What Did You Actually Earn This Year? How DesignFiles Helps You Price 2027 with Confidence
As the year comes to a close, it’s easy to look back at a busy calendar and think, “This was a good year.” You completed projects, brought in new clients, and have a long list of accomplishments to show for it.
But there’s an important question to ask before you start planning for 2027:
What did you actually earn?
Revenue alone doesn’t tell the whole story. To make smarter pricing decisions for the year ahead, you need to understand which projects were truly profitable, where your resources went, and whether the services you offered were actually contributing to your bottom line.
Having a clear project-level picture can make all the difference when it comes to decisions for your business.
Look Beyond Revenue
It’s common for designers to judge a successful year by how much money came in. But total revenue doesn’t necessarily mean you’re earning what your business deserves.
Consider two projects that each generated $10,000. On paper, they look identical. But what if one took 40 hours to complete while the other took 100? What if one involved multiple rounds of revisions, extensive sourcing, or additional administrative work?
The revenue may be the same, but the value to your business is very different.
DesignFiles helps designers keep track of the financial side of their projects. They track earnings so designers can see exactly how they performed each year.
Instead of waiting until tax season to piece everything together, you can use your project data to understand where your earnings came from throughout the year. This is where DesignFiles is instrumental in providing support for your interior design business finances.
Want to see how DesignFiles can help you better understand your project finances?
Use This Year's Data to Improve Next Year’s Results
One of the biggest advantages of looking at your numbers now before the year ends is that you can use them to make informed decisions about your 2027 planning.
Your past projects can help answer questions like:
Which types of projects generated the most revenue?
Where did you consistently undercharge?
What systems need restructuring to optimize your workflow?
Are there services you could price differently? Or services to discontinue?
These aren't just accounting questions. They're business strategy questions.
If a particular service consistently takes more time than your pricing accounts for, that's a signal to raise your rates, restructure the service, or change the way it's delivered. If one type of project is consistently profitable, you may want to focus more of your marketing strategy there.
And if a package repeatedly causes stress on your business without producing meaningful returns, it may be time to stop offering it altogether.
Your 2026 numbers can become the blueprint for a better, more profitable 2027.
Clarify Your Process For Your Bookkeeper
Year-end financial conversations can become frustrating when your bookkeeper is working from one set of numbers while you're looking at another.
That's one reason the DesignFiles + QuickBooks Online integration can be so valuable.
By connecting your DesignFiles project information with QuickBooks Online, your financial records and project-level information can work together. Your bookkeeper can have a clearer picture of the projects behind the numbers, while you can approach financial conversations with greater context around where your revenue came from.
This connection between your resources can help you save time, reduce miscommunications, and streamline your accounting, all while helping build a better foundation for your business in 2027.
See how DesignFiles + QuickBooks Online work together →
When everyone is working from a clearer picture, it's easier to discuss revenue, expenses, project performance, and what needs to change moving forward.
Why Q3 Is the Perfect Time to Start
Right now, you might be thinking, “I have plenty of time. I'll look at this in January.”
That's exactly how year-end planning gets pushed aside.
The fall can be one of the busiest periods of the year for designers. New projects come in, existing projects need attention, clients are preparing for the holidays, and your calendar fills up quickly. Before you know it, December has arrived and January feels all too soon to finally organize everything.
Instead, use Q3 as your opportunity to get ahead!
Pull your DesignFiles data now. Start integrating QuickBooks Online into your DesignFiles account. Make a plan to review your projects while the year is still in progress. You don't have to make every decision today. The goal is simply to give yourself enough time to understand the numbers before you're making 2027 decisions in the middle of 2027.
Think of Q3 as your financial checkpoint. It gives you time to ask:
What’s working? What isn’t? And how do we change that before next year?
DesignFiles gives you the project-level visibility to uncover these questions and build a pricing strategy based on what your business actually experienced this year.
Don't Wait Until January
The best time to understand what you earned this year isn't after the year is over. It's while you still have time to do something about it.
Use Q3 to review your DesignFiles data and start the conversation with your bookkeeper. DesignFiles and QuickBooks Online can be your next step in getting yourself and your bookkeeper working from the same financial picture. Then, when it’s time to set next year’s prices, you'll have real information behind your decisions.
Your 2027 pricing strategy starts with understanding your 2026 performance. Log into DesignFiles, take a look at your numbers, and see what your projects are really telling you.
Because the goal isn't simply to earn more next year.
It's to build a business where the work you're doing is actually worth what you're charging for it.
Sherry & Morgan lead Business by the Book, a women owned bookkeeping and accounting firm serving interior designers and creative businesses nationwide.
