How Refurbly Works

A property is the building. It holds the things that stay true no matter what work you do — the address, its era, whether it is listed, and its rooms.

A project is a piece of work on that property, with its own budget and programme. One property can have several: a main refurb this year, a loft conversion in two years’ time. They keep their own money and their own history.

Inside a project, phases are the stages of work in the order they happen — pre-purchase and design, planning, strip-out, first fix, finishes. Jobs are the individual pieces of work inside a phase, each with its own cost, trade and dates.

Where to find it: Properties & Projects

You start with a feasibility budget — what the place costs to buy, what you can fund, and what is left for the work. That sets the ceiling everything else is measured against.

Budget lines break that ceiling down phase by phase: your own estimate of what each stage should cost. Quotes are what contractors actually say it will cost, so you can see the gap before you commit.

Once you accept a quote you agree a payment schedule with that contractor for that phase — a deposit, some interim payments, one at practical completion, and a retention held back until the snags are done. Invoices are what finally arrives, and each one can point back at the stage, the quote and the budget line it belongs to, so nothing gets paid twice.

Retention is the last slice of a contractor’s money, held back until snags are fixed. Refurbly keeps it visible on the schedule so it does not quietly get paid early.

Where to find it: Jobs, Timeline & Calendar, then Money (both under a project)

Every contractor, supplier and consultant is a contact in one address book shared across your projects. Add them by hand, or pull them in from your Gmail.

When you want prices, you send a price request. That emails each contractor a private link they can open without signing up for anything — they see only that piece of work, and they type their price straight in. Links expire, and you can withdraw one at any time.

Contractors you actually work with can be invited to the portal, which is a proper account. There they see their own jobs across your projects, their quotes, their payment schedule and invoices, and any documents you have asked them to acknowledge. They never see another contractor’s prices.

Where to find it: Contractors & Suppliers (under a project), and Email

Planning & consents tracks the permissions a job needs — planning, building control, party wall, listed building consent — with the dates you applied and the dates you were granted, so you can see what is blocking a phase before the trades turn up.

The insurance register holds your own cover and each contractor’s certificates, with their expiry dates. Refurbly can warn you before letting a large job proceed against a contractor with no current cover on file — you can override it, but you have to do so deliberately.

Health & safety scales itself to the size of the job: a small single-trade project asks for very little, a notifiable one asks for a good deal more. Snags catch the defects at the end and tie back to the retention you are still holding.

Where to find it: Planning & Consents, Insurance, Health & Safety

Survey & Markup is for the stage before you price anything. You record each room and its surfaces — walls, windows, floors, what they are made of and what they back onto — and Refurbly works out where the heat is going, room by room and for the whole house. Then you mark up where the sockets, lights, radiators and pipe runs go, straight onto the architect's drawings.

The markup feeds the Item Schedule: what you drew is counted into a schedule — five double sockets in the kitchen, twelve metres of ring circuit — where each line is reviewed and given a product, supplier and price. From there one click sends the schedule out for quotes: each supplier gets their own link, priced against the issued drawings, and their replies land as quotes in Money ready to compare and accept.

Refurbly Care picks the property up when the build finishes. When a project reaches snagging or completion, Refurbly offers to hand it over: it suggests the plant and appliances it spotted in your invoices and materials — boiler, MVHR, EV charger, rooflights — and you tick the ones that are real. Nothing is filed without you.

After that it is the home file: assets and their warranties, a maintenance schedule that tells you what is due, utility accounts and their renewal dates, meter readings, and what the house actually costs to run. Care is billed per property you switch it on for, and pausing one when you sell keeps the history.