NZIA Lectures - F

Question 1

Practice Conduct and Office Management - Outcomes

Answer 1

• To establish and maintain an architectural practice
• To conduct his or her practice of architecture to an ethical standard at least equivalent to that required by code of ethical conduct
• Understand and comply with the applicable New Zealand statutory and regulatory requirements

In short if you become a registered architect you will be able to go out there and form your own practice

They would like to understand how outcomes be achieved

Question 2

Practice Conduct and Office Management - Performance Indicators

Answer 2

• Knowledge of practice models is exhibited
• Practice management and accounting procedures have been established and maintained
• Comply with the law and regulations governing the conduct of an architectural practice particularly under the legal constraints affecting an architectural practice, as a business entity and as an employer
• Work has been organised and performance against time and cost plans have been monitored
  
  • importance of project initiation and setting out the project correctly to help manage and communicate with the client your deliverables
• Client satisfaction has been monitored
  
  • Hard to at the end of the project but recommended that it is done as it will influence how you move forward with new projects
• Awareness of sources of professional support has been demonstrated
  
  • Legal, insurance etc
• An understanding of the legal responsibilities of an architect, with regard to registration, practice and construction contracts is demonstrated
  
  • Responsibilities of registered architect within a practice and non registered architects
• An understanding of professional ethics and ethical practice is demonstrated
  
  • Ethics for architect is in the NZ RAB website
  • https://www.nzrab.nz/c/Ethics

Question 3

Practice Models

Answer 3

Practice Models:

(Practice notes PN1.301 & PN1.302 & PN1.316 & PN3.105)

• Sole Practitioner
  
  • Working on your own, possibilty with some assistance
• Partnership
  
  • Two or more people go into an agreement with each other
• Limited liability
  
  • Seperate entity which requires shareholders and other responsibilities to maintain that company
• Joint Ventures Or Working in Association
  
  • Working mainly on individual projects with other architects
  • Called JVs - and there are agreements that should be written down between those two entities

Question 4

Establishing a practice

Answer 4

(Practice notes PN1.301 & PN1.302 & PN1.316 & PN3.105)

Practice notes available to help you formulate a business plan

About understanding what you can provide and what you wnat to deliver

What sort of clients are you looking for

• Why will people come to you?
• What are your motivations
  
  • Do you only want to do commercial only or do you want to do private houses
• What are your strengths, do you have specisit knowledge or skill?
• Business plan
  
  • Above point can be reviewed in business plan
  • It could be a 1 year plan, 5 year plan or 10 year plan
  • But you should review this every year - see which direction you want to head in.
• Professional advisors
  
  • This had a cost and time element to it
  • Solicitor/Accountant/Bank Manager/HR consultant
  • If you are taking on staff - you must take on the fact that there will be formal agreements between you and the staff
• Partners and shareholders agreements
  
  • Partners will have to have an agreement between each other. Their scopes, and roles. Any financial agreements.
  • Shareholders is part of company set-up - a requirement to follow a certain process and certain responsibilities being a director of a company
• Sucession - agree with your partners and shareholders how you will put in a succession plan for people coming up through the practice

Question 5

Managing Risk

Answer 5

PN 1.200 SERIES

This is where items in experience area A and F overlap

All about reviewing risk and limited risk. For you and your clients

• PI Insurance is imperative. AAS outlines a minimum amount and 6 year period. Limited to 6 year period. 10 years under CCCS (check)
• What can you do when a client asks for more (PN1.216)
  
  • Can increase insurance as project related
  • Or increase across the practice
  • Needs to be discussed and agreed with Insurnace brokers
• NZACS - NZIA members have access to NZACS which is a co-operative whose purpose is to arrange PI cover for members in association with risk management advice. Through their brokers they arrange PI insurance through a group insurance scheme.
• Other insurances: Public liability/statutory/ contents (explore further)
  
  • Your are essetnailly insuring a third party if there is an incident or accident
• Income protection and personal asset protection
  
  • Can be agreed with your partners
  • Or just for yourself
• Keep insurers notified of change of circumstances and notyify them promptly in an event that is likely to give rise to a claim
  
  • This will be outlined in your policies and when to act
  • In some cases if you do not advise them, then it might void your policy
• Dont let it lapse - continoue into next year
• Beware of PJ’s (Private Jobs) - PN 1.212
  
  • Lof of Risk around this
  • Especially if working with a company and you are working also for your family or friend that is not connected to the coapny you are working for
  • This means you will have no insurance and not abiding by the insurnace requirements

Question 6

Office Systems and Structure

Answer 6

Assessors keen to understand the office works and how you understand how the office works

• Team Structure by phase or project type?
• Office hierarchy
  
  • Directors and partners to associates and graduates
  • Or maybe flat hierarchy
• Office manual and checklists
  
  • To reduce risk and create performance
  • Eg. list of pages to do in a drawing set
  • Or list of things that needs to be shown in a site plan
• Communication systems
  
  • Within your office and external communication
  • zoom /teams calls
  • Staff meetings every month/week? (with minutes?)
• Education and training
  
  • CPD (what does that stand for?) points etc - showing experience, increased knowledge in a certain aspect of architecture
  • You can talk about training sessions at SGA
• Filing and drawing systems - Experience area C
  
  • Understanding how in the past or in the last number of years how you manage this process
• Staff
  
  • Contracts - contractors of permanent staff - understnad what goes into this
  • Performance Reviews - important to do this - feedback on how to improve the practice
  • Morale - lots of issues can can up - keep morale up/help
  • CPD
  • Contractor vs Employee - Tax and PI Issues

Question 7

Accounting Procedures

Answer 7

Very important part of the process

The NZRAB know that graduates havent been managing a practice, so aware of your level of experience

They just need to understand that you understand, the general accounting procedures if you are going into running a business

• Working capital (explore further)
• Managing cash flow - how to prepare for downturn/strategies for addressing deficit
  
  • You need to know every week how much money is going in and going our
  • If more money is going out than in then youve got a problem mate
  • If there’s a problem then you can manage it
  • You can have an overdraft - some people have it some people dont
  • Understanding what you will be like 3 months down the line
  • During a recession you might only be able to look 2 weeks ahead but prosperous times you can look ahead 12 months ahead
• Accounting and Invoicing systems - Xero?
  
  • Or can bring a part time accountant into it
• Time management and Efficiency
  
  • Do you have enough resources
  • How long it it taking
  • Too long?
  • Have you got the fee wrong?
  • Also gives future knowledge when new project comes in
• Tax - Gst/personal income/company/provisional/PAYE/Kiwisaver/ACC levies
  
  • Understand this!
  • Costs you have to pay at certain times of year
• Credit control - explore further
• Getting Paid
  
  • Invoice regularly - monthly? To clients
    
    • Some people do it every two weeks if its a fast job
    • Regular invoice sent out to clients
    • Outlined in AAS. eg 20th of every month
• Deposits
• Chasing payment
  
  • Chasing payment - can have number of clients who are late
  • Keeping cashflow because of late payments
• AAS does outline procedures for non payment
  
  • Rarely happens but there to review and understand
  • In AAS If project is canceled, you have the right to request fees for the percentage of payment that will not be received
• READ THE AAS!
• Could talk about late payment in case study

Question 8

Sustainability in practice and business

Answer 8

About improving the way you work and service

• Architects Services (PN3.100)
• Monitor time invested and agreed fees
  
  • Projecting future fees etc
• Are you charging enough (PN3.207)
  
  • Calculating outgoings and hourly rates
  • Regularly do this to cover the outgoing costs
• Using independent advisors
  
  • Specialists -eg accountants, lawyers, more senior architects or advice
• Awareness of professional support - other architects
• Office manuals and office protocols
• Quality assurance procedures
  
  • GAP (good architectural practice) guides and forms (PN2.101)
  • CIC guides lines - sometimes referenced in CCCS contracts - explore further
  • Internal Reviews
  • Peer reviews

Question 9

Getting work

Answer 9

• Client satisfaction - what you are remembered for
  
  • One of the most important things, especially for future work
  • Important to understand their outcomes and service those clients
  • Clients can change overtime - need to keep on top of communication
• Post occupancy evaluations (PN2.104)
  
  • About imporivng services
• Repeat clients
• New clients - through previous clients, tenders, interviews or pitching for jobs
• Losing bad clients - if its not working say goodbye accimcably - be careful about this
• Competitions
  
  • Limited or open competitions
  • May have to do for zero income
  • Or limited like 5000 dollars
  • Rare to win - 2/50 can get through - not very effective
    
    • But can get people excited
• Publishing
  
  • Marketing
  • Getting your work into magazines, online stuff, books
• Keeping a good website and portfolio
  
  • People will make a judgement in 5 seconds
  • Make it active and engaging
• Marketing vs professionalism
  
  • Show your organisations
  • Show how you can help the client
• Quality of performance
  
  • If you act professionally and provide quality product and service then best outcome

Question 10

Review

Answer 10

Best way to improve your operation as a practice is to do continuously reviews of your projects:

• Lessons learned, looking ahead, review procedures
  
  • Issues that came up - edg planning application issues, changes to the building code you missed, contractor who has not performed
  • Trying to remove these issues in the future and reduce risk
• Fee agreements - scope of services clearly defined including exclusions
  
  • Exclusions have to be really clear
  • Eg. providing six images - is this with sketchup images or CGI images
  • Say that you are not providing high quality images - be clear
  • Can provide high quality images but there will be a cost to it
• Considering new systems & technology
  
  • Plug-ins - rendering etc
  • Communication tech
  • With your cashflow you may be able to invest in better systems
• New staff - competency / skills
  
  • Do you have the right skill sets
  • You may be overloaded with people that dont have certain skills for a project. So you may get new people in or upskilling existing people
• Time and quality issues addressed
  
  • Project may have gone over budget and time - how do we improve this
  • How do we make sure programme and fee is tied in with the resourcing and number of people and skill set
• Archiving (PN6.104)
  
  • Quite important to hold onto info for 6 or 10 yeats depending on the contract

Question 11

Office Management Laws

Answer 11

• As a business entity
  
  • Companies Act
  • NZ tax law & GST Act
• As an employer
  
  • Emplyment Relations Act
  • Emplyment Contracts Act
  • Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (PB1.207)
  • Human rights Act
• As an Architectural Practice
  
  • Consumer Guarantees Act (PN 1.206)
  • Registered Architects Act 2005 (NZRAR) Code of Ethics - important!
    
    • What does this entail for a registered architect

Question 12

Ethics: Public

Answer 12

• Public
  
  • do not misrepresent what you are doing to the public, uphold the law

Question 13

Ethics: Client

Answer 13

• Code of Ethical Conduct requires you to agree to terms of appointment with client including scope, responsibilities, limitations of responsibility, fees, termination, provisions of PI insurance
  
  • Clearly outlined in Code of Ethics
• Use AAS wherever possible
  
  • This isnt always possible so alternative agreements like CCCS can be used
• Communication
  
  • Complaints
  • Communication is key!
  • Be aware if its good news or bad news
• Care and diligence
• Confidentiality
  
  • Might have to sign a confidentiality agreement
• Conflict of interest
  
  • Communicating with the clients that there may be a conflict of interest
  • Clear communication
• Estimates & programming (PN1.211)
  
  • Something that clients have complained about
  • An architect may have said that its going to cost this much to build a building but you should never do this
  • Because you are not an expert in estimating projects!
  • They expect you to know so can advise on HOW to estimate a project - you may have knowledge or historical data - eg 4500-6500 dollars per sqm on certain projects - so the clients can get an understanding - but you MUST make them aware of other costs that could come into play.
  • Dont tell clients its gonna cost a certain amount of money to build a house - because it wont - and you will get into trouble
  • Communicate what you know - and what you dont - and helping the clients estimating the overall cost of the project.

Question 14

Ethics: Profession

Answer 14

• CPD and Risk Management - improve skills and keeping ahead with technological developments
  
  • Part of the ethics is that you must keep ahead with skills and technological developments
  • Managed through CPD programme with NZRAB and NZIA.
  • Monitored every five years - show you have achieved the number of points to be re-registered

Question 15

Ethics: Other registered architects

Answer 15

• Competitive fee tendering & fee cutting (PN.209)
  
  • Discusses the process
  • Fee cutting is going to cause problems with runnings the project - is not recommended
  • Competitive fee tendering is a process to follow - ensure that the information that you are given to put a fee in, is equal to other architects and consultants - so its fair!