Element Architecture Exhibition week

Payments

We realise that clients cannot pay for projects in full up front, so we aim to get 25% of the contract in the first month after the project commences, 60% in the second month and the rest in the third month.

As a company rule, we have to have payment within 40 days.

Employee Payroll

As we have all started the business ourselves, we will not be paying ourselves a large salary to make sure the business gets as much money as possible to give it the best opportunity to succeed.

We have agreed to take a salary of £12,000 for the first year. On top of this, 12.5% of the salary will be paid towards a pension, and 25% will go towards national insurance (12%), PAYE and income tax.

There will be some professional consultants to keep the books in order.

We would also be taking into account the impact of other aspects of a building to look beyond the obvious “reducing energy” (renewable technology approach) by considering its physical characteristic, its components, its consumption, its waste, its location, its ecology and its longevity in order to be able to call it ‘sustainable’ or ‘green”.

SWOT Analysis

Legal Costs

Firstly Architects must pay an annual fee to use the title of 'Architect' to register with the Architects Registration Board (ARB), this costs £98.50 per person per year.

Architects will be interested in becoming a member of the RIBA. This entitles members to use the title 'chartered architect' and requires them to abide by a Code of Conduct. This costs £249 per person per year.

Architectural Technologists will be interested in registering with CIAT. This will include a £60 joining fee and then £160 registration fee every year.

There is a cost to register as a data user. This must be done under the Data Protection Act. A person must register with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), this costs £35 per year until the company has a turnover of £25.9 million.

The RIBA chartered practise subscription is £144 for 5 members of staff. This will increase as the firm gets bigger with more staff.

There is a subscription cost of £120 to pay to the AECB. This will increase to £300 once we turnover more than £100,000

Office costs

For the first few years of the business, while it is growing, we will be rented office space. the cost for this is expected to be around £250 per person per month.
The plan is to move to a larger office that will be bought, when the business has grown and is established.

We will have to pay utility costs. In the rented office we expect water bills to be around £200 per year and gas and electricity bills to be around £1000 per year combined. When we move to a bigger office these will increase.

Broadband and telephone lines are including in the small office we are renting. These will cost about £30 per month if not included.

Insurance

There are two types of insurance, they are public liability insurance and professional indemnity insurance.

Public Liability Insurance:

It is not a legal requirement but we will be taking this out to cover injury or death to a member of the public or damage to their property, even if this is unlikely. We will be getting cover for about £1 million. This will cost us around £150 per year.

(http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/insurance/public-liability/)

Professional Indemnity Insurance: 

Professional indemnity insurance covers us against professional business mistakes. These mistakes are made by providing professional advice where the third party incurs a financial loss of some nature. We will be getting cover for about £2 million, which will cost us about £200 a year. 

Contents Insurance: 

We will need contents insurance to cover costs of computer and printers etc in the office. This will cost us around £80 a year.