Shadow CA: The Invisible System Killing Your CA Margins
Every architect runs it. But nobody talks about it.
Shadow CA is the invisible second system architects maintain on every project—not because it works, but because they have no choice.
You know exactly what I'm talking about:
The spreadsheet you maintain in parallel to Procore because you can't trust the GC's log as your source of truth. The Dropbox folder system you built because version control in the contractor's platform is a nightmare. The 37 minutes of administrative overhead you burn on every single submittal review.
This is Shadow CA. And it's costing your firm far more than you realize.
TLDR: The Shadow CA Problem
What Shadow CA Looks Like:
Parallel spreadsheets tracking every RFI and submittal
Manual re-entry of data already in the contractor's system
Email chains that become the actual project record
Multiple folder systems with unclear version control
10-15 hours per week per team member on pure overhead
The Real Cost:
25-35% of CA time spent on administrative tasks (Praxis3 data)
$780K-$1.17M in annual overhead for a 10-person CA team
Version drift creating liability exposure
Burnout driving talent loss
Zero leadership visibility into CA capacity
What's Changing in Q1 2026:
Procore integration: bi-directional sync eliminates manual re-entry
Bluebeam integration: automated markup reconciliation
Single architect-controlled source of truth
Shadow CA dies
Calculate Your Firm's Shadow CA Cost →
Why Shadow CA Exists
Architects don't run Shadow CA because they enjoy administrative work.
They run it because they're contractually responsible for CA decisions but don't control the contractor's platform.
The fundamental problem:
When an RFI comes in, the architect is liable for the response. When a submittal needs review, the architect's professional judgment is on the line. When construction disputes happen, the architect's documentation becomes evidence.
But architects don't control:
When items get logged in Procore
When statuses change without notice
How version control works (or doesn't)
What happens when submittals arrive via email
Whether consultant comments make it into the official record
So they build their own system to protect themselves.
A typical submittal review workflow looks like this:
Download from Procore, rename to firm standards (3 min)
Log in tracking spreadsheet (2 min)
Upload to Dropbox, notify consultant via email (5 min)
Wait 3 days for consultant response
Download markup, reconcile in Bluebeam (15 min)
Update spreadsheet with consultant feedback (2 min)
Create consolidated response PDF (5 min)
Upload to Procore, update spreadsheet again (3 min)
Email GC to confirm receipt (2 min)
Total: 37 minutes per submittal. Zero design value.
Multiply that across every RFI, every submittal, every consultant interaction on every active CA project, and you have Shadow CA.
What Shadow CA Actually Costs
After six months analyzing CA workflows with Praxis3 Advisors—tracking real time data across firms managing billions in active projects—the numbers are stark.
Time Cost:
Architects spend 25-35% of their CA time on Shadow CA activities.
For a typical project architect or manager:
10-15 hours per week on administrative overhead
At $150/hr blended rate: $78K-$117K per person annually
Across a 10-person CA team: $780K-$1.17M in hidden overhead
Risk Cost:
Version drift: Your spreadsheet says "Approved with Comments 10/15" but Procore shows "Approved 10/18" because someone manually updated it three days later. Which record is correct? In litigation, that ambiguity is expensive.
Missed deadlines: Due dates living in manually-updated spreadsheets mean things slip through cracks. The GC blames the architect. The project loses time.
Documentation gaps: Critical decisions in email threads or text messages that never reach the official record create liability exposure on every project.
Talent Cost:
The best young architects didn't spend five years in design school to become data-entry specialists. But by year two in CA, that's what the job feels like.
As one practice leader told us: "We design great things, then lose our ass in CA."
Leadership Cost:
When Shadow CA lives across dozens of individual spreadsheets, firm leadership has zero visibility into:
Which projects consume the most CA time
Where bottlenecks form
How to redistribute work effectively
Whether staffing is appropriate
Which clients are profitable vs. underwater
You can't manage what you can't see.
Why This Hasn't Been Solved
Construction tech spent 15 years solving the general contractor's problems. They built platforms for the GC's workflow, the GC's team, the GC's priorities.
Those platforms work great—for contractors.
But architects have fundamentally different workflows:
Different contract responsibilities and liability profiles
Different documentation and approval requirements
Different consultant coordination needs
Different communication patterns
Procore wasn't designed to be an architect's source of truth. Neither was Autodesk Build.
They're contractor-centric platforms that architects access as external participants. The contractor controls the platform. The architect adapts.
And adaptation looks like Shadow CA.
The Shift Happening in 2026
For two decades, architects have accepted Shadow CA as the cost of doing business.
Not anymore.
The 'A' in AEC is finally getting attention. The industry is ready for an architect-first CA control layer—a system that sits alongside the contractor's platform and gives architects a single source of truth they actually control.
In Q1 2026, Roundhouse launches integrations that kill Shadow CA at the source:
Procore Integration:
Bi-directional sync eliminates manual re-entry
RFIs and submittals flow automatically between systems
Version drift becomes impossible
One source of truth, architect-controlled
Bluebeam Integration:
Markup and review happen inside Roundhouse
Consultant comments automatically captured and tracked
No more reconciling disconnected Studio sessions
Version control becomes automatic
The Result:
Shadow CA dies. The spreadsheets die. The 37-minute submittal workflow becomes 2 minutes.
What's left is what architects actually get paid to do: design review, construction observation, protecting design intent.
What This Means for Your Firm
Shadow CA isn't a quirk. It's a systemic response to broken workflows.
Architects built it because they had to. They maintain it because they have no alternative.
But the alternative is coming in weeks, not years.
If your firm is ready to:
Eliminate 25-35% of invisible CA overhead
Reclaim $780K-$1.17M in annual capacity
Give leadership real visibility into CA operations
Reduce liability from documentation gaps
Stop burning out talented architects on data entry
Then early access is available now.
Join the Design Council to get first access to the Procore and Bluebeam integrations that will kill Shadow CA forever.
Calculate Your Cost → | Try our Self-service Demo → | Watch the Video
