5. Building a Fee Estimate (AEC Version)

This lesson explains how to make full use of CMAP’s Fee Estimator tool. The Fee Estimator is where you create your project’s job costing and is packed with useful functions to help you quote accurately for your projects.

This lesson is split into the following sub-lessons:

Using the Fee Driven Fee Estimator
Using the Resource Driven Fee Estimator
Snapshots
Using Templates

1. Using the 'Fee Driven' Fee Estimator

The 'Fee Driven' Fee Estimator takes a top-down approach to job costing, where you calculate your fee based on a percentage of the overall construction value. It enables you to quickly calculate your fee and sense-check its feasibility.

Building a 'Fee Driven' Fee Estimate

Step 1: Go into the Projects tab, find your project and click into it.

Step 2: Click the Fee Estimator link in the blue navigation bar. A page will appear asking you to 'Choose a template below to start building your Fee Estimate'. This is where you choose your approach (Fee Driven or Resource Driven) and whether to start from a Blank Template or a saved Template.

Step 3: Select a Template from the Fee Driven dropdown and click Create to reach the Fee Estimator interface and begin to build your quote.

Step 4: To start the fee estimation process, enter a construction cost and a fee % into the boxes at the top-left of the Fee Estimator. This will calculate your fee.

Step 5: The next step is to spread that fee across relevant workstages, which you’ll do in the Fee Summary panel. If you choose to start from a pre-built Template e.g. RIBA Plan of Work 2013 stages, then your stages and fee spread will already be in place ready for you to tweak if necessary.

For each workstage, you will need to tell CMAP its:

Duration Weeks – How long the Workstage will last in weeks. The Duration Weeks number sets the start/end date of the stage.
Probability – How likely you are to win that stage. This allows the weighting of your Fee Forecast and Resource Forecast at an individual Workstage level.
Fee Type – Whether the fee for the stage is derived from the Percentage Fee, or an agreed Fixed Fee/Time Charge. Fixed Fee is particularly useful when managing variations, whereas Time Charge is used when you need to bill the client for the time a task takes based on charge-out rates.
Outside % Fee – this tick box will be automatically ticked for Fixed Fee and Time Charge stages, as they do not derive their fee from the overall %-based fee.
Workstage Fee % – The percentage of the overall fee you wish to allocate to the workstage to spread your fees.
Retention % – How much of the fee you wish to ring-fence for profit.
Expenses Retention % – How much of the fee you wish to ring-fence to cover expenses.

Based on this information, CMAP will automatically calculate several items for you:

Fee – The fee for the workstage is calculated as the overall fee x Workstage Fee %
Budget Resource Spend – Your Retention %’s are subtracted from the fee to give a Budget Resource Spend.
Standard Resource Days – The Budget Resource Spend converts into resource days based upon your blended day rate, giving you an indication of the number of days the fee will cover.
Cost at Standard – Calculates to the closest whole day at the standard average day rate.
Cost as Resourced will be zero at first. This will come into play when you want to get more detailed and start resourcing specific roles to the project in the Resource Profile panel.

NOTE: If you added a Fixed Fee stage, you will need to enter the amount in the Fee column. If you added a Time Charge stage, the fee will be calculated based on the days budgeted in the Resource Profile panel (see overleaf).

TIP: If you wish, you can save your Fee Estimate as a Template to use on future projects. To do this, click the More Stuff menu at the top-right of the fee estimator and choose the Save As Template option.

Resource Profile

The Resource Profile panel enables you to define the types of resources you need on the project. Filing out the Resource Profile yields two primary benefits (1) it will enable you to sense-check your %-based fee estimate to see if you really can deliver the work profitably for the estimated fee, and (2) it feeds into CMAP’s resourcing tools.

Step 1: Click the Add a Role button and select a required Role from the Manage Roles pop-out window. Hit Save to add the role to the Resource Profile. Repeat as necessary until you have all the required Roles for the project.

Step 2: Click the Edit pencil icon to budget days for the Roles for each Workstage

NOTE: The Resource Profile gives you an indication of Standard Resource Days based on the top-level standard average day rate. As you begin to add specific Roles, the cost rates for those specific Roles are applied and calculated in the Resourced Cost.

Step 3: Scroll up to the Fee Summary. The Cost as Resourced column will now be updated to reflect costs of the Roles resourced and will have affected the Retention %.

NOTE: This allows you to tinker to find the right resource balance for the project, as well as sense checking whether your Fee % is feasible. For instance, you may decide some projects aren’t worth pursuing if certain Retention % thresholds can’t be satisfied by the client’s Fee % demands.

Invoicing Schedule

Scroll down to reach the Invoicing Schedule panel (it’s beneath the Resource Profile panel).

The Invoice Schedule spreads your fee across the lifetime of the project based on the duration and value of each workstage, automatically giving you an Invoice Schedule for the project

You can edit the Invoice Schedule if you wish by clicking the Edit Invoice Schedule button.

NOTE: Once you’ve manually edited the invoice schedule, CMAP will not update it automatically when your fee estimate changes.

Handling Expenses & Externals

The Expenses & Externals Schedule panel is where you factor in any external 3^rd party costs. It provides an itemised list of budgeted expenses (taken from the Expenses Retention %) along with any budgeted externals costs for the project, and when the costs are likely to be incurred.

Here’s how to add an external cost item:

Step 1: Click into the blank box on the left-hand side to give your External a name.

Step 2: Select the Workstage it relates to from the dropdown list.

Step 3: Then inform CMAP how it needs to calculate the fee for the External using the Calc Type dropdown:

% of CC – Select this when the external cost is calculated as a percentage of the overall Construction Cost (e.g. a fee for a professional consultant)
Fixed Fee – Select this when the external cost is a fixed amount (e.g. a fee for planning regs.)

Step 4: Click Add External to add the item to the Expenses & Externals Schedule panel.

NOTE: A new line for the external item will be automatically added to the Invoicing Schedule panel, with invoices scheduled based on the timing of the stage the external item is related to

Editing the Expenses and Externals Schedule

The Expenses and Externals section is now editable.

To edit the schedule:

Step 1: Click on the Edit Projected Costs button next to the Expenses and Externals Schedule heading in the Green band.

Step 2: Edit your Schedule and then click Save to save any amends.

NOTE: You can also edit the Externals by clicking on the edit pencil on the Externals line or delete any Externals by clicking by clicking on the 'X'.

NOTE: If you haven’t covered all of your Projected Costs in your Invoice Schedule, the numbers in the Projected Costs column will appear in Red to reflect this.

2. Using the 'Resource Driven' Fee Estimator

The Resource Driven Fee Estimator takes a bottom-up approach to job costing, where you first consider the deliverable Workstages, Roles and Time required, and then calculate your fee based on charge-out rates.

NOTE: You are able to carefully plan out what the budget requirements are for the project using the Resource Driven approach, and then flip it to the Fee Driven approach to calculate what Fee % you should be commanding for the project, if you wish.

Building a 'Resource Driven' Fee Estimate

Step 1: Go into the Projects tab, find your project and click into it.

Step 2: Click into the Fee Estimator page to reach the Choose a template below to start building your Fee Estimate area where you choose your Fee Approach and whether to start from a Blank Template or a saved Template.

NOTE: Over time the need to start from a Blank Template will be greatly reduced if you develop a bank of saved Templates to base as your starting point.

Step 3: Select Blank Template from the Resource Driven dropdown and click Create to reach the Fee Estimator interface and begin to build your quote.

NOTE: You will notice that the Construction Cost, Fee % and Fee fields are disabled, as for a Resource Driven fee estimate the work is done in the Resource Profile panel.

Step 4: Begin to add in the necessary Workstages to the Resource Profile, clicking Add Stage as you go. The workstages can take whatever format you like e.g. 2013 RIBA Plan of Work stages etc.

Step 5: Click the Add a Role button and select a required Role from the Manage Roles pop-out window. Hit Save to add the role to the Resource Profile. Repeat as necessary until you have all the required Roles for the project.

Step 6: Click the Edit pencil icon to start to budget out Days to the Roles for each Workstage, clicking Save as you go.

NOTE: The Resourced Cost will tell you the overall cost in budgeted resource for each Workstage. This then converts into Standard Resource Days based upon the standard average day cost rate.

Updating the Fee Summary

Scroll up to the Fee Summary panel, which has now been populated based on the Workstages, Roles and Days in the Resource Profile. Working from right-to-left you will see:

Cost as Resourced – The overall cost in budgeted resource for each Workstage.
Cost at Standard – Calculates to the closest whole day rate at the standard average day rate.
Standard Resource Days – The Cost at Standard converts days based on the standard average day rate.
Budget Resource Spend – This then gives you a resource spend in terms of cost.

The Fee Summary then takes some assumptions (from left-to-right):

Duration Weeks – These default to 4 weeks per Workstage.
Probability – These default to 10% per Workstage.

Step 1: Use the Edit pencil icon to alter the Duration Weeks and Probability of the Workstages to reflect the requirements of the project.

Step 2: Confirm the Time Charge Rate Card from the dropdown near the top-left, which defaults to the Standard Rate. This is what determines your Fee. This will also indicate the Retention % in terms of profit against the cost rate.

Resource Profile

Step 2: Click the Edit pencil icon to budget days for the Roles for each Workstage.

Step 3: Scroll up to the Fee Summary. The Cost as Resourced column will now be updated to reflect costs of the Roles resourced and will have affected the Retention %.

NOTE: This allows you to tinker to find the right resource balance for the project, as well as sense checking whether your Fee % is feasible. For instance, you may decide some projects aren’t.

Setting Your Invoice Schedule

Scroll down to reach the Invoicing Schedule panel (it’s beneath the Resource Profile panel).

The Invoice Schedule spreads your fee across the lifetime of the project based on the duration and value of each workstage, automatically giving you an Invoice Schedule for the project.

You can edit the Invoice Schedule if you wish by clicking the Edit Invoice Schedule button. NOTE: Once you’ve manually edited the invoice schedule, CMAP will not update it automatically when you fee estimate changes.

Converting to Fee Driven

Now you have fully planned out the budget requirements for your project, you will know what Fee you should be commanding. At this point, if you wish you can convert the your fee estimate to the Fee Driven approach.

To do this, simply click the Enable Fee Summary button to convert to the top-down Fee Driven approach. NOTE: once you have converted your fee estimate this cannot be undone.

Now that you have converted your fee estimate, the Construction Cost, Fee % and Fee boxes become editable. Also, the Fee Summary panel becomes fully editable so you can edit your stage rows, such as changing the fee type so their value is based on the percentage fee rather than Time Charge.

3. Snapshots

If you have situations where clients ask for multiple versions of a quote, Snapshots are a handy way of keeping a history of all the different versions, as you can restore an old version should the client decide to proceed with an earlier version of your quote.

Step 1: Click the More Stuff dropdown and select Save Snapshot from the list of options.

NOTE: CMAP will automatically save a Version of the Fee Estimator, containing all the Fee Stages, Tasks, Roles, Hours/Days, Additionals, Adjustments – absolutely everything.

NOTE: Every time a client asks for a change to be made, click Save Snapshot to build up a complete list of previous Versions.

If a client decides they want to progress with a previous Version…

Step 2: Click the More Stuff dropdown and select View Snapshots from the list of options.

NOTE: You will now be greeted by a pop-out window containing a list of all the previous Versions, including who took the Snapshot and when.

Step 3: Click a Version to see what was saved from the Fee Estimator in that Snapshot.

Step 4: You can now either Close the Snapshot to return to the most recent Version of the Fee Estimator, or Restore This Snapshot to bring that Version back into the Fee Estimator, ready to proceed.

NOTE: If you choose to Restore This Version, CMAP will say; 'Restoring this snapshot will replace your current Fee Estimate. Are you sure you want to proceed?' Click Yes to proceed and restore that Version of the Fee Estimate.

4. Using Templates

If you tend use a standardised approach to structuring your project fees (e.g. RIBA 2013 Plan of Work) it makes sense to save these in a template so you don’t have to manually type it all into your fee estimate on every project.

You can have as many templates as you like and you can save templates for both Fee Driven (top down) fee estimates and for Resource Driven (bottom up) fee estimates.

To save a template, click the More Stuff dropdown in the top-right corner of the Fee Estimator page and select Save As Template. You will see the following options:

Overwrite an existing template – Use this option if you want to overwrite a template to update it with a more current, accurate version for people to use moving forward.
Enter the name for this new fee estimator template – Use this option if you want to store it as a new template for people to use moving forward.

NOTE: It is wise to consider the name(s) you give to your templates, as they will need to be sufficiently detailed/helpful to allow users to select an appropriate Template to use as their starting point.

Articles in this section

2. Using the 'Resource Driven' Fee Estimator

4. Using Templates

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