Budget Estimates
Our expert building estimators will quantify the resources that are required for a particular project including labour, material, and plant. Budget estimating will provide builders and developers with a more detailed explanation of the financial costs before committing to a project further.
Who Can Benefit From Our Budget Estimating Services?
The budget estimating services WCSL offer can be beneficial to main contractors, developers, builders, architects, subcontractors, and potentially even homeowners. It provides a clear plan of spending to match your financial goals
Benefits Of Budget Cost Estimates
It can be common to overspend on building projects. Unfortunately, a significant level of overspending can put a project in jeopardy. This is particularly true where a large amount of finance has been secured.
If an estimated cost is identified at an early stage in the project, it provides you with the knowledge you need and multiple options to consider. For instance, you could arrange alternative methods for funding in advance. Alternatively, you may choose not to move forward with the project, scale back or redesign. All these options can ensure that your project fits the budget.
Budget cost estimates can also identify potential ancillary costs that you may not have considered.
This may include fees for design, charges from consultants such as structural engineer’s fees, asbestos surveys, building regulation charges, and application fees.
Budget Estimate Calculations
Budget estimates may be prepared based on initial sketches. However, they can also be delivered after a more detailed proposal. The most accurate estimates will be delivered when a significant amount of information is provided. This will typically include both specifications and drawings.
When an estimate is prepared at the early stages, before detailed design and the project has been tendered for contractors, it can provide an accurate assessment of the expected costs from the beginning. This ensures that costs can be reined in and that the project is designed to match financial constraints.
Budget estimates will often be essential in certain building works where funding grants could have been applied for. In cases like this, it is crucial that you do choose an expert service to handle your budget estimate and ensure the most accurate report.
Budget Estimate Accuracy
A budget estimate can provide a high level of accuracy. The goal will be to provide an estimate that falls within 10% of the final construction costs. This will depend on the level of detail provided at the offset. We use an advanced cost database and an expert team of staff to offer the best estimate possible to every client.
Updated Budget Estimates
A budget estimate can be updated during the development of a project to ensure that it changes and continues to reflect the most likely cost of a project. This can be based on the decisions a client makes based on the original estimate that we provide.
Sample Work
Please contact us today to gain a sample budget estimate that reflects the detail that we provide and the level of service we offer. We take a variety of factors into account when preparing your estimate including the project’s performance, scope, quality and time.
Construction Cost Planning
If you are just about to embark on a commercial or domestic building project and you are not entirely sure about the costs that may occur, then it is imperative that you get support for the building cost planning.
The main and sole purpose of building cost planning within the UK is to itemise each element of a domestic or commercial construction project to evaluate and calculate the likely overall cost of the build.
Cost planning explicitly refers to the construction costs – it does not include other ancillary fees. Nor does it include any of the expenses you might incur if you must wait for approval or planning permission. Cost planning is solely concerned with letting you figure out how much you can expect to pay for the building part of a commercial or domestic building project.
Why You Need Construction Cost Planning?
There are all kinds of reasons why you need cost planning for domestic and commercial building projects within the United Kingdom.
These include:
- To Help You Budget Your Construction Project. Budgeting for a building project can be tricky as there are numerous elements to consider. With cost planning, however, you can get a breakdown, item by item, showing you how much you’re likely to spend. With a construction build budget in hand, you can make better financing decisions, approach creditors with more confidence, and plan your cash flow from start to finish.
- To Compare Contractor Quotes on Your Construction Project. If you do not have a sense of how much a project should cost before you go into a negotiation with a contractor, you don’t know if you’re getting a good deal.
- To Control Costs. Commercial and Residential Developers and builders are notorious for overspending on projects. A detailed cost plan, however, shows you how much you should be spending and enables you to identify elements of the building project which are pushing you over budget. With a cost plan in hand, you can quickly scan for budgeting issues and find out why the cost of your building is coming in higher than you originally planned.
- To Manage Future Cashflow. A building project may have the potential to be profitable, but without proper cash flow, the whole enterprise can come to a screeching halt. Developers need to plan their cash flow so that they can continue to pay suppliers and workers. Without cash in the bank, builders won’t be able to complete projects and may miss out on the opportunity to deliver a profitable project. Cost planning shows you the points during the construction process where you’re likely to face financial bottlenecks, allowing you to plan for them in advance.
How Construction Cost Planning Works
The way cost planning works is simple. A building consultant will look at plans for your project and then take into account numerous factors which could affect the future cost. The consultant performs a thorough review and then feeds data into a cost model. At the end of the process, you’ll know how much money you’ll have, your main risks to costs, and where you might be able to make savings.