What does Fucharmonk build?
We build business software for design and construction firms that have outgrown spreadsheets but do not fit a one-size-fits-all platform. A typical engagement is one of three things: a custom application that does a specific job your current tools cannot, an integration that stops your team typing the same data into two systems, or an AI-assisted workflow that drafts routine work for a person to check and send.
| Software | What it does | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| CRM and inquiry pipeline | Captures every inquiry, records the property, budget and timing, and tracks it to a signed contract | Studios and contractors losing track of leads in email and texts |
| Project management tools | Milestones, tasks, selections, punch lists and status in one place | Firms juggling several live jobs at once |
| Estimating and job costing | Builds estimates from your own price book and compares budget with actual cost | Remodelers and design-build firms protecting margin |
| Client portals | Lets clients see progress, approve selections or drawings and pay | Any firm tired of status emails |
| AI automation | Drafts proposals, follow-ups and summaries for a person to review | Small teams with repetitive writing work |
| Dashboards and reports | Profit per job, hours against fee, pipeline value | Owners who need numbers without building them by hand |
Why build custom software instead of buying another subscription?
Usually you should not, at least not for everything. Strong products already exist: JobTread publishes its pricing and reports more than 10,000 companies on its platform, and architecture practices can choose Monograph, BQE Core or Deltek's tools. If one of them fits how you work, buy it. Custom software earns its place in three situations, and we will tell you plainly when yours is not one of them.
- The gap between two tools. Your project software and your accounting do not talk properly, so someone re-enters costs, hours or invoices every week.
- A workflow no product models well. For example, a studio that sources custom furniture from several vendors, or a remodeler whose estimates depend on an in-house price book.
- Data you want to own. You want your inquiry history, project records and reports in a system you control, not one that disappears with a subscription.
The best first software project is small: one painful, repeated job, solved properly. It pays back sooner, and it shows whether a larger build is worth it.
What problems do these firms bring to software?
The pain is rarely the lack of an app. It is where apps meet. Reviews of popular contractor platforms repeatedly mention accounting sync problems and price books kept in separate spreadsheets. A 2026 discussion among small architecture firms on AIA's community forum described manual timesheet entry and one-way syncs between project tools and QuickBooks Online, although other members reported that the same tools worked well for them.
- Manual workflows: copying data from forms into spreadsheets, or from estimates into accounting.
- Lost inquiries: leads spread across email, texts and website forms with no single list.
- Disconnected systems: a project tool, an accounting package and a calendar that each hold part of the truth.
- Tracking difficulty: no quick answer to which jobs are on budget, late or waiting on the client.
- Repetitive admin: proposals, change-order letters, client updates and meeting notes written from scratch.
- Client communication: status questions answered one email at a time instead of in a shared portal.
Keep this in proportion. In a 2025 survey of 526 US repair and remodeling firms with 20 or fewer staff, sponsored by Stanley, owners named materials cost (36%) and labor cost (30%) as their top challenges, and software did not appear on the list. Good software is worth building when it protects margin or saves paid hours, not because it is software.
Where does AI help these businesses today?
AI helps most with drafts that a person checks. Houzz's 2026 survey of its own professional users reported that 52% of construction firms and 39% of design firms now use AI, and construction firms credited it with stronger written communication. The American Institute of Architects found a more cautious picture in 2025: only 8% of firms had implemented AI, and accuracy was a leading concern. Both findings point the same way.
- Good uses: drafting proposals and change-order letters from your notes and prices, summarizing site meetings, sorting and tagging inquiries, writing first drafts of client updates.
- Poor uses: anything that must be right with no one checking, such as final quantities, code compliance or contract terms.
- Uses we avoid: AI that phones or texts homeowners. Federal rules treat AI-generated voices as artificial voices that need prior consent, and some states add their own limits, so we keep outreach with your team.
Who are these businesses, in numbers?
They are mostly small firms, which shapes what software they can use. Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies counts about 128,000 payroll firms whose main business is residential remodeling. The AIA counts more than 19,000 architecture firms, and about three quarters of them have fewer than ten employees. Interior design studios are similar: many are owner-led practices with a handful of staff. Software for these firms has to be quick to learn, cheap to run and useful from the first week.
| Industry | Typical size | Where software usually helps first |
|---|---|---|
| Remodeling contractors | About 128,000 payroll firms (JCHS) | Estimating from a price book, job costing and change orders |
| Architecture firms | Over 19,000 firms, about 75% under ten staff (AIA) | Turning timesheets into invoices without retyping |
| Interior design studios | Mostly small, owner-led practices | Tracking selections, purchasing and client approvals |
Is your firm ready for custom software?
A short checklist helps. If you can answer yes to two or more of these, a small custom project is probably worth exploring. If not, a well-chosen off-the-shelf product, set up properly, is likely the better spend.
- Someone on your team re-enters the same information into two systems every week.
- You keep a spreadsheet alongside your main software because it cannot do one specific job.
- You cannot quickly see profit per project, or hours used against fee.
- Clients regularly ask for status updates that your team answers by hand.
- A tool you depend on is being retired or has changed in a way that breaks your process.
How do we handle security and your data?
Client records, addresses, budgets and financial data deserve care. Every system we build uses individual logins with role-based permissions, so a field crew, a bookkeeper and a client each see only what they need. Data is encrypted in transit, backed up automatically and exportable in standard formats at any time. Where software connects to accounting or payment systems, it uses the vendor's official, permission-based access rather than stored passwords. We collect only the data a workflow needs.
How do we build a project?
- Discovery. We map one workflow end to end with the people who do it, and measure what it costs in hours.
- Requirements. A written scope lists the screens, rules, users and integrations, and what is out of scope.
- UI and UX design. Clickable screens are tested with your team before any code is written.
- Development. Work ships in short stages you can review, starting with the part that saves the most time.
- Testing. We test with realistic sample data, including the awkward cases your team describes.
- Deployment. The system goes live with your data imported and your staff walked through it.
- Maintenance. Fixes, small improvements and updates continue on an agreed plan.
What technology do we use?
We choose mainstream, well-supported tools so that your software is never trapped with one supplier. This website, for example, runs on Next.js and TypeScript with a PostgreSQL database. For client projects the stack follows the job, and the table below shows our usual starting points.
| Layer | Typical choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Web application | Next.js, React, TypeScript | Fast, widely known, easy to hand over to another developer |
| Database | PostgreSQL | Reliable, standard, and your data stays exportable |
| Integrations | Vendor APIs and webhooks | Connect only where the vendor offers an official route |
| AI features | Large language model APIs with human review | Drafting and summarizing, never unchecked decisions |
| Hosting | Managed cloud hosting | Backups, security updates and uptime without a server room |
How do integrations work with the tools firms already use?
Integrations are only as good as the vendor's official access. JobTread, for example, publishes an open API with webhooks and a test sandbox, which makes it a practical system to connect to. QuickBooks Online is widely used, but Intuit requires technical and security reviews before an app can be listed, so any build that reads live accounting data needs time for that review. We do not use unofficial back doors into closed platforms, because a vendor can switch them off without warning.
Where we stand today
Software development is a new division at Fucharmonk, launched in November 2026. Until now we have worked as a marketing agency for interior designers and architects, which is how we know these businesses, but that is not software experience and we do not present it as such. We have no published software case studies yet. Working demonstrations will appear on these pages, clearly labeled as demos, before we claim anything we cannot show you.
We work remotely and by email, with no US office. The code, the data and the accounts we set up belong to you. To see how this applies to your business, start with your industry: interior design software, remodeling software or architecture software.