First of all, there is absolutely no consistency to what people charge. Consulting rates are all over the place. I have done some basic excel work for clients before but not to this extent so I wasn’t sure how to price this project. The client is a financial analyst and needs to be able to project future values based on market variables and client specific data. I have base rates for things like hardware installs, upgrades, troubleshooting work, custom software development and server work. Initially, writing a custom spreadsheet seemed like a fairly simple task. But before I quoted any price, I asked a bunch of questions to see what the client had in mind. Once we started discussing the project, I could see that it was going to be a big one that involved a lot of calculations and queries that were on the more advanced end of the Excel feature set. These are not things I use on a regular basis either, but we discussed the project concepts and I told the client I would review their ideas and get back to them with a quote.

The excel project would include a data entry page where a few dozen variables would be entered by the client that are specific for the company’s line of business. They are a financial investment firn that manages investment funds for credit unions across the country. Their sales team would gather the required information from their prospects and enter it all into this data entry page. The spreadsheet would then need run a variety of different calculations with that information and then spit out a nicely formatted document that would be used as their sales presentation to the boards of directors and CEO of these credit unions. We’re talking millions of dollars here so they really want to make a nice impression when they present and this document would be at the forefront.

As I mentioned, before quoting prices, I decided to check for similar rates on such a project and actually had a little difficulty finding solid information. I saw people charging as little as $40.00 per hour (USD) for excel work all the way up to $1,800 per day. I knew I had to be somewhere in between because I wasn’t liking either of those figures, but where in the range would I need to be for my client to give me the job. Since I have been working with this client for some time, I felt confident they would give me the job regardless, but I always like to take the time to make sure my quote is fair so they stay happy with the value of my services. I feel it is essential to under promise and over deliver at all times.

So I ran the numbers and decided on a rate right around $120/hr for the project. I felt that was a little on the high side and left me some room for negotiation. I wrote up a quote and presented it them. They agreed without batting an eye and we immediately went to work gathering information for the project. Because this is a custom project, I expect there will be a lot of back and forth on the layout of the presentation pages as well as the proper calculations that will return accurate numbers. I also expect there to be a multitude of revisions and changes so I didn’t want to charge a flat fee. If I were to charge a flat fee, it would have included a finite number of revisions, with an hourly rate over that number.

As the project progresses, I expect to suggest some additional features to them which will add value and functionality for them and create more billable hours for me. This is a great way to add more to your bottom line and make the client happy at the same time. I would like to make this a web based solution for them so they can actually enter the data and provide the report while they are actually sitting with the client, but they want to wait on that for now. I will include the concept in my planning though for future updates.

I actually enjoy working with Excel so this should be a fun project. These guys are great to work with too which always helps. That’s all for now on this project. I hope it is helpful to someone out there, but I make no promises.