A building cost consultant (like our team here at Trecelyn Consultancy) can provide you with a range of services to keep your construction projects running smoothly – but for those new to the construction industry, or those of you still deciding on how to best tackle a construction project, here’s our introduction to cost consultancy, what it is, and how it works!
Building Cost Consultancy
A cost consultant will usually be a quantity surveyor, accountant, or other construction consultant, and will be hired on in a consultant role to manage the finances, provide cost estimation and advise you during your project. Make sure that you speak to your prospective consultant before beginning work with them, to make sure that they’ve got the required experience and industry knowledge to help you!
A few ways that a cost consultant like Trecelyn can help you include:
- Determining what you require and what your priorities are with the project
- Determining the feasibility of the project
- Estimating the required project budget
- Preparing cost plans, estimates and cash-flow projections
- Making sure designs are kept to budget
- Benchmarking your requirements against past projects
- Assessing available options
- Assessing likely value for money on the project
- Ensuring that designs meet legal standards and regulations
- Ensuring that designs meet quality standards
- Developing risk management strategy
- Advising on procurement strategy & logistics
- Preparing bills of quantities & tender pricing documents
- Issuing tender documentation & assessing tenders
- Estimating the costs of potential pitfalls in construction
- Preparing regular cost reports
- Completing the final account
Cost Planning Documents That Your Consultants Can Provide
Cost planning documents can come in many forms depending on what your project needs. Cost plans are usually prepared by your estimator or cost consultant, and will evolve as your project does to meet your current needs at each point of construction.
They will likely also evolve in terms of information and detail as new information comes to light throughout the project, and incorporate the prices of contractors, suppliers and materials as these become “concrete” – no pun intended. These cost documents will evolve in name, too, starting as an initial cost appraisal or estimation, and becoming tender pricing documents, cost reports, and the final account. No matter how many names they take, though, these documents all have the same function – to keep you in the loop about your project and its finances.
Initial Cost Appraisals and Cost Estimation
Your initial cost appraisal will be the first document drawn up by your cost consultant, and will usually be done without the benefit of a design for the project in place. These appraisals allow you to create a foundation that the rest of the project will spring from, with client costs included that may require the input of your finance director to ensure complete accuracy of the projections. Once the initial appraisal is complete, your cost estimator will help you to decide the complete budget which you’ll be moving ahead with, which will include the scope of acceptable costs. From that point, the cost consultant will monitor the spending of the project to make sure it doesn’t run over-budget.
There may be some costs which you’d like to keep under your personal control, rather than that of your cost consultant – if so, you should let them know as early in the process as possible, but we at Trecelyn Consultancy find that the best results can be found if the consultant is given full control over the process, as they can factor all potential costs into their modelling and reporting system and provide you with full assurance that nothing will be overlooked.
Once you’ve engaged the services of your cost consultant, you’ll find that they can help you to control the costs of your project in a myriad of ways – this post has only laid out the basics of what your construction cost consultants can do for you!
Looking For Consultants You Can Rely On? Get In Touch With Trecelyn Consultancy Today!
If you’ve still got questions about construction consultancy or how our consulting and cost estimation services can help you, you can give us a call any time. Our head office team will be happy to hear from you!
You can get in touch on 077 111 82005 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday, or use the Contact Page on this site to send us a message, no matter the time. Our team will be happy to talk to you about our construction estimating services, what we do, and how we can help save you money on your domestic or commercial projects. They will also be able to talk you through exactly what to expect during your consultation and building process, so you know what’ll be happening at every step of the way.