Inclusion of consultation costs
In practice, 20-30% of the time can be spent on working with the client, consulting, training the customer, making adjustments to the budget. This time must be included in the budget so as not to work in the minus.
Communicate profit margins to clients
There is no need to tell clients the amount of profit budgeted for the following reasons:
The client pays for why choose our service solving his problem. He does not need to know how much money you will earn on the project. The customer needs to explain how you will solve the problem, how much time and money it will take.
The client may consider several commercial offers from different contractors (in practice, this often happens) and compare the proposed solutions and budgets. The client will be able to independently verify that your prices correspond to the market ones.
If your prices are not inflated and reasonable, why does the client need to know the size of your net revenue? You are not asking the customer about the profit included in their services. This question may be a commercial secret.
You can always tell the client that your profit is average on the market. Alternatively, you can take a project estimate by time (in hours) and name the cost of an hour of your work. It is also possible to familiarize the client with the statistics on the cost of hours in the IT industry (it is on the website tagline.ru). This is enough to prove the reasonableness of your prices.
Do not consult with contractors
If contractors are involved in the project, you need to check with them about current prices, availability of time and other resources to complete the tasks. If you are creating a website and ordering texts from a copywriter, then the project budget takes into account the current prices, not the rates of previous years.
Often situations arise when old prices are included in the budget and, in addition, contractors do not have the resources to participate in the project.
Calculate a large budget using general indicators
The level of detail in the estimate and budget is directly proportional to the volume and complexity of the project. The calculation of the budget for a large project must be approached with all seriousness.
You will encounter many minor problems, edits, inconsistencies in the technical task, modifications. It is necessary to identify and calculate all the work and minor operations that need to be performed, because ultimately unnoticed "little things" will lead to serious costs of time and money.
The actual budget that results from the project is always different from the budget that was formed before the project started and was probably calculated perfectly. It is necessary to set such a profit that will not make the project unprofitable or unprofitable.
Without developing a project budget, it becomes impossible to implement it. You cannot start a business without preliminary calculations. Such a short-sighted decision will lead to bankruptcy.
The answer to the question of how much a project will cost is often important not only for the entrepreneur himself. It is not always possible to organize a business without attracting external investors. In order for them to be interested an