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Budgeting for flexspaces: Here's what you need to know

Budgeting for flexspaces: Here’s what you need to know

Apr 20, 2023

6 mins read

Workspace Spend Management

As more companies move to a fully remote work environment, the way coworking space benefits are offered, and how budgeting for flexspaces will be managed is changing. In the past, coworking space usage might have been mostly on a membership basis, which while costly, can be easy to manage.

However, with a full transition to remote-first, purchasing these memberships for employees no longer makes sense. Instead, on-demand co-working spaces, which can be booked as needed, whether on a one-off or daily to weekly basis, are increasingly more desirable. But if your company now offers on-demand coworking space benefits to team members, you will likely see a jump in requests and reports that will require more attention, not just from a management perspective, but also from a budgeting standpoint as well. That means at minimum, a new specific category for coworking space expenses. 

While the process of creating a coworking spend budget isn’t unique, understanding how to create one might be, because the cost of coworking spaces and the amount they will be used will probably vary greatly based on several factors. The simple answer to what you should be budgeting for flexspaces is “it depends,” but if we dig a little deeper, we can offer you specific considerations that will help you determine what your company should be budgeting based on a few important factors. 

READ MORE: What is workspace spend management?

Who will be using the flexspaces?

Before you even begin to create your coworking spend budget, it’s important to understand who on the team anticipates using this benefit. While it might be offered to your entire team (or even specific teams where it makes the most sense or is the most available to them), a simple, anonymous survey sent to your employees would be helpful in gaining the necessary information to help you create a budget. It might be that only a small percentage plan on using coworking spaces. Or, only team members in a specific place. Without this information, you’re only making a guess, which can be quite costly. Taking the time to create a short survey, or even interviewing managers (or individual team members) will help inform where to start with your coworking spend budget. 

How will they be using the flexspaces? 

Additionally, you will want to gain an understanding of how they plan to use the space and how frequently. Will they be hosting sales meetings on a weekly basis? Using a desk every day? Holding board meetings once a quarter? Those use cases should factor into your budget. The beauty of on-demand coworking spaces is that they offer something for every type of employee, whether it’s a daily deskspace for your software engineers, a teched-out board room for your C-suite, or meeting spaces for your sales team who might travel on a regular basis. All of those use cases will have different price points, so again, through your survey or interview, get a sense of how your team intends to use these coworking spaces. 

What is the cost of on-demand coworking spaces? 

Unfortunately, not all on-demand coworking spaces cost the same, but you can compare costs based on averages in the various cities in which your employees live and work. Armed with the information you gathered from your survey or team interviews, you can then research what the average cost might be for various locations and use cases. Desk space for daily use versus a meeting space for weekly use will be two different price points. In that same vein, those spaces in Los Angeles and New York City, compared to a smaller, suburban town will also be very different. While you might not be able to pin down exactly how much each space will be, you can get an idea of what the averages might be, which will offer you a solid starting point.

Once you have these three questions answered, you’ll be able to create your starting coworking spend budget. You’ll then want to be sure to monitor actual spend on a very close basis, at first, so you can adjust your budget accordingly. Keep in mind that services like Flexspace can support your coworking spend budget management with our free, online booking platform that allows your to seamlessly book spaces, for whatever use and whoever is using it. And, we provide support in coworking space budget management, allowing you to streamline your costs and spend. 

Schedule a demo with our team today!

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