The pencilab emblem in the site's footer now sits on its tile, as it does in the browser tab.
v0.18.2
Fixes and improvements
The interface is now set in Manrope, the brand's typeface, from the page titles to the figures.
v0.18.1
Fixes and improvements
The logo, the favicon and the site's footer now use the designer's new brand artwork, and a pasted pencilab link shows the brand's banner as its preview.
v0.18.0
New
Break-even on the profitability cards, the price cushion and the comparison is now every partner's capital returned in full, whatever the order of the Equity waterfall; the reading carries the definition from the waterfall's run at that price, a scenario can be typed in the live table, and the land card leads with its total.
What each partner takes home is two cards: the take-home, the initial investment, the return multiple and the IRR, one bar of what comes back, the pieces and the total return.
From revenue to profit is a stress test: every sales dollar today against a scenario set by a slider or a typed change on each line, with the gross profit, margin and return on cost; its reading is how far each line can move on its own before the profit is gone.
Fixes and improvements
Every bar picture draws its segments, labels and hatching with visx marks; a bar's inner seams are now square, its outer ends rounded as before.
v0.17.0
New
Break-even on price marks where every partner's capital and preferred return are paid in full, shows each partner's money at the marker and a live now-and-scenario table with every $10 per sf; a second card does the same on the land cost per zoned sf.
The Analysis runs one card a row, the picture at the left and its reading at the right; the condo checks the price cushion, equity in against profit out and the development fee, states the average sale price and the GP sponsor's IRR, links each card to its pro-forma section, and says what could be done differently.
The Analysis compares the open pencil with another of yours: paired tiles, the measures side by side, pace and money, the money over time, what each partner takes, each project on its cost, the two cushions, the checks and every figure.
A rental hold has its own Analysis: the building's value and the partners as panels, the hold checks, and seven cards, each its picture with its reading beside it.
The Detailed cost tables take lines from a menu, each priced on its own basis, with lines of your own named and based as you choose.
The Detailed equity waterfall runs the capital and preferred-return steps as a ladder in the order you set, then the catch-up and the promote.
The rental's Detailed operating costs are the workbook's lines you can take off and bring back from a menu, with lines of your own named and priced a unit a year.
A rental hold shows five pictures: the net operating income as one bar of the rental income, the building value against its cost, the lender's tests, the hold year by year, and the sale as one bar split between the lender and the partners; the CMHC qualification folds under its title.
Simple financing gains a mezzanine loan, the loans' drawn shares and fees, and a preferred return paid annually; the GP sponsor's rate is its own.
Fixes and improvements
Detailed financing shows its sources on the one capital stack in the order of funding, with the draw schedule under it.
v0.16.0
New
The admin portal shows each research run step by step, with what Claude was asked and answered and what it cost.
Fixes and improvements
A typed dollar figure keeps its $ inside its chip, before the figure, as the other unit markers sit inside theirs.
v0.15.3
Fixes and improvements
Opening a source document now keeps you on pencilab.com instead of sending you to the storage provider's address.
v0.15.2
Fixes and improvements
The bylaw reader now marks figures for garages, suites and other accessory structures, so they are never taken as a lot's own limits.
v0.15.1
Fixes and improvements
A new pencil's storeys and floor area no longer come from a garage's, a garden suite's or a produce stand's limits.
v0.15.0
New
New pencils start from what the lot's city allows, with every figure's source one click away.
v0.14.4
Fixes and improvements
The privacy policy names the municipal and regional map servers our server asks about a lot.
v0.14.3
Fixes and improvements
Lot lookups keep working from a weekly copy of the municipal map layers when a city's map server is down.
The plan cards on the home page are the same size as on the Pricing page instead of stretching across the window.
Clicking anywhere on a section's title bar now folds or opens the section, except on its entry-mode buttons and just around them.
v0.14.2
Fixes and improvements
A rental hold reads as the prototype does: the rent roll's number of units and average rent over the rents, a preferred return's rate typed on its waterfall step, the holding period's length under the amortization, The exit as one statement of what is left at the sale and who is paid what, and an amber or red figure saying why on hover.
v0.14.1
Fixes and improvements
A lot's zone, plan designation, overlays and transit tier are looked up from the municipality's own map, ready for the quick start; Oak Bay's development permit areas are not looked up, because the District no longer publishes them on its map.
v0.14.0
New
Your pencils have a page of their own: each is a card of its headline figures, says whether it pencils, and can be opened, renamed, duplicated or deleted from there.
Fixes and improvements
Opening your pencil now shows its own address, the synopsis folds and opens with the same slide as the menu, its headings run edge to edge without colour, and the Pro-forma's sections meet without gaps.
A pencil reopened soon after editing it now shows its latest changes, and editing it no longer brings back the earlier figures.
v0.13.3
Fixes and improvements
The research reader records a lot-size case as a condition pair and reads a plan designation's storeys from the largest form its chapter envisions.
v0.13.2
Fixes and improvements
The nav's and the synopsis's folds sit in a strip across the top of the page, each over the panel it folds; the Pro-forma runs edge to edge between the nav and the synopsis, and the save indicator no longer nudges the folded nav when it starts saving.
v0.13.1
Fixes and improvements
The research reader finds more of a bylaw's figures on the first read.
v0.13.0
New
Sign in with a magic link or an email and password as well as Google, with email verification and password reset.
Simple's development costs are four lines: the soft costs as one share of the construction cost plus a contingency, and land, construction and a hard-cost contingency; a saved pencil keeps its totals, and the cost breakdown is one bar with the hard and soft halves named over it.
Fixes and improvements
In the research library a document's title opens it at its source, and a row with nothing else to do has no actions menu.
The deploy build works again after the sign-in change: the email client is made when the first email is sent, not when the app is built.
Admins can read a municipality's documents into verified, cited rules and see each release's changes and held rules in the research portal.
v0.12.4
Fixes and improvements
The admin portal has its own bar and nav, with the portal's sections in place of the site's menus, and /admin opens the research library.
v0.12.3
Fixes and improvements
The homepage map names its streets, as the pencil's site map does.
v0.12.2
Fixes and improvements
Admins are named in the ADMIN_EMAILS setting of each environment instead of by a change to the database.
v0.12.1
Fixes and improvements
The take-out loan's dropdowns and toggles line up with the inputs above them on a desktop, and on a phone every rate input ends at the row's edge with the dollar figures.
v0.12.0
New
A rental hold pays its partners month by month in the Equity waterfall's order, the preferred returns only by default, and a take-out loan that falls short is topped up by the partners at completion instead of stopping the hold.
v0.11.1
Fixes and improvements
Admins can fetch a municipality's planning documents, keep them current and upload the ones that must be added by hand, from the research portal.
v0.11.0
New
The home page’s map can find the lot you’re on and start a pencil on it.
The rental hold catches up with the prototype: the take-out loan tested on the building's value, the partners paid each year of the hold, a sale at completion, the hold year by year, and the rents' affordability worked out.
Fixes and improvements
An edit made while the same section was still saving is no longer lost: it stays unsaved until it reaches the server.
A new pencil starts out named after its street, so a lot started from the home page is ready to create.
The synopsis prints a deduction or a loss with a true minus sign.
On a phone a row's select now stands under its label instead of squeezing the label to a word a line, and the glossary gains levered cash flow, the cash-on-cash return and distributions.
v0.10.0
New
The equity waterfall draws each step as a bar on the sale's proceeds, hatched where the proceeds run short, and the steps can be dragged into order.
Fixes and improvements
The selling page's map now opens with the same broad lot marked as the site at every desktop width, instead of a small lot half hidden under the headline on wider screens.
A new pencil's quick start now opens with Condo sale already chosen as the exit, so a name and an address are enough to create it.
v0.9.2
Fixes and improvements
Typed figures now match the computed figures beside them in type and line, every table's columns line up with the rows around it, and Detailed entry uses the same inputs as Simple.
The site menu marks the pages that are not written yet "Coming soon".
v0.9.1
Fixes and improvements
The homepage sits on a faint map of a Vancouver block, with a pinned site you can move by clicking another lot.
v0.9.0
New
Joining the neighbouring lots to a site, on the quick start and in Site & density; the land size is their area together.
v0.8.1
Fixes and improvements
The address suggestions and the site map work on deployed builds again.
v0.8.0
New
The home page now leads with "Pencil it. Fund it. Build it.", links its harder words to the glossary, shows an example project that pencils, and Starter holds one pencil while Pro adds unlimited pencils, research and the deal room.
v0.7.0
New
Starting a pencil asks for its name, address and exit on a page of its own, finds the lot on a map and starts the land size from it.
v0.6.1
Fixes and improvements
The glossary's six diagrams are redrawn: FSR shows one floor area as three buildings, DCR shows how far NOI can fall, cap rate shows what a half-point costs, and the waterfall is a cascade.
v0.6.0
New
A glossary of development terms, with definitions a hover away throughout the pencil.
v0.5.1
Fixes and improvements
A pencil opened from a copy fetched before a release no longer crashes the editor on the rental workbook.
v0.5.0
New
pencilab's home page now introduces the product with its own live figures, and a new pencil starts at /pencil/new.
Fixes and improvements
The site's top bar now runs across every page, including inside a pencil, and a pencil's name, save status and menu moved into its sidebar.
v0.4.0
New
The rental hold's Detailed mode puts CMHC's workbook on screen: the affordable units and their test, parking, lockers, laundry and other income, the operating costs a unit, senior living, the lending flexibility scoring that sets the tier, and the social outcome score.
v0.3.0
New
The rental hold runs on CMHC's ACLP workbook: the market rent, vacancy and operating expenses to the NOI, then the take-out loan tested as a CMHC-insured or conventional lender tests it, with the equity the tests ask.
v0.2.0
New
The Analysis tab's Ledger lists every figure of the pro-forma, section by section, and opens from the Charts | Ledger switch.
The Analysis tab shows where the project breaks even on price and which inputs move the profit most, each with a table of its figures.
The Analysis tab now opens on an investment summary: the project's and the developer's profit with six key figures, the project and the building, where the revenue goes, sources and uses, revenue to profit, and what each partner takes home — or, for a rental hold, the cash flow from the rent roll.
The Analysis tab opens on the project, the GP sponsor and nine project checks that say what improving each would be worth, explains what every chart tells you, shows each dollar of sales as a hundred squares, and lets you drag a marker along break-even on price to read any price.
Each section's pictures now sit in a column beside its inputs — Density, Areas, Unit mix, How the costs break down, Capital stack, Cost of capital and Order of repayment, each with a Hide — and the key figures read as a pro-forma synopsis down the page's left that folds into a rail; the results column is retired.
The pro-forma's sections are laid out as the numbered bands 01 to 07: the unit table with a price or rent stack and an add link, one Development costs section with its totals, the capital stack as one table, the equity waterfall as an order of distribution with tick boxes and share toggles, and the exit's own sections, The sale and What the sale returns or The hold and What the hold returns, with what each partner takes.
The header is now a band with the pencilab wordmark and the pencil's name as a switcher for listing, starting, renaming, duplicating and deleting pencils, with a row of tabs for the Pro-forma, Research, Analysis and Deal room under it, the dark-mode toggle under a gear, and a page that runs the width of the window.
The Analysis tab leads with the project and the GP sponsor, checks the pro-forma against the ranges Pencilab watches and says what fixing each is worth, explains what each chart tells you, and shows break-even on price for the project and the GP sponsor with a marker to read any price; partners see their equity multiple, and the GP is the GP sponsor throughout.
Pro-formas follow the prototype's latest numbers: the GP sponsor can have its own preferred return rate, a preferred return paid during the build now carries the loans' interest, Simple's other soft costs become a contingency on construction, a unit type's sale price can be locked, and the profit after the LPs' preferred return is shown.
A button in the header switches between light and dark mode, and remembers your choice.
The pencil opens in a sidebar that holds your pencils, the four tabs and your account, folded to icons until you open it, with the synopsis on the right; the other pages keep a slim top bar.
The pro-forma catches up with the prototype: construction is priced on the floor area the unit mix builds, the commission comes off the revenue, the preferred return can be paid monthly or quarterly and compounded as you choose, Simple financing takes the lender's quoted rate, Detailed financing adds a mezzanine, other loans, lender fees and a draggable draw schedule, the equity waterfall becomes a ladder (Simple) or an LP agreement with hurdles and catch-up (Detailed) that also runs on the rental hold, and each pencil is a condo sale or a rental hold from the start.
You can now build a pencil without an account, and it moves to your account when you sign in.
The pencil now takes land, construction and soft costs, each as a simple blended rate or line by line, instead of the prototype's example figures.
The app now opens straight into a pro-forma instead of asking you to create one first — arrive, and you are already editing. Number fields no longer carry increment and decrement arrows, accept typed figures directly, and read with thousands separators.
Add site navigation and a footer, with About, Pricing, Contact, Terms of Service and Privacy Policy pages.
Rows that pair a rate with dollars now carry padlocks: lock either figure and it stays put when the costs under it change.
The pictures beside each section are redrawn: crisp text at every width, a card with the figures on hover or keyboard focus for every bar, smooth updates as you type, and new forms for Areas, Cost of capital, the Capital stack and how the costs break down.
Pencils now open in a live editor: change the site or the unit mix and every figure updates as you type, with your work saved automatically and kept safe if the tab closes. The unit mix can be entered as totals per unit type or unit by unit, and switching between the two never loses either version.
The pencil now shows whether a project works: a sell-or-hold verdict, condo and rental return comparisons, a cost breakdown, key figures and the cost, waterfall and rental detail tables.
Introduce the Starter and Pro plans: Starter is free with up to 3 pencils, Pro ($49 a month, unlimited pencils) is coming soon, and the Pricing page compares the two.
Fixes and improvements
The header has a new look: a clean bar with icon tabs beneath it, the light/dark switch back as its own button in place of the settings gear, and your Google photo or initials opening the account menu.
A new pencil opens on the Victoria / Oak Bay example, and Site & density is laid out as a numbered section with its figures on underlines, unit markers, an explanation beside the zoned floor area, and arrows to step each figure.
Each pencil now shows its name as the page heading, and every card heading is a real heading — so screen readers and keyboard heading navigation can move through the editor's sections.
A changelog page lists every release, newest first, and the footer links to it.
The draw schedule fits a phone and names its phases and sources, a rental hold's cash flow reads as a waterfall, and Break-even on price and What moves the profit fit a phone.
Style overrides on badges, separators, selects and tables now apply reliably instead of depending on stylesheet ordering.
Typed figures are now soft wells, every section's figures line up on one right edge, and Saved shows a green check.
The pencil now takes financing, equity waterfall and rental-hold assumptions, and each input section can be collapsed.
Figures keep their thousands separators while you edit them, and pages show a single centered spinner until everything is ready instead of a loading message.
A pencil can now hold a figure in place — a cost line's total, a loan amount or a partner's share — and keeps the hold when it is saved; the padlocks that set it come in a later release.
The save indicator now shows its spinner from the moment you type until every edit has actually reached the server, so "Saved" never appears while a figure is still only on your device.
The editor's nav marks the tab you're on in navy and sets the logo and the pencil apart from the tabs, so only the open tab looks pressed.
The unit table no longer scrolls sideways and slides its first column out of view.
The staging site now tells search engines not to index it, so only the production site appears in search results.
A negative figure typed into the site or unit mix now settles at zero instead of leaving the pencil stuck on "Not saved — retrying".
Number fields now refuse letters, a second decimal point, and a sign anywhere but the front instead of accepting them as text.
Tabbing into a figure that reads with thousands separators now replaces it when you type, instead of adding your digits onto the end of the old number.
Buttons, choices and row actions now look and behave the same across the pro-forma, and each table row's actions sit behind one menu.
Pencilab now wears the prototype's paper-and-ink look: warm paper, ink type, a plum accent, square flat panels, serif section titles and the prototype's chart colours, in light and dark.
The look is lighter and softer: near-white paper, navy buttons and selections, slightly rounded corners, and menus and dialogs that float on a soft shadow instead of a hard offset edge.
Fixed a case where a failed load of your saved pencil could open a blank baseline one instead, and the first edit would then overwrite your saved figures. A pencil that cannot be loaded now says so. The save indicator no longer spins indefinitely when one part of a save fails while another succeeds; it reports the failure and retries on your next edit.
pencilab wears its real logo, the wordmark with the pencil slash over the i, with matching tab, home-screen and app icons.
On a phone, the Pro-forma's tables stack each row, its name over its fields, instead of scrolling sideways.
Total project cost now measures what the project spends, with the preferred return reported as a distribution of profit rather than a cost, and the sales commission entered alongside the other soft costs.
The light/dark switch in the sidebar now says "Light mode" when a click would take you back to light.
The unit label field in the itemized mix no longer cuts off its placeholder.
Figures in the unit mix tables are no longer cut off — a total of 840,000 showed as 840,0 on narrower screens. The table now scrolls sideways within its own card when the columns need more room.
A total price typed into the unit mix now stays exactly as typed when you leave the field, instead of jumping to the nearest whole-dollar price per square foot.
The equity waterfall now reads as a ladder — return of capital, preferred return, then the profit share — with linked LP and GP share boxes you can edit from either end.
On a phone or a small tablet, each step in the equity waterfall's order of distribution shows what it paid on a line under its name, so a long note no longer crushes the name.