Hi, I am just starting to prepare some material for lectures to UK Part 3 students on the Financial Management of Practices and Projects. This is an area that I have always felt is undervalued in training - and indeed the whole profession. For the Profession to thrive, or even survive, we need Architects to understand the value of their time and the translation of that time and various other expenses to a fee that provides enough Profit for the Practice. So what would you want to see in the such a lecture? Please let me know, even if not a UK student. Thanks
Donna Sink
Sep 15, 15 8:43 am
I taught ProPractice (U.S.) and showed the students a typical type of small project an architect just starting out on their own might do: renovation of an existing building into a boutique store. I did a breakdown of typical project phases (Schematic, Development, Documents, Bidding Assistance, Construction Observation) and how much time each phase woudl take, then broke that out into percentages of the overall fee. That all went pretty well, but then I showed them how many jobs of that scale they would have to do every year to earn a reasonable middle class income (I used $60,000/year, this was several years ago) and their mouths all dropped.
TL;DR - show them the finances of a sole proprietor firm over a year of projects to get their head into the game, don't start by showing them what AECOM bills over a year.
chigurh
Sep 15, 15 9:18 am
should also show them how much you can go into the red by under estimating the time/fees involved in a project...there is an art to feeling out how much hand holding specific clients may or may not need and to plan accordingly.
Donna I hope you also factored in taxes and overhead/liability when you ran your calc for 60k...
geezertect
Sep 15, 15 10:36 am
For dessert, give them some insight into how many of those chiseling bastards--oops, I mean clients-- will try to stiff them when it comes time for payment. Sorry if my bitterness is showing.
Hi, I am just starting to prepare some material for lectures to UK Part 3 students on the Financial Management of Practices and Projects. This is an area that I have always felt is undervalued in training - and indeed the whole profession. For the Profession to thrive, or even survive, we need Architects to understand the value of their time and the translation of that time and various other expenses to a fee that provides enough Profit for the Practice. So what would you want to see in the such a lecture? Please let me know, even if not a UK student. Thanks
I taught ProPractice (U.S.) and showed the students a typical type of small project an architect just starting out on their own might do: renovation of an existing building into a boutique store. I did a breakdown of typical project phases (Schematic, Development, Documents, Bidding Assistance, Construction Observation) and how much time each phase woudl take, then broke that out into percentages of the overall fee. That all went pretty well, but then I showed them how many jobs of that scale they would have to do every year to earn a reasonable middle class income (I used $60,000/year, this was several years ago) and their mouths all dropped.
TL;DR - show them the finances of a sole proprietor firm over a year of projects to get their head into the game, don't start by showing them what AECOM bills over a year.
should also show them how much you can go into the red by under estimating the time/fees involved in a project...there is an art to feeling out how much hand holding specific clients may or may not need and to plan accordingly.
Donna I hope you also factored in taxes and overhead/liability when you ran your calc for 60k...
For dessert, give them some insight into how many of those chiseling bastards--oops, I mean clients-- will try to stiff them when it comes time for payment. Sorry if my bitterness is showing.