Pick up where you left off.
Course Content
Building a Profitable Design Studio: Financial Essentials
Busy all year and still short at tax time? Your fees may not cover what the studio really costs.
A practical guide to the business side of design. Read the numbers that show how your studio is really performing: margin, markup, utilisation, overhead and net profit, benchmarked against practices your size. Then match the fee model to scope and risk, build phase budgets that warn you before a project overruns, price compliance work such as Performance Solutions early, and stay ahead of cash flow, BAS, PAYG, super, insurance and contract risk.
Secure card checkout. Tax invoice emailed.
4 modules with worked examples, final quiz and certificate.
Introduction and objectives
Why financial literacy is a leadership skill for anyone running a studio, and how to build profit into the process instead of hoping for it at the end.
Understanding Key Financial Metrics
Tell margin from markup, work out your utilisation and overhead rates, and benchmark a three person and a ten person studio against industry ranges.
Fee Structuring and Proposal Pricing
Choose between fixed fee, hourly, percentage and hybrid models to suit scope and risk, and see how a Class 1a or Class 2 townhouse changes the price.
Project Budgeting for Profitability
Set phase budgets by role, track hours against them, spot early signs of overrun and budget for Performance Solutions before documentation starts.
Financial Risk and Compliance Obligations
Manage cash flow timing, BAS, PAYG, GST and super, and protect the studio with the right contracts, insurances and business structure.
Key takeaways
The four financial pillars and the self assessment questions to put to your own studio this month.
Final quiz and certificate
Ten questions on metrics, fee models, budgeting and compliance obligations. Pass and the certificate goes straight into your dashboard.
Intermediate. For studio owners, principals and architects who already set fees and run projects. Covers financial metrics and benchmarks, fee models and proposal pricing, project budgets and cost to complete, cash flow, tax, payroll, super, contracts and insurance. It is practice management education, not financial, tax or legal advice, and it teaches no NCC provision or Australian Standard.
Written for everyone who sets the fees and answers for the studio’s bottom line.
Architects
You run or help run a practice where good design does not always turn into a good year.
Building designers
You price every job yourself and need to know the fee covers the hours it will really take.
Studio principals
The studio looks busy, yet the profit at the end of the financial year never matches the effort.
Compliance managers
You keep BAS, PAYG, super and insurance on time and need them planned into the studio’s cash flow.
Small practice owners
You carry design, delivery and the books, and every underpriced project comes out of your own pocket.
Where this hour goes on your record.
National Standard of Competency for Architects (NSCA 2021) performance criteria this course aligns with:
Practice resources and quality assurance
Project and staff planning and resource costs
Client architect agreements and partial services
Reporting and varying the scope of services
Risk management and appropriate insurances
| If you are | How it is recorded |
|---|---|
| An architect | 1 formal CPD point in practice management. Aligned with NSCA 2021 performance criteria PC2, PC4, PC5, PC6 and PC16. |
| A building designer | 1 CPD point in business and practice management. Your certificate, the learning outcomes, the module outline and your quiz result are kept in your dashboard, so you can show what you studied if your CPD is audited. |
| A studio principal, compliance manager or small practice owner | 1 hour of CPD on studio finances, fee setting and business compliance, recorded on your certificate for your professional body or your own records. |
CPD On Demand is not a registered training organisation and courses are not accredited by any registration body. Each course is aligned with the relevant competency frameworks and gives you the records to evidence it. CPD rules differ by registration body and state, so check with yours if you are unsure.
Pairs well with.
Presenting Design Value So You Stop Competing on Price
Once you know what your fee has to be, how to present it and hold it.
Contracts & Risk Management for Architects and Designers
The agreements and scope clauses that stop a well priced job losing money.
Growing a Design Practice: From Sole Trader to Studio
Taking on staff and overheads without losing the margin you have built.
Before you enrol.
Know your numbers, price for profit and keep the studio ahead of its obligations, in one self-paced hour.
$99, 60 minutes, certificate on completion.