Who is Phase II Designs?
Phase II Designs is a full service Architecture and Interior Design Firm.
Many architectural firms stop short of thinking through the interior spaces and do not consider furniture/fixture layouts, views and applications of color/ texture when designing a building or space. Many interior design firms are limited by walls and structural members which are not within their realm to consider removing or adjusting. Phase II Designs has a diverse staff all with extensive experience and are able to provide full architectural and interior design services to residential and commercial clients. When designing architecture they intuitively think about the success of an interior layout and vice versa.
Their Culture
One of the notable characteristics of their firm is the longevity of staff. The newest member has been there for 6 years – the firm was started 25 years ago. Combined among 5 staff, they have 79 steadfast years with Phase II Designs. A very positive statement about their firm.
What they offer
What Phase II Designs offers is flexibility in the services they provide, tailoring their work to each customer’s individual needs. They offer a range of services from the design of ground-up new buildings and large scale renovations, to interior paint color & furniture selection. Clients are primarily in the PA/NJ/NY area but they have recently done projects in Florida and North Carolina. Many projects are residential, but they have done work for private schools, synagogues, professional offices, and universities. They are currently working on a local Co-gen project which is very exciting!
The small firm advantage: “We provide a vast quantity of knowledge, experience and design expertise with low overhead. We are able to provide personalized service to each of our clients and there is direct involvement of the Principal (Jay M. Leistner, AIA) in all phases of our projects. Our clients are often are impressed with creative and “outside of the box” solutions we propose in response to project goals and constraints. In addition to offering first-class services – we strive to make the design process both productive and enjoyable for our clients….. Working with Phase II Designs, the process often becomes downright FUN!”
Who they work with
In order to bring to life the dreams and inspirations of their clients, Phase II Designs works with a number of builders and other professionals including:
Keeping Current
In their ongoing quest to stay at the forefront of their industries trends and views, Phase II Designs looks to and participates in many professional organizations. Among them:
American Institute of Architects (AIA)
Society of American Registered Architects (SARA)
National Council of Architectural Registration boards (NCARB)
International Code Council (ICC)
Recent Press
The Philadelphia Inquirer “Repurposing an Empty Nest”
Internal Challenges
Prior to converting to their current accounting / project management software, Phase II Designs was using software that, while easy to learn and use, did not provide them with project management information or relevant reporting capabilities.
“The invoicing was not designed with our type of service-based business in mind, and most of the reports we needed to evaluate how we were doing and tracking project time and expenses were not available or customizable enough within the program. We therefore created our own customized reports in excel – but this required a lot time and redundant data entry. Time sheet analyses also required customized reports and manipulation of data in Excel”.
The Solution
Phase II Designs purchased an Accounting / Project Management software designed for the A/E industry. Along with this purchase came the services of Crestwood Consulting Services, a software implementation professional.
“All conversions are a struggle and a necessary inconvenience, but we felt very well supported by CCS and had continual improvement going thru the process”. “On a scale of 1-10 we rate Crestwood Consulting Services, LLC a 10”.
A few of the many benefits of their new software.
“With billing and time entry being so streamlined, this has enabled us to reduce our overhead with less need for administrative hours.”
“Our Principal does his own timesheets, and invoices can go out in less than a day (shortly after billing period ends). We are able to increase cash flow by invoicing every two weeks.”
“Management can quickly check status of projects seeing time/expenses attributed to projects including work-in-progress so they know exactly where each project stands. This was never possible before, because the process from time entry to report viewing was multi-step, involved various software applications and occurred once a month. By the time a manager could see the status of a project, it was often too late to react in a timely manner. We are able to react quickly to changes in a projects status allowing us to keep cost to a minimum and increase profits.”
