Relocating a business can be expensive and there are a lot of hidden costs involved. You aren’t just moving furniture and equipment. You also have to consider the loss of revenue during the move, extra wages if staff are helping with moving, and there are marketing and public relations costs as well.

When you decide to move your business, you will need to start planning well in advance to ensure things go smoothly. Everything must be accounted for. It is a good idea to appoint people for various roles. You will need a manager to oversee things, a financial controller to track your spending, and a team leader to manage human resources.

As long as you are well-organized, your move will go smoothly without blowing out your moving budget. Here are some things to watch out for to stay under budget and make the transition efficiently.

Calculate costs

You know what your budget is going to be, but do you know what all of your expenses are?

It is important to work all of your real-world expenses in the beginning. There are obvious expenses such as hiring a moving company and obtaining any new furniture required.

You will need to pay a lease deposit or make a down payment if you are purchasing the new property. There are also lease termination fees on your old property, cleaning costs and broker fees.

Your new property may require some construction before you can operate your business the way you envision. You will need to pay connection fees for power and communications.

Depending on your business, you may need to pay for permits and licenses.

Staff wages

If your staff are helping with the move, you will need to pay them overtime. Make sure you have an accurate estimate of how long the move will take so you can estimate the cost of paying staff.

If you make the move during normal office hours there is no overtime to pay, but you will have to work out the cost of lost business and revenue. You can’t get out of paying during a move, even if you don’t use your staff and have a moving company do all the packing and loading, there will still be a loss of revenue while business is disrupted.

You will need to calculate what each employee hour is worth in dollars, and then how many employee hours are lost. You to know the cost in labor and lost revenue in order to calculate the real cost of your move.

Marketing and PR

During the move, you may lose some clients. If clients don’t find it convenient to do business at your new location they will just find someone else to do the work instead of you.

Some may not know where you have moved to. No matter how many emails you send out letting your clients know about the move, there will always be some that don’t read them.

To make up for lost clients you will need to gain some new ones. This requires marketing, and you must account for it in your budget.

If you hire a good PR firm, they can help you retain more of your old customers and help you acquire new ones.

Moving company

Not all moving companies are the same. You will need to do your research to find a good one. Add research time to budget as well.

You will want to choose a company that is experienced in office moving like CaliforniaMoversUSA. The more experienced the moving company, the more likely they are to keep the costs down.

You don’t want a moving company that takes longer than quoted and doesn’t bring enough people for the job.

Insurance

You probably already have insurance for your business. Depending on the type of cover you have, you may need to upgrade when you move to the new offices. Contact your insurance company and make sure there are no hidden expenses.

You should also consider moving insurance. You most likely have a lot of important equipment that you want to be moved. If it is damaged in transit, it can disrupt business and add to your moving costs.

You should also consider what would happen if one of your staff members strains their back while lifting things during the move. See if your insurance covers that. If not, speak to a representative about health insurance for your employees. An injured staff member will ruin your moving budget for sure.

Disposal

If your office is like most, there will definitely be some things you are leaving behind. These can be anything from office equipment, to computers, to hazardous chemicals.

There are many things that accumulate from the jobs you have taken on over the years. Anything you are leaving behind will need to be disposed of properly.

For large items like furniture and fax machines, you will need to hire a skip. One will be dropped off at your workplace and once you have filled it up with rubbish, the company you hired it from will collect it along with all your rubbish. You may need more than one skip so make sure you account for this in your budget.

If you have paint cans or chemicals, you will need to hire a disposal service to take care of them. These items can’t be thrown into the regular garbage bins. They also can’t be poured down a drain. If you aren’t sure what to do with them, then leave it to a professional. Just make sure you budget for that.

Make sure everything is accounted for

As you can see, there are a lot of expenses involved in relocating a business. You need to take stock of everything or you are likely to end up spending more money than you want to.

The best thing to do is to appoint someone to manage the budget. They can go over all the expenses and make sure that everything is accounted for and comes in under cost.

Of course, you will have to pay them, which adds to the budget. But it is worth it to make sure things are done right.

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