Rich Geoffroy Polymer Services Group
POLYSERV@cox.net
Before you even consider starting your own engineering practice, you have to have some idea of how much itÆs going to cost for you to run the business --- never mind trying to make a profit. One of the first things you have to do is to prepare a budget.
A budget is nothing more than a financial plan. ItÆs something you need to do to help you to stay out of trouble, and to help you to provide for contingencies when financial trouble hits --- and it will.
Here is a basic list of accounts for a financial plan:
Income
ò Gross Revenue
Gross receipts --- actual amount of cash and checks received.
ò Billed Expenses
Expenses billed to clients will be part of the gross receipts and must be subtracted from income. The fees charged by laboratories, outside consultants, or job-shoppers used on projects should be included in this category, as they are expenses billed to clients and not income attributable to your labor.
ò Net Revenue
Gross Revenue less Billed Expenses yields Net Revenue, the gross income derived from your client labor.
Expenses
ò Client Labor
Total sum of salary by you and/or your employees attributed to billable hours. Note that the ratio of Net Revenue to Client Labor is the mark-up used to establish your consulting rate.
ò General Overhead Labor
All other non-billable labor. It may be convenient to break this down into other categories, such as marketing labor, proposal labor, sales labor, and accounts receivable. This may help monitor your efforts and help you to identify problem areas.
ò Holiday, Vacation, & Sick Time
An easily overlooked category of time because itÆs time not-worked, but it must be considered in your overall budget.
ò Recruiting Expenses
The expenses associated with finding, hiring, and potentially moving an individual to your location for employment. This item may not be important to the small one-man consulting office, but can be a considerable expense for any firm who hires employees.
ò Payroll Related Expenses
All those expenses related to employees, such as medical insurance, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, educational expenses, etc.
ò Retirement Plan Contribution
This is also a payroll-related expense, but it requires special attention. You must plan ahead for your future.
ò Advertising Expense
The expenses, other than labor, incurred in promoting and advertising your services to prospective clients.
ò Sales Expense
The expenses, other than labor, incurred in attempting to secure a project --- whether you get it or not.
ò Marketing Expense
The expenses, other than labor, incurred in general marketing of your business, like attending professional meetings, developing standards, public speaking, or taking part in governmental task groups, etc.
ò Office Expense
All those expenses incurred in running an office, i.e., office supplies and office equipment --- only that which is not required to be depreciated.
ò Automobile Expense
The costs associated with operating and maintaining a vehicle for the company, such as gas, oil, maintenance, and insurance --- not the cost of the vehicle, however.
ò Telephone Expense
The cost associated with installing and maintaining your phone system, including equipment, lines, monthly charges, etc. Also, internet charges can be included in this category.
ò Postage
All charges associated with postage, including stamps, express mail, and Federal Express and UPS packages.
ò Utilities
Often overlooked as expenses to the home office, these are true expenses to all offices. They include charges for heat & air conditioning, electricity, water, gas, sewer, etc.
ò Rent
Rent paid for office, lab, shop, or storage space.
ò Insurance
Insurance coverage other than those covered under Employee-Related Expenses and Automobile Expense, like Errors and Omissions insurance, General Liability Insurance, etc.
ò Maintenance Expense
Like it or not, things will breakdown and need repair. The office will require routine cleaning and maintenance
ò Library Expense
The costs associated with maintaining your professional magazine subscriptions, technical books, literature searches, and library fees.
ò Dues & Fees
Membership fees for professional societies and the entrance fees into exhibits and symposia.
ò Professional Services
Fees associated with services rendered by lawyers, accountants, and other professionals necessary to maintain the business.
ò Contributions
Actual out-of-pocket contributions to charitable fund raisers. Unfortunately, your time is not considered a contribution expense.
ò Interest and Service Charges
Interest income or expense, or service charges on bank accounts, loans, credit cards, revolving accounts, etc.
ò Miscellaneous Tax & Fees
There will be other taxes and fees that donÆt fit into any of the above-stipulated accounts, such as business registrations fees, local property taxes, etc.
ò Depreciation
Unfortunately your business will require equipment (vehicles, computers, desks, office furnishing, etc.) which will be an expense to the business, but in the eyes of the taxman, the items cannot be ôexpensedö as the costs are incurred --- they must be ôdepreciatedö. That is, a portion of their costs is incurred as an expense over several years, depending on the expected lifetime of the equipment. This account can be very large as it carries over from year to year. During an expanding business cycle purchasing depreciable capital equipment can be a real drain on cash, however, when business is declining and purchases stop or decrease to a trickle, the depreciation expense carry-over can be a lifeline for cash flow.
Earnings
ò Earnings Before Taxes
Subtracting the sum of the expenses from the Net Revenue will yield the Gross Profit, or Earnings Before Taxes.
ò Federal, State & Local Taxes
When you finally make a profit at your business, youÆll find that youÆll have to give a major chunk of it to the local, state and federal governments
ò Net Profit
Finally, whatever is left over is PROFIT.
Run through this budget and apply your best estimates to these costs. Try several different income scenarios like averaging 1 day/week, 2 days/week, and 4 days/week to see what happens if things are slower or busier than you expected. Remember some of your costs will increase as your income increases, while others may decline. Attempt scenarios using a different mark-up structure.
When you really start to get a feel for this budgeting process, try doing it on spreadsheet on a monthly basis. Unless you have projects in-hand on the day you start your practice, your client time will be ZERO for the first three to six months. YouÆll see how hard it will be to get to even your worst-case annual scenario. And all that red ink at the bottom of the page where it says Net Profit, thatÆs all of the money that will have to come from your savings in order to stay afloat.
The reality is that you need a sufficient amount of cash to finance you and your business before the venture can start paying off. The same will be true when business turns down.
In order to survive you need to understand the financial aspects of your practice, and you must continually monitor the financial well-being of your business, with contingencies for slow times as well as busy times. The best way to plan for these contingencies is through budgeting.
