Manage finance and budgets

Pre-amble

Custometal Pty Ltd has been trading since 1992 under a couple of different names before becoming a proprietorship in 1998. Since its conception in 1992 it has been with the same owner and trades today as a sole proprietorship.

Custometal’s customers consist of the construction industry across Melbourne. Custometal is what is known in the industry as a metal work sub-contractor, with our scope of works basically consisting of custom fabricating all metal items excluding structural steel and items that can be mass produced.

Custometal’s company structure consists of 1 general manager, 2 accounts staff, 2 estimating staff, 1 foreman, 2 leading hands and 16 tradesmen, 4 labourers and one apprentice. Being a trade based company; really what we are selling is the time and skills of our workforce more then a physical end product of their labour.

1.0 Introduction

Being a trade based company; Custometal’s budgets are not as easy and strait forward as those of manufacturing, retail or even most services companies. Like most companies, we have sales targets, administration budgets, and services budgets that can be fixed, but our workshop budgets and production-based budgets rely heavily on the amount of contracts we have and the type of products we have to supply.

The flow of Custometal’s budgets like most are circular, therefore it is difficult to talk about communication of budgets without talking about reporting procedures and how activities are controlled and monitored.

The production cycle of our products starts with the estimating department, once the contract is awarded, the estimating department communicates the budget to the production staff who intern communicate the budget to the tradespeople.

With the aid of the accounts staff, the production staff monitor and control the budget though the production cycle and report the outcomes back to the estimating department and the general manager and this analysis is used by the estimating department to refine quoting procedures and formulate estimates for simular jobs.

2.0 Roles of the departments

2.1 Estimating Department

The estimating department is responsible for formulating production budgets by providing quotes to Custometal’s customers. By submitting quotes, the estimating department enters into a legal agreement with the customer where they are agreeing that if a contract is awarded to Custometal, we will undertake the works at the price stated. The quote and the documentation provided by the customer become legal documents stating the following:

· The product on offer – Tender documents are a package that includes a scope of works, written specifications of the product, requirements such as Australian standards to conform with and conditions that the product has to stand up to, detailed drawings and bills of quantities.