A half-day on a proposal that may not be accepted
An enquiry comes in for a two-storey rear extension and loft conversion. The director visits, likes the client and promises a fee proposal by the end of the week. On Friday evening they open the proposal for a similar job from last year, change the name and address, rewrite the description, adjust the stages, and think about the fee. Was last year's fee right? Did it include the building regulations drawings? Was the party wall work excluded? The old document does not say how the fee was worked out.
The proposal goes out on Monday, a few days later than promised. Two other practices sent theirs sooner. Meanwhile three more enquiries are waiting for their own proposals.
Why every proposal is a rewrite
Most practices have a good sense of how a job should be scoped, but that sense is spread across old proposals rather than held in one place. Scope wording for each stage, from concept design through planning, technical design and construction, varies between documents. Exclusions, such as measured surveys, structural engineering, party wall matters or planning application fees, are added from memory. And the fee itself is a judgement made fresh each time, rarely checked against what similar jobs actually cost the practice to deliver.
- Old proposals are the only template, and they vary.
- Scope by stage is rewritten each time.
- Exclusions and client-appointed consultants are easy to miss.
- Fees are not checked against time spent on similar past projects.
- Nobody tracks which proposals were accepted, and why others were not.
What slow and inconsistent proposals cost
Some enquiries go to whichever practice replies first. Proposals that leave out an exclusion lead to awkward conversations later, when the client assumes something was included. Fees set without reference to past jobs are too low on complex work and too high on simple work. And directors spend evenings on documents rather than on design.
A proposal builder around your own scope
- We gather your best proposals and turn their contents into a library: scope wording for each RIBA stage, by project type, such as extension, new house, refurbishment or small commercial fit-out.
- Standard exclusions, optional services and the consultants the client will need to appoint are held as a checklist that appears for each project type.
- The director fills in a short form: project type, size, complexity factors, stages required and any optional services.
- A suggested fee is calculated from your own rules, such as a percentage or fixed sum by stage, and shown next to the hours similar past projects actually took, where your timesheet data allows.
- The proposal is produced in your layout, with the scope, fee per stage, exclusions and terms, ready for the director to edit.
- The client receives it with a link to accept online, and acceptance is recorded with the date and the version accepted.
- Proposals not accepted can be marked with a reason, so you learn which fees or scopes lose work.
The builder does not choose your fee. It shows your rules and your history side by side, and the director decides. Your appointment terms and any professional standards you follow remain your responsibility.
What each proposal now contains
| Part | Copied from last job | From the builder |
|---|---|---|
| Scope by stage | Edited by hand | Standard wording for the project type |
| Exclusions | From memory | Checklist for the project type |
| Client-appointed consultants | Sometimes listed | Always listed where relevant |
| Fee | Judgement | Your rules, with past project hours alongside |
| Acceptance | Signed PDF, somewhere | Recorded online with the version |
Proposals out the same week
Directors produce a proposal from a site visit without starting from a blank page, and every client receives the same clear structure. Exclusions stop being forgotten. And after a few months, the practice can see which kinds of job it wins, at what fee, and which it tends to lose, which is useful when deciding what work to chase.
The accepted proposal also becomes the starting point for the project's fee tracking, so the fee per stage does not have to be typed in again.
Is this how proposals happen in your practice?
- Every proposal starts from an old Word document.
- Proposals regularly go out later than promised.
- Clients have assumed something was included that was not.
- You cannot say how your fees compare with the time past jobs took.
- Only the directors can write a proposal.