the proposition

Fund it, build it, book it — on one set of numbers.

Agents read what arrives, check it against the books, and hand you the entry to approve.

A note on what the thing actually does, in five chapters, with the draw package drawn.

what it is

Investment management, construction and accounting in one place, not three.

One set of numbers, whoever is asking — the sponsor, the team on site, or the people who funded it.

The four readers below do not get four reports built from one another. They get the same record, read from where they stand.

$100M+in projects run on cellect

fig. 01one record, and the four people who read it

for the sponsor: Scenario models, debt schedules and waterfalls on one set of numbers.
for the team building it: Budgets, draws and change orders, current while you can still act on them.
for the people keeping the books: Invoices read, transactions matched, entries proposed for approval.
for the people who funded it: Investor statements and data rooms built from live project data.

what everyone else sees

What everyone else sees.

Investment management, construction and the books, on one set of numbers. Whichever one you start in, the others are already reading the same records. Each of the three also has a door that opens outward, and those doors are the answer to the question a buyer actually asks.

Fi Investprincipals and investor relations: Deals, capital and what the funders see. Investor and lender rooms, for the people who funded it — Investors get positions, statements, transactions and onboarding, signed and funded without an email chain. Lenders get the draw package with its backup, in a room you control.
Fi Buildproject managers and owner's representatives: Cost, change and the team on site. The project team, for general contractors, subcontractors and consultants — RFIs answered in a thread rather than a mail chain, change orders sent for signature, and every response landing back against the budget line it affects.
Fi Bookcontrollers and bookkeepers: Payables, reconciliation and the statements behind both. Vendor Portal, for vendors and subcontractors — Their own statement and payment status, so the question about an unpaid invoice is answered without reaching you.

fig. 02three doors, all opening on the same records

the seven

Seven capabilities, and the one record they all read.

The sheet numbers are the drawing set’s, not this page’s. Six capabilities sit on the A sheets and the seventh, the one that runs underneath them, sits on its own.

Deals

a-01

Sourcing, zoning and underwriting in one place, so a deal arrives at committee with its numbers already attached.

Site & Zoning ResearchUnderwriting ModelsInvestment Committee MemosApproval WorkflowsMunicipal & Market Data

Capital

a-02

Positions, calls, distributions and debt tracked as money actually moves, not reconstructed at quarter end.

LP PositionsCapital Calls & DistributionsDebt SchedulesRefinancing AnalysisEquity Waterfalls

Construction

a-03

Budgets by cost code, draws, change orders and schedules that update as the documents land.

Budgets & Cost CodesDraw PackagesRFI LogsSchedule MilestonesChange Orders

Accounting

a-04

Invoices read, transactions classified and entries proposed — then posted to QuickBooks once you approve.

Invoice IntakeBank ReconciliationVendor RegistryFee BillingQuickBooks Posting

Reporting

a-05

Statements, board packs and performance drawn straight from the project itself.

Investor StatementsBoard PacksPortfolio PerformanceAudit TrailsReport Packages

Diligence

a-06

Documents classified on arrival and shared through rooms you control, rather than an email chain.

Data RoomsDocument ClassificationDiligence ChecklistsSignature PackagesAccess Controls

Automation

q-01

The agent reads the live books and answers in plain English — the layer that runs under the other six.

Invoice ExtractionTransaction ClassificationBank ReconciliationsSlack & Email Intake

Everything it touches arrives from outside the company, which is why every mark in the figure beside it is red.

fig. 03six inboxes watched, not one drop zone

how it works

What happens between a document arriving and the books being right.

Five stages, in one direction. Work arrives from the places it already lands, is read and checked, and comes back as a decision waiting to be made.

Work arrives from the places it already lands.
intake
Email is polled every two minutes. SharePoint channels, the Drive mirror, Slack threads, the bank feed and vendors uploading to their own portal all arrive the same way. Six inboxes watched, not one drop zone.
Every document is read and checked against the books.
reading
Classification, field and line extraction, five OCR backends, orientation, vendor resolution and cost coding — twenty-two workers in six groups. Bank transactions are matched against ledger lines, invoices, commitments and cash events.
What leaves the building is assembled from the same records.
record
Rooms, packages and drafts are built from the project itself, not collected by hand the week they are due.
The entry is written before anyone opens it.
proposal
How sure the agent is decides who gets asked to look at it. A confident match goes to the accountant; an unclear one goes back to the person who knows what the money was for.
Numbers move together, and nothing is lost when they change.
books
Twenty-two kinds of record are versioned — budgets, deal models, valuations, positions, vendors, entity facts, draws and loan terms. Change an assumption and every report moves; the old one is still there.

Stage four is the one that decides who is interrupted. How sure the agent is decides who gets asked to look at it, and the answer is never nobody.

Approvers are set for the company and for each project. Nothing automated runs until it is switched on.

fig. 10one entry, and the two desks it can go to

the draw package

Issue a draw — the package, the G702 and the backup, assembled from the budget rather than by hand.

One job, in six views. Nobody keyed a figure into this twice, and the lender gets the same numbers the project is run on. No real project, party, lender or vendor is named.

What arrives.

Committed, incurred and paid come off the cost report, by cost code, as the invoices and the change orders land. Its foot is the certificate’s line two.

fig. 04the cost report — committed, incurred, paid

What the schedule of values says.

Each trade against what it was scheduled for, and what of it is complete. Its foot is line four.

fig. 05scheduled against complete, by trade

What retainage holds back.

Five per cent of everything earned stays with the owner until the end — the difference between what the work is worth and what may be asked for this month.

fig. 06retainage — five per cent, held to the end

What the certificate certifies.

Nine numbered lines, each one arithmetic on the line above. Line eight is the only number anybody pays.

fig. 07nine numbered lines, and the one that is paid

What the waivers cover.

Each trade signs away its right to lien for money already paid. The waivers are the one part of the package nobody inside the company can produce.

fig. 08the waivers — what each trade signed away

What the lender queries.

A query runs backwards: somebody outside points at one line and asks what it is made of. Lenders get the draw package with its backup, in a room you control.

fig. 09the query runs backwards, to three sheets

the guarantee

Nothing posts on its own — every entry comes back for you to approve.

Answers are computed against the books as they stand, not a copy.

Approvers are set for the company and for each project. Nothing automated runs until it is switched on.

The tie-out between QuickBooks, AppFolio and Cellect is a stored reference, not a hope.

fig. 11the tie-out is a stored reference, not a hope

the case

Four units, one set of books, start to sold.

Shape develops small multifamily in Jersey City through a separate company for each project. The Lugano ran on Fi from underwriting to the final distribution; three more are under construction on it now.

fi invest: Underwritten once, reported on ever after. The model that priced the site is the model the project reports against. Investors were onboarded, signed and funded through their own portal, and saw positions and statements there rather than in an attachment.
fi build: Cost known while it could still be changed. Budget by cost code, with committed, incurred and paid coming from the documents themselves. Draws assembled from the budget rather than by hand; RFIs and change orders answered in a thread and landed back on the line they moved.
fi book: Every entity's books, kept correct from one place. Invoices arrived at a shared mailbox and were read, coded and queued for approval. Bank matches were proposed and posted to Shape's own QuickBooks once approved. Control findings ran nightly across every project and company.

4residential units
6,554total sq ft
3 of 4units with outdoor space
4projects live on cellect

Read the case study

connected systems

Connected systems.

QuickBooks Online: System of record — every entity, kept correct automatically
AppFolio: Investor positions, contributions, and distributions
Microsoft 365: Invoice intake straight from email and SharePoint
Slack: Reconciliation and RFI questions land where your team works

Two of the four are somebody else’s system of record, which is why they carry the accent wherever they appear on this page.

See how it works Five stages, in one direction, with the step bodies set out in full.Read the case study The Lugano — 477 Monmouth Street, Jersey City, from underwriting to the final distribution.Get in touch Tell us a bit about your project and we'll get back to you.