RIBA Benchmark Survey 2012/13 - Guidance · PDF fileWelcome to the RIBA Benchmarking survey 2012/13 ... We are here to help, so if you have any problems call us, or email us: email

©c o l a n d e r Business Benchmarking for RIBA Chartered Practices 2012/13 Guidance Notes 1

RIBA Benchmark Survey 2012/13 - Guidance Notes

Welcome to the RIBA Benchmarking survey 2012/13

This questionnaire needs to be completed online. However, in order to have comparable data from all practices, it is essential that everyone filling in the questionnaire refers to these guidance notes. For ease, the notes are presented alongside a screen grab of the relevant question from the online questionnaire. Similarly, questions with guidance notes are clearly marked on the online survey.

You are required to answer all of the questions. If this is the first year that you are taking part you may not have all the relevant data to hand. If this is the case, and you cannot calculate the required figures accurately, then please use sensible estimates. For future years, we recommend that you make a note of the questions and collect the relevant data as you go along, so that the reports you get back are as accurate - and therefore as useful - as possible.

Once you have completed the KEY DATA section, you can pass backwards and forwards between questions while entering data. However, as Q8 defines the wording of many later questions it needs to be completed at the outset.

All questions will need to be completed before you can submit your questionnaire.

Reporting Year

Data entered throughout this questionnaire should refer to a single year. All data must refer to the same time period. This does not need to align with your formal year end, as we are interested in your management accounts, rather than your audited accounts. Ideally you should use the data for the year up to your most recent set of management accounts. If you are unable to use management accounts, then please use your most recent audited accounts.

Entering data

When numerical data is requested, please round your submission to the nearest unit and omit decimals. Also please omit units such as currency (£), days, or percentage (%) – these are stated in the question.

Helpdesk

We are here to help, so if you have any problems call us, or email us: email - [email protected] - telephone RIBA Practice Department (020 7307 3749).

Structure of the questionnaire

There are six sections to this questionnaire

1 Key data 2 Financial issues 3 Operations 4 Business development 5 Clients and projects 6 HR issues


Section 1: Key Data

You must complete every question on the first page of the Key Data section before proceeding.

Q1: Your practice details

To ensure that your status as a Chartered Practice is maintained, please make sure that your responses to this question tally with the information that the RIBA has about your practice. Please ensure you quote your full Chartered Practice number, not individual number. Your number can be found on your practice certificate.

Q2: Contact person, Q3: Email Address

The contact person is the person we may contact if we have any queries about the data you have submitted. More importantly, he/she is the person to whom your confidential practice specific report will be sent, by email. This report will contain highly confidential information, so choose this person carefully.

Q4: Your RIBA Region

You may have offices in several regions. If so, then you have two options:

1. To complete the benchmarking survey for each individual office – assuming that you can separate all income, expenditure and overheads as required.

2. To complete one benchmark survey for your entire business, in which case, please indicate the region in which your head office is located.

Q5: Additional offices

If you respond ‘yes’ to this question, you will be asked to detail the Chartered Practice Membership Numbers of your additional practices on the next page.


Q6: The status of your practice

There are no guidance notes associated with this question.

Q7: Do you have any employees?

PLEASE COMPLETE THIS QUESTION BEFORE PROCEEDING. THIS IS BECAUSE YOUR ANSWERS HERE DEFINE THE WORDING OF MANY OF THE LATER QUESTIONS. Employees: equity Partners or shareholder Directors are not employees. Nor are self-employed individuals or consultants to whom you pay a fee or a retainer. Everyone else, including Salaried Partners or non-shareholding Directors are employees.

AP1: Details of additional practices covered by the submission

This page will appear only if you answered Q5 with ‘yes’. 10 practices can be accounted for here. If you need to add more, please use the free-text box in AP2.

AP2: More additional practices covered by the submission

This page will appear only if you answered Q5 with ‘yes’. If your submission covers more than 10 Chartered Practices, please detail them here.


Q8: People in your practice

Partners and Directors

We have divided ‘Partners’ and ‘Directors’ into two groups: those who hold equity or shares in the practice and those who do not. Further, we have sub-divided each of these two categories into ‘fee earners’ and ‘non-fee earners’. A non-fee earner is someone who ONLY works in a support or management role (as a Financial Director or a Managing Partner for example). If you have Partners or Directors who work part time in a support or management function but who also work on projects and earn fees, then put them in the fee earning box. Staff on the payroll that have a nominal title of “Director”, “Associate Director”, etc. should not be included in this category. Associate Directors or Associates

The category refers to senior members of staff who are taking a cross practice role that goes beyond simply managing an individual project. Senior Architects and Architects

The term architect refers only to professionally qualified architects in the UK or their equivalent from elsewhere. Do not include Partners or Directors in this category. Architectural Assistants (Part 2 Qualified)

Include here all staff who have achieved Part 2 but not Part 3. Those working towards Part 3 should be included here. Architectural Assistants (Part 1 Qualified) Include here all staff who have achieved Part 1 but not Part 2. Those working towards Part 2 should be included here. Vacation students may be included or omitted at your discretion. Other fee earners

Include, for example, landscape architects, interior designers, engineers, surveyors, model makers and visualisers, assuming that they earn fees for your practice; if they do not earn fees, then they should be included under non-fee earners. If these people are Partners or Directors, do not include them here, they should be included in one of the Partner/Director categories. Vacation students may be included or omitted at your discretion. Non-fee earners

'Non-fee earners' refers to anyone in your practice who is undertaking a defined practice management or support role (for example: finance, HR, marketing, office management and administration or IT support) and whose time is not directly charged to an individual project. If these people are Partners or Directors, do not include them here; they should be included in one of the Partner/Director categories. Vacation students may be included or omitted at your discretion. Do not include fee earning staff who are working on new business initiatives in the non-fee earner category.


Section 2: Financial Issues

GENERAL FINANCIAL GUIDANCE Management Accounts

We are interested in your management accounts, rather than your audited accounts. Ideally you should use the data for the year up to your most recent set of management accounts. If you are unable to use management accounts, then please use your most recent audited accounts.

Figures for this questionnaire are gross of tax. Currency Report all figures in £GB, do not include pennies, and do not include commas, points or breaks between groups of numbers or this will be flagged as an error. You won’t be able to use abbreviations like ‘k’ or ‘m’ either; add the requisite number of zeros when entering thousands and millions. VAT

Omit VAT from all financial data. Depreciation and Work-in-Progress Omit all valuations for both, including changes to work-in-progress. Overseas offices The figures that you submit should relate to your business unit in the UK only. If your overseas offices are accounted for through your UK business, then they should be included. However, if your overseas offices are treated as separate businesses, then they should not be included.

Q9: Budgets and targets


Q10: Cash flow projections


Q11: Income from fees

PLEASE REFER TO THE GENERAL FINANCIAL GUIDANCE NOTES AT THE START OF THIS SECTION. Include amounts invoiced, net of costs, disbursements, or other recoverable expenses. Exclude fees invoiced in

advance for work that has not been done. Exclude, also, work-in-progress valuations as well as changes to work-in-progress, but include debts written off.


Exclude fees received from clients for sub-consultants which you have, or are going, to pass on, for example where you are lead consultant, or similar, and where money in is money out. If, however, you have added a handling charge to such transactions, add the net profit (or loss) into your response to Q12: Income from sources other than fees. Include bad debts in the figures above

Q11: Income from sources other than fees

PLEASE REFER TO THE GENERAL FINANCIAL GUIDANCE NOTES AT THE START OF THIS SECTION. Include here all other invoiced income for expenses, not included in the previous question. For example, if you have recharged any in house expenses (printing, fax, phone, travel), or external costs (hotels, rail, flight, other travel, disbursements - fees for planning applications, building regulations, listed buildings), include here the total income from this recharge. This may or may not include a handling charge. EXCLUDE fees received from clients for sub-consultants which you have, or are going, to pass on, for example where you are lead consultant, or similar, and where money in is money out. If, however, you have added a handling charge to such transactions, add the net profit (or loss) into this box. Include bad debts in the figures above. Exclude income from rent received.

Q13: Bad debts


Q14: Expenditure

PLEASE REFER TO THE GENERAL FINANCIAL GUIDANCE NOTES AT THE START OF THIS SECTION.

Also, please refer to the following definitions when completing this question:


SALARIES Equity Partners and shareholder Directors

So that we can compare practices of different legal statuses, all Partnerships are asked to submit a ‘notional salary’ for their Partners. This should reflect the average monthly drawings taken by Partners (multiplied by 12 to give a figure for the year). Please note that as a result of this adjustment, partnerships will find their ‘profit’ substantially lower in this benchmark exercise than in their partnership accounts. Companies that pay Directors low salaries that are topped up by dividends should also use the average monthly drawings taken by Directors (multiplied by 12 to give a figure for the year). Enter gross salaries, ie with all NI costs. DO NOT INCLUDE bonuses and other financial benefits given to your Partners or Directors, such as dividends, share options, pension contributions, health insurance, cars and so on; these are asked for later in the survey. Also exclude expenses, eg travel expenses, (they go under Other). All other “staff” Include “add-ons” such as bonuses, paid overtime and any other financial benefits (pensions, insurances, cars, subscriptions, home computers, mobiles, dividends, loans, share options, sponsorships and so on). Exclude “travel” expenses, eg mileage (they go under Other). Enter gross salaries, including employers’ NI. Include part time staff. Include all actual costs for recruitment and training, but not time costs. PREMISES As well as rent, include all costs for running the premises: rates, service charges, agency services, electricity, gas, cleaning, security, building insurance, repairs and premises maintenance. If you own, or part own, the premises include a notional figure for premises at full market rent. Also include any "one off expenditure" on premises, which you may regard as “capital” costs. It is up to you whether you apportion the whole of this cost to this one year (remember we are asking for management accounting, not financial accounting figures). So if, for the purposes of this survey, you decide to spread one-off expenditure over more than one year, remember you have done so when you come to review your comparative performance; also remember to pick it up in your data in future RIBA benchmarking surveys. Include all costs for sub-let areas, having deducted any income received as rent. IT, COMMUNICATIONS AND EQUIPMENT Do not include depreciation, we just want the actual costs incurred in the year in question, whether straight purchase costs, lease finance or actual costs through other funding arrangements. Include: hardware, software, external archiving and all telecoms. Include all routine costs, repairs and maintenance, special supplies (eg toners, discs, tapes) but not paper. Do not include salary costs for in-house IT staff here (they go under Salaries). If you have made a “one-off” investment in the reporting year, it is up to you whether you apportion the whole amount to this one year (see note under Premises above). MARKETING Exclude the value of time spent on marketing, by marketing staff, other support staff or fee earners (for example time spent on competitions). Exclude salary costs for in-house marketing staff (they go under Salaries). Include all direct costs associated with winning work, as well as all marketing activities and promotional tools. Include all travel and subsistence costs associated with these activities. OTHER

If in doubt, it probably goes in here, but if the total amount in this box exceeds 15% of total expenses, call the help desk. All other expenses should be included here: stationery, printing, copying, general office supplies, insurance (other than building insurance), PII, travel, disbursements, hotels, staff events and so on.


Include all costs for external “professional” suppliers to your practice: professional indemnity advisors, accountants, lawyers, and so on. Do not include fees from other professionals that are charged on to your clients. Do not include, either, salary payroll costs of in-house accountants or book keepers (they go under Salaries). Include interest on overdrafts, loans or other similar financial arrangements, and repayments. Deduct any interest received, if applicable. Include bank charges. As a reminder, do not include any financial benefits for Partners/ Directors, such as pensions, health insurance, or cars in this box, nor in any other boxes. They will therefore be reflected in the profit figure.

Q15: Hourly charge out rates

The roles listed in this question are determined by which box you ticked in question 8 in the Key Data section. It's not possible to provide a response for non-fee earners because, by definition, their work is not charged. Give the range of hourly rates that you use for calculating fees on projects, assuming normal profit. Quote the rates that apply at the end of your reporting year. We only ask for data for Partners/Directors and other fee earners on the payroll. If you have lots of contract staff that you regard and charge out as staff on the payroll, you may wish to include their rates, if in doubt contact the help desk.


Section 3: Operations

GENERAL GUIDANCE FOR SERVICES OFFERED

The next four questions concern the stand-alone services from which you earned fees in the reporting year. In each case, please tick the relevant boxes. The services that you offer are the things that you do for your clients, as opposed to the building types that you work on; these are addressed later in the questionnaire. Please note that you should be indicating STAND-ALONE SERVICES only, i.e. services that are offered on their own, possibly even to clients who have other architects undertaking the main project work. For example, on a project where you are undertaking a ‘full architectural service’ you might do a ‘planning application’ or produce ‘production information’. However, if you are not prepared to undertake either of these activities on a project where the client has employed another architect to do the design work, then these are not stand-alone services. If, by contrast, you are engaged to do a feasibility study that is then passed to other architects to design and implement, then you should tick the box next to ‘feasibility services’ in the question on Pre and post project services. If it is the client’s intention to engage you for the ‘full architectural service’ but the project is aborted or otherwise changed so that the full service is not finally delivered, then you should still include that work under ‘full architectural service’.

Q16: Number of offices


Q17: Offices outside the UK


Q18: International business

This question refers to projects undertaken by your UK business unit. If your overseas projects are accounted for through your UK business, then they should be included. However, if your overseas projects are accounted through separate, overseas businesses, then they should not be included.


Q19: Management policies


Q20.1: Services offered – Architectural services

PLEASE REFER TO THE GENERAL GUIDANCE FOR SERVICES OFFERED AT THE START OF THIS SECTION.

Q20.2: Services offered – Consultancy services



Q20.3: Services offered – Pre and post project services


Q20.4: Services offered – Other professional services



Section 4: Business Development

Q21: Business plan


Q22: Winning work

New projects won Include all new projects won in the reporting year, even if fee earning work has not yet started. Failed project opportunities

Include all potential project opportunities that you made some efforts to win, without success, however minimal those efforts were.

Q23: Speculative design work


Q24: Appointment processes



Q25: Time spent pitching for work

Include all time spent by fee earners on EOI’s (expressions of interest), bid documents and proposals, PQQ’s (pre-qualification questionnaires), competition entries, interviews etc.


Section 5: Clients and projects

Q26: Number of projects and clients

Include all projects and clients where you have received fees in the reporting year, regardless of when the project was won.

Q27: Repeat business


Q28: Project types


Q29: Client types

In this question, we are interested to know who pays your fees. For example, some projects may be joint ventures between a private developer and a Local Authority but if you are novated to the contractor, then your fee is coming from a Contractor client.


Q30: Client sectors

Client sectors relate to the client or building type that you are working on, not to the service that you provide on that building. For example, ‘designing the landscape’ or ‘achieving planning permissions’ are services, whereas ‘one-off houses’ or ‘health’ are sectors. So, if you earn fees doing landscaping for a school, then this work should be listed under ‘education’. Equally, if you spend time helping a health club client to achieve planning permission for a project, even if the end result is not a built project, then this work should be included under ‘sports and leisure’. Note that ‘urban planning and design’ is a service, as is ‘master planning’. Most urban planning and design projects or master planning work will be included in the client sector ‘mixed use developments’. ‘Civic projects’ includes projects for central and local government for example town halls, libraries, prisons and embassies. Conservation and restoration projects should be included under the appropriate sector heading. For example, a conservation project relating to a theatre should be included under ‘culture and entertainment’. If any of the sectors worked in by your practice are not listed, use the space allocated to ‘other sectors’. Equally, work that is not sector specific should be entered in this row. Some projects may relate to more than one sector. If, for example, you are working on a project with a hotel, some leisure and retail then, unless one of these building types clearly dominates, this project should be included under ‘mixed use development’. By contrast, if you are working on a major office refurbishment which includes a small health club as part of the project, then this project should be included under ‘offices’.


Section 6: HR Issues

Q31: Job descriptions

The ‘Not Applicable’ button should only be used if there is nobody undertaking the given role in your practice.

Q32: Developing people


Q33: Developing people


Q34: Graduate support


Q35: Freelance and contract staff

To calculate full time equivalent freelancers, agency or self-employed individuals, make pro rata calculations. For example, if someone worked full time for three months count them as 0.25; or if someone worked two days per week for the whole year, count them as 0.4.

Q36: FTE Freelance



Q37: Your workforce

The roles listed in this question are determined by which box you ticked in question 8 in the Key Data section. Include all Partners/Directors and staff on your payroll. Freelance, agency or self-employed individuals are not included in this question. Give the average number of people in each category over the year for which you are reporting. Make pro rata calculations for part time people and for people who have left or joined during the year. For example, if someone works 7 hours a week and you assume 35 hours as a standard week in your practice, count them as 0.2. If someone has only worked for 3 months, full time, count them as 0.25. 'Non-fee earners', whether Partners/Directors or staff, refers to anyone in your practice who is undertaking a defined practice management or support role (for example: finance, HR, marketing, office management and administration or IT support) and whose time is not directly charged to an individual project. Do not include fee earners who are working on new business initiatives in the non-fee earner category. Vacation students may be included or omitted at your discretion.


Q38: Salaries

The roles listed in this question are determined by which box you ticked in question 8 in the Key Data section. So that we can compare practices of different legal statuses, all Partnerships are asked to submit a ‘notional salary’ for their Partners. This should reflect the average monthly drawings taken by Partners (multiplied by 12 to give a figure for the year). Companies that pay Directors low salaries that are topped up by dividends should also use the average monthly drawings taken by Directors (multiplied by 12 to give a figure for the year). For part time staff, gross the salary up to a full time equivalent. For example, if you employ, say, two non-fee earners: a part time marketing person, working 3 days a week, but with a gross annual salary of £25,000 and a full time accounting junior with a gross annual salary of £18,000, under “non-fee earners” you would enter £18,000 in the minimum box and £25,000 in the maximum box and £21,500 in the average box. The box called ‘non-fee earners' refers to anyone in your practice (other than a Partner or Director) who is undertaking a defined practice management or support role, (for example, finance, HR, marketing, office management and administration or IT support), and whose time is not directly charged to an individual project. Do not include fee earning staff who are working on new business initiatives as non-fee earners.

Enter gross salaries, ie with all NI costs. All figures should EXCLUDE bonuses, pension contributions, health insurance dividends, share options, cars, paid overtime and any other financial benefits; these are asked for later in the survey. If there is only one person in the category, enter only one figure, in the “average salary” column - this figure being the end of year salary.

Q39: Add-on package

Please include all ‘add-ons’ over and above the drawings (as shown in Salaries above), such as bonuses, paid overtime and any other financial benefits (pensions, insurances, cars, subscriptions, home computers, mobiles, dividends, loans, share options, sponsorships and so on). We appreciate that these can be time consuming to calculate accurately, so have no hesitation in making an estimate. Be sure to include bonuses in this total; in order to maintain consistency, give net (after tax) figures.


We ask for the average value per head, not the total value. So, if you only offer benefits to one or two people out of a

larger group we would still like the average per head for the whole group in order that results are valid. The box called ‘non-fee earners' refers to anyone in your practice (other than a Partner or Director) who is undertaking a defined practice management or support role and whose time is not directly charged to an individual project. Do not include fee earning staff who are working on new business initiatives as non-fee earners.

Exclude details of add-ons for contract staff.


Final Page

If survey is incomplete:

The final page of the survey is designed to verify that the information you have provided is complete, prior to submission. If your survey is missing data, instead of the final questions you will see a screen similar to the one above with your missing data highlighted in red. You should use the ‘back’ button to return to the previous page of the survey; you can then use the ‘drop down’ menu on that page to navigate to any part of the survey.

If survey is complete:

Q40: Time Taken


Q41: Submission date



Q42: Colander contact permission



BENCHMARKING 2012/13 SUMMARY OF QUESTIONS (Both questionnaire versions) Section 1: Key Data Q1: Your practice details Q2: Contact person Q3: Contact person email address Q4: Your RIBA Region Q5: Additional offices Q6: The status of your practice Q7: Do you have any employees? AP1/2: Details of additional practices (if Q5 ticked) Q8: People in your practice† Section 2: Financial Issues

Q9: Budgets and targets Q10: Cash flow projections Q11: Income from fees Q12: Income from sources other than fees Q13: Bad debts Q14: Expenditure† Q15: Hourly charge out rates Section 3: Operations Q16: Number of offices Q17: Offices outside the UK Q18: International business Q19: Management policies Q20.1: Services offered – Architectural services Q20.2: Services offered – Consultancy services Q20.3: Services offered – Pre and post project services Q20.4: Services offered – Other professional services Section 4: Business Development Q21: Business plan Q22: Winning work Q23: Speculative design work Q24: Appointment processes Q25: Time spent pitching for work Section 5: Clients and Projects

Q26: Number of projects and clients Q27: Repeat business Q28: Project types Q29: Client types Q30: Client sectors Section 6: HR Issues Q31: Job descriptions* Q32. Developing people Q33: Appraisals* Q34: Graduate Support* Q35: Freelance and contract staff Q36: FTE Freelance Q37: Your workforce† Q38: Salaries† Q39: Add-on package† Final Page

Q39: Time Taken Q40: Submission Date Q41: Colander Contact * Omitted for practices with no employees. † Different version for practices with no employees

Documents

RIBA Benchmark Survey 2012/13 - Guidance · PDF fileWelcome to the RIBA Benchmarking survey 2012/13 ... We are here to help, so if you have any problems call us, or email us: email