6 best apps for self-employed interior designers

A smartphone is a vital piece of equipment for any small business. Not only is it a hub for all your communications, but it can perform a huge range of functions depending on which apps you download. The right selection of apps on your smartphone can greatly help the running of your business.

If you’re operating as an interior designer, you might need all sorts of apps and software to complete your job. This article will look at some of the best apps for self-employed interior designers — we’ll look at some apps for design, and some that will make running your business easier. 

The apps we’ll focus on in this article are:

• Roomscan Pro
• Planner 5D
• Photo Measures
• Houzz
• Asana
• Countingup

Even if you’ve only started your interior design business recently, it’s likely you already know that the floor plan of a building is essential for you to do your job. Roomscan Pro is a handy app that allows you to scan the room in question to create a useable floor plan.

The app allows you to create a 3D model of the room and the traditional two-dimensional floor plan. Having both these options can help immensely when visualising where furniture or new fittings would fit when you’re redesigning a room. 

Finally, this app is useful because it means your floor plan is instantly saved and digitised. Having a large amount of paperwork in your workspace during a project can confuse and make finding information difficult. If you store everything digitally on your phone, you’ll keep your office organised and make it easier to find what you need.

Planner 5D is a great app because it’s just as useful for clients as it is for you. It basically allows users to create a model of a room, floor, or entire building that they can then customise to suit their preferences.

The app doesn’t just allow you to design a space, though. Planner 5D also has a library of over 5000 items like furnishings and fixtures that you can insert into your plan. With Planner 5D, you can show a client a complete three-dimensional visualisation of the finished product they’ve asked for. 

The app is very easy to use and requires no professional training, so you may consider recommending it to a client to use. They can build a model of what they’re looking for and share it with you, which can be a big help when you try to make their ideas a reality.

Some apps provide an elegant solution to simple problems. Photo Measures is a good example of this; it allows you to overlay measurements onto your saved photos. This means you can get a better idea of the size of rooms and furniture. 

You’ll still need to take measurements manually, but the Photo Measures app means that you’ll not struggle to communicate what exactly your measurements mean. For instance, without the app, you would have to either write on a physical photo, or describe in words what your measurements refer to. With Photo Measures, you can simply draw a line on the item you’re measuring, attach the length, and send the picture to your client or a contractor you’re working with.

Houzz also operates a website, but you may find their handy app more accessible. Whichever option you end up picking, you’ll quickly find that Houzz has a ton to offer to a self-employed interior designer. 

Houzz acts as a hub for all sorts of interior design resources. There is a gallery of interior design examples you can use for inspiration, plus a library of furniture you can browse when looking for the exact right piece to finish a client’s request. The furniture library also includes links to where you can purchase the pieces you find, saving you the task of hunting them down. 

As well as being a great source of inspiration, Houzz is one of the best freelancing sites for interior designers. You can start a professional profile on Houzz and may receive all sorts of job offers from individuals in need of interior design.

This article lists a lot of ways that technology can help you as a designer, but there are many ways technology can help your business as well. The project management app Asana allows easy communication between all the parties involved in a particular project, and lets you track different tasks as well as who needs to complete them.

Asana is primarily useful to interior designers because of the number of people involved in a significant design project. For example, you might be working with a builder, an architect, and a decorator at the same time on the same project, and good communication is key. Asana helps with this by displaying the project’s progress to everyone you include on your team.

Keeping your client up to speed is also vital, and Asana can help with this. The same features that display progress to your team members let you share your progress with a client, which keeps them happy and well-informed. 

Countingup is a valuable tool for all businesses, not just interior designers. The Countingup app allows you to view all of your business transactions, which makes tracking your cash flow much easier. You can also automatically categorise your expenses with Counting, which makes claiming your business expenses during tax calculations much easier.

Essentially, Countingup is a business current account with built-in accounting software that allows you to manage all your financial data in one place. With features like invoicing on the go, receipt capture tools, tax estimates, and cash flow insights, you can confidently keep on top of your business finances wherever you are. 

You can also share your bookkeeping with your accountant instantly without worrying about duplication errors, data lags or inaccuracies. Seamless, simple, and straightforward! 

Find out more here.