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Why you need a coworking spend budget

Why you need a coworking spend budget

Mar 15, 2023

5 mins read

Workspace Spend Management

With companies moving toward a hybrid work or completely remote work environment, the need for coworking spaces has increased. While many employees will continue to work from home, coworking spaces offer valuable benefits, from productivity and focus, to socialization and networking opportunities. 

As companies enter a new frontier of a remote workforce, they will inevitably encounter new types of expenses; coworking spaces could potentially be one of them. And even if companies previously offered reimbursement to employees for coworking space usage, they can expect the volume to increase with their fully remote workforce. With that comes challenges in workspace spend management and budgeting. 

It’s more important than ever that companies create a coworking spend budget, so that they can prepare for the incoming expenses related to coworking spaces, and allocate the right amount of funds for their team. 

Do I really need an actual budget? 

For many companies, coworking space usage might have been previously done on an ad hoc basis, with employees submitting receipts or expense reports for reimbursement. And that might have worked for the few employees who were regularly using coworking spaces as replacement offices, or for those who were booking coworking spaces for meetings. 

However, if your company is now moving to a permanent hybrid work or remote work environment, you might just see the number of receipts and expense reports skyrocket. It’s quite possible that your team is equipped to manage that number of inquiries. But if a much higher amount of money is going toward reimbursement for coworking spaces, it’s probable that you might need to reconsider the category that expense is filed under and paid from. And, this might now become an expense that requires more attention from a budget planning standpoint. 

If you know that your employees will have a certain amount of money per month allocated for coworking spaces, you can research the average cost for spaces (desks, meeting rooms, event spaces), create an estimate. Then, you can compare that to what you have allocated per person per month, and create a coworking spend budget that you can then track against. 

How do I create a coworking spend budget? 

In order to create a coworking spend budget, companies will need to answer several questions: 

  1. Who is eligible for benefits, and does this change based on their job and title? For example, a salesperson who travels a lot and needs to hold meetings might need more than a software engineer who just needs a workspace outside of his home so he can have a change of scenery and meet other professionals.
  2. What are the average costs associated with coworking spaces? As you build your budget, you’re going to want to get a sense of how much spaces cost in the cities in which your employees work or travel to. Look at a variety of spaces, from desks to meeting rooms, because your employees will most likely have differing needs.
  3. How much will the employees be using these spaces? If you are a completely remote work company, you might find your employees are using spaces more than if you’re in a hybrid work environment. Surveying your team to get an understanding of their interest in using a coworking space might help support this decision. Once you have an understanding of what the interest level is, you can better create a budget that fits those specific needs. 

Can I consolidate the invoicing process? 

With employees all over the country and the world, managing the influx of invoices can be challenging. However, Flexspace functions as a hub for on-demand coworking spaces, giving you the ease of searching, booking, invoicing, and managing, all in one platform. You can even change your budget in real-time, based on how much (or how little) your employees are using the available coworking spaces. 

If your company is headed toward a remote work environment, or if you’re already there, creating a coworking spend budget will help you get ahead of the increase in expense reports and reimbursement requests, and help with your flexible workspace spend management. Implementing a budget how could mean saving money later.

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