Planning a multi-year program, step by step
The planner opens after you tap Plan this over several years → in the building picker. Everything is on one screen, and the year-by-year table at the bottom updates as you change anything. Nothing is sent to the client from here. You are building the plan your proposal will carry.
1. Name it and set the term
The name starts as the client's name. Change it to whatever the client calls the site, such as "Palm Grove Village". Set the term between 2 and 10 years. Five or seven are the usual choices: long enough to get round every building with a sensible number each year, short enough for a committee to commit to.
If you shorten the term, any building in a year that no longer exists moves into the new final year, so nothing silently drops out of the plan.
2. Check which buildings go in which year
Surfacely spreads the buildings evenly across the years. 72 villas over 6 years is 12 a year. When the numbers don't divide evenly, the earlier years take the extra building, so the buildings in worst condition are never pushed later just to make the numbers tidy.
Worst condition first. Surfacely ranks buildings by how much preparation each needs for its size, using the prep levels you set while measuring. A building that needs a lot of prep for every hour of painting is in worse shape, so it comes first. If none of your buildings carry that information, they are spread in the order you measured them, and the proposal says so.
To move a building, use the year picker beside it. Choose another year, Deferred (it will be done later, for example once a sale goes through) or Excluded (it is not part of this program). A deferred or excluded building needs a short reason. The client sees the building's name and whether it is deferred or excluded, but not your reason.
Moving a building never changes its measured hours, litres or price. Only the year totals move.
3. Set the touch-up days
Each year shows its touch-up days: crew days set aside to touch up buildings already painted. Year 1 has none, because nothing is painted yet. From year 2 the suggestion is 5% of the hours already painted, always rounded up to whole days. Use the stepper to change any year, and Use the suggested N to go back. See Touch-up days, washes and the yearly price adjustment for how the numbers work.
4. Leave a year empty, on purpose
Sometimes a year should have no repainting: a budget break, or a year of touch-ups only. When a year has no buildings, tick No repaint this year, on purpose so Surfacely knows it is intentional.
5. Add building washes
Switch on Building washes and choose how often. Every 3 years is the default. In a wash year, every building already painted gets an exterior wash, priced from your own measurements and wash rate. Internal areas are never washed.
6. Choose the yearly price adjustment
- Consumer Price Index: the default. It is the index committees and boards know best, and the planner names the right one for your market.
- Construction-cost index: tracks labour and materials more closely, but fewer clients know it.
- A fixed % a year: the simplest for the client. You carry the inflation risk.
Surfacely only records which index you chose and the reference period. It never estimates a future figure. Each year you use the published figure once it is released.
7. Fix anything the planner flags
Before a plan goes into a proposal it has to pass three checks, shown under Before this goes in a proposal:
- Every building is in a year, or deferred or excluded with a reason.
- No year is empty unless you marked it as empty on purpose.
- Your touch-up days and washes have a rate to be priced at. If you see this one, set your labour rate and margin in Settings → Pricing.
8. Save the plan
Tap Save the plan. It saves even when you are offline and syncs when you are back. You land on the program's page, with a timeline of every year. Tap Change the plan on that page to come back to the planner. A job has one program, so planning again from the building picker reopens it, priced from the newer estimate.