;15
Rebecca Hay
I’m just gonna walk you through. It’s literally I think it’s like for me, double check. It’s just four bullet points that you need to do on a monthly basis. I prefer if you have a bookkeeper doing this, but if you don’t have one yet and you can do it yourself because maybe you’re just starting out or you have a small project that absolutely you could do this yourself.
00;31;01;17 – 00;31;24;26
Rebecca Hay
You need to review each charge on your statement. You need to match it to the order. You need to categorize it correctly. Right. So let me just give you an example. So you’re reviewing the charge. So let’s say the charge is universal lighting on my credit card. Charge me $3,500. I need to match that $3,500 to the purchases I made.
00;31;24;29 – 00;31;47;16
Rebecca Hay
Okay. That was purchase order for purchase order seven and purchase Order eight, or purchase Order one or whatever it is for these five lights. Yep, that’s the correct amount. That’s for Project Withrow and I’m going to categorize it as a cost of goods. It’s not an expense. It’s not like paper for the printer. But if you’re going through your statement and you see office supplies, that’s the category, right.
00;31;47;16 – 00;32;06;10
Rebecca Hay
So categorize things and then ensure that it’s assigned to the right project. So if you are going to be billing you want to make sure that everything is going through the right project. A bookkeeper can do this for you. So I don’t want you to like get too stressed out about doing all of this. It just this does more than just protect your business financially.
00;32;06;12 – 00;32;34;23
Rebecca Hay
It’s going to keep you tax ready as well. So that is the goal so that you’re not blindsided come tax time. It’s going to help you understand your actual profit margins as well. I’ll tell you a quick story. So a few years ago we had a project. We were consistent running tight on margin. When we did a deep dive into the finances, we discovered that nearly $8,000 in small purchases hadn’t been properly billed back to the client because they weren’t properly tracked and reconciled.
00;32;34;26 – 00;32;52;07
Rebecca Hay
That was profit. We were leaving on the table. When you have an accountant or a bookkeeper who understands the design industry is a huge advantage, they’re going to understand things like vendor deposits, client retainers, how to properly account for the markup. And then one last tip is to keep I said this before. I’m going to say it again.
00;32;52;07 – 00;33;10;15
Rebecca Hay
Keep separate business card exclusively for purchases. Never mix it with your personal expenses. If you’re just starting out, you’re doing it. It’s okay. I did it too. But once I finally got myself a business credit card and I can tell you it was like very low limit. It was a bit of a joke, but it was something, right?
00;33;10;15 – 00;33;39;06
Rebecca Hay
And then eventually they’ll increase your limit. It’s going to make reconciling so much easier. And come tax time, everything’s gonna be a lot easier to. All right. Whoa. That was a doozy. Guys, I want you to audit your current order tracking system. Do you have one? Is it scalable or is it chaotic? And be honest with yourself. And then if you want to test drive a tool like programmer or studio designer, you know, before you commit to like fully using it, maybe test drive it with a single small project, see how you like it.
00;33;39;09 – 00;34;01;28
Rebecca Hay
And then as you start to develop a process for ordering, document it step by step, document it. That is how you’re going to be able to scale and and more than scale really, because I know not everybody here wants to scale. You’re going to clear up mental bandwidth instead of always stressing like I used to wake up in the middle of the night, did we order that?
00;34;02;01 – 00;34;27;07
Rebecca Hay
Whatever the drug shoot, I know it’s going to be like coming from Indian is like six months. Oh, the moment it’s like that that you have are going to disappear. Remember, you cannot grow your business if you’re constantly putting out fires, panicking, dealing with missing orders or wrong items or budget oversight. Systems don’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to make it complicated, but you need something and it needs to be consistent.
00;34;27;07 – 00;34;49;11
Rebecca Hay
So whether you’re working alone or you’re starting to scale a team, having clear order tracking is going to protect your profit and your peace of mind. So start small, refine often, and don’t be afraid to bring in helping you need it, even when you’re a little bit worried that maybe I can’t afford it. Just try it. Do a three month trial with someone.
00;34;49;11 – 00;35;11;02
Rebecca Hay
Bring them in, see if they can help you. It really is a game changer because the right systems and people will pay for themselves. Many times over once it gets chugging along and it’s a well-oiled machine. Before we sign off, I wanted to invite you to my free workshop. So I’m hosting a free workshop. Three mistakes standing between you and the Design Business of your Dreams.
00;35;11;04 – 00;35;41;29
Rebecca Hay
The workshop shares that you need these systems, right? You need to fine tune business practices so that you can book clients who value your expertise, give you creative freedom. In the workshop, I’m going to pull back the curtain, just like I do in this podcast, to reveal the exact process that I used. I followed to go from being totally underpaid, stressed, and chaotic to booking better projects where I was compensated properly for my time and feeling a lot more well rested.
00;35;41;29 – 00;36;07;07
Rebecca Hay
I’m going to show you the mistakes that could be blocking you from booking those dream clients. The exact proposal process, the step by step that you can use to stand out as a professional to eliminate the doubt and make those clients super eager to invest in you and how you can land better projects by positioning your value. The right way, so that you can start using the ordering practices that I talked about today.
00;36;07;07 – 00;36;33;00
Rebecca Hay
Because you’re going to be ordering a lot of things, making a lot of money because you’re bringing in the right projects. So this is really a workshop for designers who are just getting started. Or maybe you’re a few years in and you’re just tired of client requests blowing up your phone, right? Sleepless nights, feeling disorganized, and feeling like maybe you’re caught in that loop of clients that aren’t truly valuing your expertise.
00;36;33;02 – 00;36;51;07
Rebecca Hay
So head on over to Rebecca Hecht. Com forward slash workshop to register. There are three days to choose from. Just pick the date that works best for you. They’re happening now, so go check it out. I really do want to get you feeling empowered with those practical fixes that you could implement right away. That’s it for today’s episode.
00;36;51;07 – 00;37;13;14
Rebecca Hay
If you found this helpful, please take a moment to rate and review the podcast. Truthfully, it does help other designers find us. And then of course, if this was useful this particular episode, please share it with a friend. I’m sure there is a designer out there who is struggling with ordering, doesn’t know where to start, feels frustrated. Maybe they’re making mistakes and they’re like, there has to be a better way.
00;37;13;18 – 00;37;42;23
Rebecca Hay
Send them this episode with love from you. I will see you soon.
