This is the third part in a multi part series on working with clients.

• Working with Clients (Part 1) = Ask Questions
• Working with Clients (Part 2) = Writing a Creative Brief

Monday, I talked about writing creative briefs. Part of that process is being able to budget both time and money.

Budgeting Money

Between the two (time and money), this is the easy one. I look at the list of requirements that I’ve developed for the site and determine all the things that I’ll need.

Content Management System or a CMS

Depending on what the user is trying to accomplish, I’ll make a recommendation on a CMS. Historically, I’ve been a huge proponent of Expression Engine ($299.95), but just recently, have converted to WordPress (Free ninety-free).

Plug-Ins

If I need to extend the functionality of the CMS with plugins, then I’ll determine how much each plug-in costs. For Expression Engine, some of my favorites are:

• Matrix
• Wygwam
• Structure
• Taggable
• Better Meta

Fortunately, if you’re building on WordPress, most of the plug-ins are free. I’ve only had to buy a few. Sometimes, depending on the client’s budget, I may modify an existing theme instead of starting from scratch. Those go into the budget too.

Stock Photography

If I know that I’ll need Stock Photography, I can try and figure out how many images I’ll need and guess how much it will cost. I buy most images from iStock. But, I’ve recently bought from PhotoCase as well.

Domain name Registration

If the client needs to register a domain, I’ll budget $11 for each domain.

Note: If you’re getting ready to buy a domain from GoDaddy, go to Retail Me Not. You can always find promo codes that will knock off a buck or two.

Hosting

If the client needs hosting, I’ll budget $5 a month. — I’ll either set them up with a GoDaddy account or host their site myself (on MediaTemple) for a comparable amount.

Social Media

If the user is looking to beef up their Twitter account, I may budget HootSuite ($5/mo for a pro account) or TweetBig ($17.95/mo). HootSuite allows multiple people to manage a given Twitter account. It also lets you manage several Twitter accounts at once. TweetBig has several different features for building a Twitter following.

Budgeting Time

This is always harder because every project is different. What may take 5 minutes with one client, could take 5 hours with the next!

My philosophy with budgeting time: I make an estimate based on how long I think the project will take me, but it’s a set project fee. I could charge strictly by the hour, but I don’t believe that’s fair to the client. That method rewards me for being slow. It should be the other way around. I’m being paid to be a professional and for a refined skill set. The better I am at my job, the more that’s worth to the client. Experience should be rewarded.

I write down all the tasks that I have to do for a project, then I determine how long I think each item will take:

• Phone calls, meetings, emails
• Project documentation
• Designing a logo
• Developing a moodboard
• Initial designs
• Design revisions
• Designing interior pages
• Revising interior pages
• Slicing and dicing the site (turning the design into HTML and CSS)
• Connecting the site to a CMS
• Quality Assurance
• Launching the site: domain name registration, setting up the server, and uploading files.

It’s a lot easier to estimate how long a project will you take when you break it down. Otherwise, you might as well be pulling a random number out of the air.

With every project, I keep a time sheet. This helps me make sure that my estimates are as accurate as possible. I use this to develop a formula. Everyone’s formula looks a little different.

For example, I know it will take me at least three hours to develop an initial comp, one hour for each round of revision, two hours to layout the code framework for a site, one hour to slice and dice each additional page afterward, and one hour to hook up each page to a CMS.

Then, once I’ve added up all my time, I give myself a 15% contingency allowance. This makes all the difference. There are some clients where we’ll fly through through the design, but the development will take longer, or vice versa. I don’t have the foresight to know ahead of time which area will be “problematic”, but the 15% contingency allowance provides flexibility.