Please explain more about your situation.

Number of projects under your purview, dollars per project managed, amount of people you can delegate to. That is all a factor

This question has potential. As dsc_arch pointed out, more information would be helpful. However, I will answer the question I think you're asking:

I'm currently effectively managing CA for two projects with a hard cost (read: pay application amount) of over $60 million combined. In my opinion, it is a lot of responsibility to place predominantly on one person.

I'm interested to hear everyone else's stats.

I thought this thread was about what sort of control you have over the project fees and firms $$$$.

that said, today I bought a $400 satellite image of our project site - first time I've been given the go ahead to graduate from free aerial images ala terraserver and google earth. I'm salivating about gaining access to the QuickBird 60cm rez view!!!! I'm also coordinating a $250k contract with the feasibility consultant. not bad for my first month at this job.

i convinced a client 3d-h was the way to go...for some reason this is my last day before i go back to school..

i even did it at 30 60..no just at 45 45...innovative right?

about $35m right now, spread across 8 projects.

300,000$, 2 small rennovation projects. Im going into my fourth year of undergrad so my office is helping me to get my feet wet-learning a ton

Do you count total project costs, or just construction costs? Around $25M construction costs or $60M total project cost.

Dollar amounts of construction - not architectural fee, nor total CA package

$25 mil as project manager and theres a principle in charge above me. 2 projects in production. Potentially another $10 mil on 2 more retail - still in conceptual design with lenders -

I am currently managing 6 projects in different stages. Active Fee projects: $1.5m (fee) as far as construction cost...it's a little different since our scope is interiors, but these are projects in the $100-500m range.

6 projects, one is 66 mil, the rest are 2 mil and under. one in construction, the rest in design. the 66 mil biggie is on hold, no active work there. the principal is above me, but I am in charge of design, coordination, production, etc, I get drafting help on 3 of them.

oops, one is 13 mil.

I know what I am billed out at, know what I bring into the office each month, know what the overhead is, know that I am underpaid, know that I am heading elsewhere

personally, I think a more useful line of discussion might be the amount of design fees that you manage on behalf of your firm -- and the amount of profit that you deliver -- fundamentally, those factors are more indicative of your value to the firm.

yeah i was trying to figure out the same. often the smaller jobs take as much work as the larger. and there's the possibility that someone overseeing less than $1m worth of residential is worth more to the company than i am to mine. difficult to 'calculate' based on what we're sharing here.

quizz, good point, this is new territory for me. I don't negotiate the fees, and some of them are phased, etc. but our net architectural fees for all 6 is about $1.5 mil. The 5 smaller ones are 272k, the biggie is a 1.3 mil. Some include CA, some are just DD and CD's etc.

this is what I know, somehow the boss goes out drinking 3 afternoons a week and we still make money somehow.

You have a 1.3 million fee on a 66 million project??

that's what this sheet says.

it's still being negotiated, we got 300,000 for DD, and CD's and CA this sheet I'm looking at says we to get 1 mil, yes, that's 6 zeros. we might have to pay structural out of that, but no other consultants.

1.3 on 66 million is less than 2%. It's hard to understand how the firm affords overhead and is left with profit on that (though from your first post it sounds like they may be adherents of the "understaff/overwork/under pay" method.)

Yea, your fee should be around $10 million on the $66 million project

Well, 10% fees aren't always easy to get, and she did say most of the consultants' fees aren't included in this. But I'd still expect something close to 3 million min.

In the current economy, most authoritative benchmarks would suggest that a typical project manager in a small-to-mid sized architectural firm would manage $575,000 to $625,000 in net reveues per year without huge amounts of principal involvement. ("net revenue" excludes consultants and reimbursable expenses.) In this context, I would say that the word "manage" assumes a reasonable degree of profitability on this work and an absence of huge technical or e&o problems.

In a similar sized firm, a typical project manager will direct and supervise 3-5 full-time subordinate staff. The collective team - to earn their collective keep - probably should be billing about $12,000 in net revenues per person per month.

Can you figure out where you stand relative to these benchmarks? This would be useful in helping you determine where your performance stacks up against the median salary for your job level and your community.

But, of course, compensation isn't always just about the numbers -- there are intangibles that get factored in also.

no wonder I'm confused and my profits are slim to none.

so do project managers typically help negotiate fees, since they are responsible for doing the work?

i got about $20 in my wallet. that's half-ass management right there.

I think it's vital for PM's to help negotiate fees, commit to schedules, analyze budgets, etc. After all, you're the point of the spear.

But, as we all know, it doesn't always happen that way. It may mean opening a dialogue on the subject with your firm's principals.

Just be prepared for them to get skittish ... !

quizz, thanks for your patience. what I posted was net revenue, that biggie will take longer than a year though.

none of our project managers have subordinate staff, we are all project managers, do our own drafting, etc.

i am not as interested in comparing myself with other architecture firms and thier staff, as I am starting from scratch and looking at this numbers with newbie eyes and wondering where it all goes? Bascially, I am not impressed with the numbers of any firm, not just mine.

Its difficult to know to know the fee's unless you are in the principle's chair. That info is not shared with us, usually. There is an accounting / Architect chinese wall.

Theres internal budgets, but not fees.

i second that accounting/architect chinese wall

well ... ok ... if you're the only person working on the project and don't have a team to manage, another approach is to look at the volume of net revenue that you personally are responsible for cranking through the office each year.

for the purposes of this exercise, let's say that's $180,000 (remember - we're talking about net revenue here.)

currently, the net direct labor multiplier in our industry runs about 3.03 (the DLM ranges from 2.82 to 3.34 - higher is better) - meaning that a typical firm is charging about $3.03 in net revenue for every $1.00 of labor charged to a project. so, using this multiplier and assuming reasonable productivity, that would suggest about $59,400 of direct labor cost would accrue to the project during the year (i.e. $180,000 / 3.03) -- if it's more than that, then the employee's not being sufficiently productive.

of the 3.03 direct labor multiplier, some goes to cover your project-related salary, some goes to cover your benefits (vacation, health insurance, etc.) some goes to cover office overhead (rent, telephones, etc.) and some (hopefully) turns into profit for the firm - so they can pay you a bonus.

let's also say that you're 75% billable (i.e. you charge 75% of your time directly to architectural projects) -- so, if you're not working a lot of overtime, then you're charging about 1,560 hours per year to your projects (i.e. 40 x 52 x .75) -- if you're doing a lot of OT, you can adjust these calculations as needed.

so, $59,400 of direct labor divided by 1,560 of direct labor hours = $38.08 raw salary per hour.

this would translate into an annual base salary = $79,000 ($38.08 x 2,080) - most of which is carried directly by the project and some of which is picked up by the "benefits" and "office overhead" portions of the net direct labor multiplier.

does this help ?

try to remember when doing these calculations to subtract all hours spent on archinect when you should have been working on your project -- those hours are not advancing the project and don't represent productivity :o)

3.97 - from what invoices I've been privy to. I cant vouch for extra charges we may have been paid for, that would certainly increase the multiplier. 2 interns + me full time. Ther are 2 other PM's and 4 other interns, so now I wonder what their multiplier is....

quizz, you underlined net. what do you mean by net? that's what I think I am looking at when I say about 1.5 mil.

I am lucky I get to see all our invoices, etc. They might not be so happy I'm posting it on the internet. Why can't we edit or delete our threads?

= all revenue earned from a project.

Net Revenue = revenue generated only by in-house labor, thus excluding non-labor direct expenses, such as outside consultants and reimbursable expenses. It's the fees you receive for the work you do within your own office -- and, its the revenue stream the firm can use to fund it's own operations. All the other money is owed to others - such as your structural engineer and your reprographics firm.

Gross revenue can fluctuate wildly among firms of comparable size, depending on the volume of consultant expenses and reimbursable expenses that attend the projects pursued. Net revenue tends to be much more consistent among firms of comparable size -- hence the information in my earlier post about net revenue benchmarks for typical project managers.

Here's a radical thought ... if you're doing project management work, why not ask your principals to explain how they calculate fees and how they put together invoices. Tell them you can do your job better -- and make them more money -- if you under the economics of the practice in more depth. If you're sincere, they may not get paranoid and they may be quite open with you.

But, if you ask those questions, don't use that same information to beat them up about your pay. If you can have an intelligent, non-emotional business conversation about both topics, you're both better off.

Here in our firm, I'm happy when I get those sorts of questions -- it makes a "learning opportunity" possible.

I have access to all the info after the fact, I just don't know the thought process behind it and how we get to the fees we do.

They might take offense because I would basically be asking why are our fees so low? They know they are low, we all know. It's not like we haven't had this conversation, or that other pm's haven't had the conversation with the principals. It doesn't mean we get answers. It doesn't mean we are negotiating higher fees because we can't make a profit, we are making a profit. Our fees are 1-3% of construction costs.

strawbeary,

i'm guessing that the project you're referring to (the 66mil one) is a multi-family project, given that your fee is so low. the reality is, 2% is pretty typical for that kind of project. absurd (which is why we don't pursue that kind of work), but typical. especially if it's only a few unit types and just stacked up.

senior living, a higher end resort type. that's not even a project I should include in here, I'm not really the pm, more like the "project architect" on that one.

funny that at a yunger age in in construction, I had to write up the cost estimate sheets, manage the cashflow for a project - payouts, change orders etc, and manage the billing, which could get very complicated even on a small building. Yet in architecture thats like the forbidden zone we PM's arent allowed to know about. My guess is its not as complex billing an a $2 million a yr design firm as a GC billing a $2 million dollar Residence. I liken PM Architect to being more like Carpenter foreman - its a pure production role, not really managemnet like a construction PM.

Actually its not at all similar. The contractor PM has tens of subs, materials suppliers and milestone/ payouts, bonds, wavers of lein, and a billion headaches

The architects have a handful of consultants, payroll, overhead and a million headaches

they let me order pens at $6.98 per pack, and I orderd four packs, so I manage approx. $27.92

Strawbeary - you (and others) may want to acquire this book: Financial Management For Architects - written by a couple of friends of mine.

By the way, fees are only "low" if you are required to do more work than the fee will support -- if your scope of services is minimal, a "low" fee will suffice quite nicely.

our scope of services is pretty typical i would think.

about $50m (about U$20million) spread over far too many projects.