There’s a distinct problem with construction administration. The CA process and almost everything it involves is wholly necessary, yet it’s so difficult to price and manage that it can leech off your project and devour its profitability.

And that causes further challenges. Fees get front-loaded during design. The projects that don’t make it to construction throw off your whole financial model. And even when everything goes to plan, CA can still turn into a margin sink, full of inefficiencies, duplicated efforts, and manual tasks that go unseen and unbilled.

So why is CA such a problem for firms, and how are the best ones fixing it? 

Let’s take a look. 

Why construction admin is so hard to price (and why it’s costing you)

The biggest disadvantage that design firms face is being forced to estimate costs before they have the whole picture. You’re asked to plan out the final phase of a project before you’ve even designed the structure, long before you know who the main contractor will be, what the economic climate will look like at the time, or even how many consultants will be involved.

Most firms handle this disadvantage by front-loading their CA fees. They load the design and pre-construction phases with higher billing amounts to hedge against the ever-present risk of running out of total hours. And for good reason: fees for CA can range anywhere from 15% to 30%+ of your project’s total. But you don’t always know that in advance, and trying to fix the problem with hourly billing can lead to client pushback and unfavorable negotiations.

The result is often a phase of work that’s poorly scoped, loosely defined, and difficult to control, creating an environment where firms are vulnerable to overages and underbilling.

Hidden inefficiencies that drain profit

1. Everyone’s doing the same work

The issues with CA reach beyond pricing challenges, as it’s also full of duplicated effort. Wrap your brain around this: Every consultant on a project is doing their own version of the same admin tasks, including managing logs, drafting field reports, backing up documents, and tracking submittals and RFIs.

Multiply that by five, ten, or more consultants, and you’re looking at a massive, invisible drain on time and budget. The numbers can be shocking. 

2. Fragmented tools break the workflow

Tool fragmentation makes it all worse. Architects typically work outside of the contractor’s chosen system, whether it’s Procore, AutoDesk, eBuilder, or something else. These simply aren’t tools that serve architects’ needs, and they’re not trained on them.  

A lack of interoperability is a major issue. Every time an RFI or submittal hits their inbox, they have to log into the contractor’s platform, download the file, distribute it via email to their team or other consultants, track responses manually, consolidate them, and upload everything back to the contractor’s system. 

All of this occurs in a system that doesn’t serve the architect’s purposes in the first place. It’s a mess. And the manual clicks, tracking, and follow-ups create a workflow that’s slow, repetitive, and expensive. 

That was the case for KONTEXT Architects before adopting Part3. Like many growing firms, they were managing CA with inbox folders, Word templates, and manual reminders. Now that they’re using software built for architects, they’ve cut submittal processing time by 75%—giving their team more time to focus on design and decision-making.

3. Wasted time on useless RFIs

RFIs are an unavoidable part of CA, but far too many of them are unnecessary. When the answer is already in the drawing set, that RFI shouldn’t exist. 

But, it still takes time to respond.

And money. 

The cost of processing a single RFI is $2,000 to $3,000 (even if it doesn’t lead to a change). If that RFI does spark a change, the number jumps. Now multiply that by dozens of RFIs per project (many of which aren’t even necessary), and it’s easy to see how quickly CA can eat into your profit margins.

How the best firms are fixing their CA margins

You can wish for a silver bullet to fix all of your CA woes, but the best-performing firms are taking some clear steps to reduce waste, increase efficiency, and win back their margins.

1. Streamline your tools

Consolidating your CA tasks into a single platform is one of the fastest ways to reduce duplicated effort. Instead of jumping between emails, spreadsheets, software platforms, and internal servers, teams can manage RFIs, submittals, and field reports from one place.

This saves time, reduces errors, improves response time, and gives the entire project team better visibility into what’s happening. One centralized platform also does wonders for communication, keeping the entire team on the same page. 

2. Learn from other projects

Firms often fall into the trap of treating every CA phase like it’s the first one they’ve ever done. Yes, each project is unique, but how many times do you run into the same alternate product submitted on every project or the same RFI from a particular contractor? In this case, becoming more efficient means learning from it.

What can we do to fast-track these repeat occurrences? Let’s consider updating the specs to reflect commonly accepted alternatives. Or, build out templated responses that you can reuse for repeat RFIs. The potential time savings you can realize if you look for patterns like these across your teams and projects is immense. 

3. Track real metrics

Many firms rely on gut feel or weekly PM syncs to track project health. But that’s not good enough. Although it’s really difficult to actually analyze your CA efficiency, the right metrics allow you to benchmark performance, make strategic decisions, and prove value to clients.

The truth is that evaluating your CA performance can boil down to just a few important quantitative metrics:

• Average RFI/submittal response times

• Consultant responsiveness by sector or project type

• Billable CA hours vs. planned hours

• Ratio of change orders (owner-requested vs. non-owner-requested)

Imagine a world where you track your change order ratio to determine how good your designs are. If you have a high ratio of non-owner requested changes compared to owner requests, you should consider evaluating the design process. Or, simply recognize that some contractors are more prone to change orders, so you can plan for them moving forward.

And these metrics can help the company grow, as well. If you’re tracking your data, you can use it to show your clients how efficient your company is at CA.

4. Rethink the pricing model

Hourly billing may be familiar, but it traps you in a timesheet-based model that’s reactive, often inaccurate, and downright dated. Some firms are adopting new business models, opting for flat rates for CA based on volume thresholds or defined deliverables, but the best firms are going further and moving toward value-based pricing.

And this makes sense from every angle. After all, people don’t want to buy hours, they want to buy outcomes:

• A well-coordinated CA phase

• A project that finishes on time

• Minimal change orders

• Fast response times

• Documented, visible decision-making

When you shift the conversation from time to value, clients are more willing to invest, and you’re more likely to deliver profitably.

It’s time to stop losing money on CA

Construction administration doesn’t need to be a profit killer. With better tools, smarter processes, and a shift in mindset, you can reduce inefficiencies and redundancies, track your efforts, and sell your CA services like the truly valuable work it is. 

The firms leading the charge aren’t doing more—they’re doing it smarter. You can too.