▷ 3 essential tips

In this article, we’ve put together essential administrative management tips for architects. Find out how to boost your business growth and make your office thrive!

We begin with the following warning: Business management is a complex procedure.

Several questions arise daily, as well as afflictions and conflicts that always need to be resolved in record time.

“Am I billing my service correctly? Who did I send this proposal to? Late with the project, me?”

If you already run your own business, you probably know what we’re talking about. If you still intend to start a business in the field of architecture, we suggest you keep this in mind.

Starting from this premise, we develop 3 good tips for better administrative management for architects.

The advice is also very valid for other businesses that work in the creative field, like urban planning and design.

We will focus on situations that affect the administrative management of architects – including documents, processes and bureaucracy – aspects that are common, but which can stimulate or hinder the growth of an organization. So, here we go!

TIP 01: A look at the regularization of businesses

Nothing like starting from the beginning. The regularization of companies in Brazil, in general, is synonymous with two situations:

Neglect
Problems

The Brazilian informal economy – the one that is not reported to the government – has been developing and progressing since 2014. There are several reasons why Brazilian businesses do not operate formally, and the lack of information is one of them.

Due to the state bureaucracy, one of the factors that influence the country to occupy the lowest positions in the world. ranking of economic freedommany businesses are created outside of legality. It should be noted, however, that the Lack of regularization can lead to fines, losses, or even the closure of the business.

It is therefore important that commercial operations are carried out regularly and within the limits of what the legislation proposes. In the case of architects, they cannot be classified as Individual Micro-Entrepreneurs – MEI. They are, however, eligible for formalize into a MICRO-BUSINESSprovided they maintain gross income equal to or less than R$360,000.00/year.

In all cases, it is important that the operation of the business is accompanied by accounting (obligatory in the case of micro-enterprises) or a financial advice (highly recommended for MEIs and individual entrepreneurs).

Furthermore, regularization does not stop when the business is formalized. Every day, business financial processes – receipts and payments, income and expenses – generate information that must be reported to government and made available for accountability. Maintaining a stable and clear financial process is the duty of every company. More particularly on financial management, we will come back to it in more depth in the next article.

TIP 02: Don’t let your head be your agenda

Currently, the flow of information we receive daily is dizzying and continues to grow. With a wide range of note-taking tools (Evernote, Google Keep, OneNote), it is ironic that many entrepreneurs still keep their memory as the only tool for managing their agenda, their time and their processes.

Having well-defined processes is essential in any organization, and project management tools are also essential for those who work in this format, such as architects.

Maintaining activities (or tasks) well described in a digital tool allows you to visualize and prepare the commercial operation by periods (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.). Additionally, we have delivery verification and feedback on tasks and, last but not least, their documentation.

Tools like Trello, Asanas e Run Run.it allow tasks to be monitored by more than one person. They also allow you to share files, read and consult them via email or smartphone. Keeping processes online acts as a safety barrier by reducing accidents and oversights, which can be crucial to the financial health of an office or sole trader.

In the case of project management, tools such as Pipefy e MS Project can help carry out the work throughout its duration. Whether it involves breaking down the tasks already mentioned above, or checking the scale and budget planned for the project, daily management will be crucial for better quality delivery while respecting the schedule designed with the client.

TIP 03: Set your routine

Did you know that a well-designed process was once a confusing and flawed process? The current way of working (As-Is) is transformed into an optimized process (To-Be) thanks to cartography and a lot of thought. It is therefore crucial that the work processes are fully known to the entrepreneur. And it’s not worth just keeping them in memory either!

Seemingly simple questions can be very effective at this time. Ask yourself:

“What am I doing to attract customers?

“After receiving a client, how should I act?

“After sending a proposal, what are my next actions? »

“When I don’t receive a response from the customer, what should I do? »

“After giving birth, what is the first thing I think I will do? »

Thinking about how situations unfold will form a representative diagram of the process as it is today. The big challenge is to understand which parties are bottlenecks and act in ways that produce negative effects along the chain of events.

A mapped routine will be the necessary input for processes to flow more naturally and have fewer bottlenecks or “holes”. The identification of a bottleneck could be the trigger for other actions, such as reformulating a marketing process, adopting an after-sales process or even seeking greater qualification so that the quality of the final product is even better.

Administrative management for architects

Finally, we hope these tips will be helpful for a better work process. Whether you are an architect, urban planner, designer or manager of an architectural firm, these tips symbolize recurring actions that always deserve to be revisited. Wait for the next article for more tips on financial management for architects!

A BeVert Its mission is to help fashion professionals, photographers, influencers, agents and others not only manage, organize and plan their businesses, but also so that they are free to do what they do best: create!

With 100% growth in 2018, we have already interacted with over 200 brands, achieving transactions of almost BRL 2 million. Using our own methodology, we have already helped our clients see a 135% increase in revenue, in addition to a 35% increase in the number of closed deals.