The Financial Model of an Architect’s Office is a well-kept secret. I have never seen it mentioned anywhere. But there are several things that need to be in balance to get positive financial results. The resources available from the AIA are only useful if you already have an MBA-like understanding of finances. 

A Financial Model entails more than “Income minus Expenses should be a positive number.” Negative numbers equal poison. You can’t survive much poison.

I have to mention Page Highfill here. He is the architect who told me about the
​financial model that architects need to know about. ​

In order to build a successful architectural firm you need to master
​The 3 Aspects. ​

The Project Planning Worksheet has been a popular tool. Re-imagining the Planner as a Coda Doc has transformed it into an even more powerful tool.

At one time or another I have used each of these methods. Those sometime painful experiences are the basis for my recommendation.

The Ochre Bookkeeping System For Small-Firm Architects
​Benefits And Features

An overview of the architectural bidding process including checklists.

Whether you have arrived at a fee by a wild guess or a fee schedule you want some kind of corroboration. 

One option, if you keep good records, is to compare this project to a similar project. Was the fee adequate on that other one? Usually the two projects are dissimilar in some way. 

Another way of checking the 'rightness' of an architectural fee is to evaluate its 'rightness' when viewed as a design budget.

This option involves doing an evaluation. It is fairly easy to 'spread out' the fee over the design phases to see how adequate the fee actually is. 

Here's How...
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​When I published Feecalqs a while back, I failed to place the emphasis on the fact that Feecalqs is four linked electronic spreadsheets. This is important because the effort that it takes to arrive at a realistic fee for any project takes just a few minutes with a digital method of calculating fees. You already know the information that you need to enter, so it takes no time at all.

One of the four spreadsheet that you don't even have to look at is the Fee Tables. There are five tables representing the five Building Groups. These Building Groups arrange the different types of buildings into groups based on the difficulty of designing them. This Building Groups post shows the listing that I assembled from various sources.

​Here's what the fee tables look like and how they work...
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I have written a fair bit about Architectural Fees in the past. I guess I remember what a mystery it was to me at one time. I have covered the basics of Fee Tables here and the complexity of the typical Hybrid Project here. The remaining factor in determining the appropriate fee is Scope of Services.

What are you required to do to complete the project?

If the answer is standard Basic Services, then the issue of Scope of Services is settled. Basic Services is the answer for a lot of smaller public projects.

Something different than Basic Services is more likely the case in private work. Private clients don't fit the cookie cutter of public projects. They need more here and less there. That makes determining the appropriate fee more complicated. 

Here's the solution.
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Although only in early design, 3D views help everyone see what the project will be like.

We have all experienced rooms with poor acoustics, particularly unwanted sound transmission. To avoid poor acoustics you need to design a workable solution and you need to see that your solution is implemented. 

Good Architectural Acoustics requires the use of just five simple concepts...