Stage 4, and the fee has gone
A residential scheme is in technical design. The project architect is working late on details and coordination with the structural engineer. The director runs the monthly project report and sees that the stage 4 fee was used up weeks ago. Some of the overrun was client changes that could have been charged as additional services. Some was the planning stage dragging on longer than expected, with time booked to the wrong stage. None of it can now be recovered easily.
The same thing happens on other jobs, and at the end of the year the practice is busy but not making the money it expected.
Why the numbers come too late
Fee proposals are usually written by RIBA stage, but time is often recorded against the project as a whole, or against stages loosely. Hours are converted to cost only in the monthly spreadsheet. And the warning signs, such as a stage running long, planning conditions adding work, or client changes, are not linked to the fee at all.
- Time is not recorded by stage, or is recorded inconsistently.
- The fee split between stages lives in the fee proposal, not the time system.
- Cost rates are applied in a spreadsheet at month end.
- Client-requested changes are not tagged, so they cannot be charged later.
- Project architects rarely see the fee position for their own jobs.
What late fee information costs
Overruns found late cannot be managed, only absorbed. Additional services that could have been agreed with the client go unclaimed because nobody raised them at the time. Future fee proposals repeat the same assumptions, because nobody knows which stages ran over on past jobs. The practice subsidises its clients without meaning to.
Fee tracking by stage, every week
- Each project's fee is set up by stage from the appointment or fee proposal, including any fixed and hourly elements.
- Time is recorded against project and stage, in your existing timesheet tool if it supports stages, or in a simple one we add.
- Hours are converted to cost using your internal rates, held centrally, not in each spreadsheet.
- Each week, spend against each stage's fee is calculated and shown to the project architect and director, with a forecast based on remaining work that the project architect updates.
- Warnings go out when a stage passes a threshold you set, or when its forecast exceeds the fee.
- Time can be tagged as a client change, so it builds a clear record for an additional services conversation.
- At project close, actual time per stage is kept, so the next fee proposal can draw on it.
Timesheet and accounting data can come from your practice management system or from Xero and your timesheet tool. We use what you have where it works.
A weekly fee view for one project
| Stage | Fee | Spent so far | Forecast | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Concept design | Set | Complete | Complete | None |
| 3 Spatial coordination | Set | Complete | Complete | Ran over, noted |
| 4 Technical design | Set | Part used | Over fee | Warning sent |
| Client changes | Not in fee | Tagged time | Growing | Raise additional fee? |
The table shows the structure only. Figures are your own.
Is this your practice?
- You find out a stage ran over after it finished.
- Time is not reliably recorded by stage.
- Project architects do not see the fee position for their jobs.
- Client changes are absorbed rather than charged.
- Fee proposals do not draw on how long past stages really took.