A cost you only see at the end
On most sites, the data about cost exists, but it is spread across the whole company. Invoices are in accounting, working hours with the foreman, material stock in the warehouse or in someone's spreadsheet. To find out whether a site is doing well, somebody has to bring all of it together.
That is why, in practice, the real calculation is often made only at the end of a project. It then shows whether the site made or lost money, but nothing can be changed any more.
Costs add up by themselves, from everyday work
In Constructis, nobody has to enter costs separately for a report. They come from work that is being done anyway:
- materials — material invoices entered on the site, and goods in and out of storage,
- invoices — incoming and outgoing invoices approved in the document approval module and linked to the site,
- workers — hours from electronic time tracking multiplied by the hourly rate (more in Working hours on site without paper timesheets),
- other expenses — fuel, accommodation, tolls and the like, which the foreman enters in the daily report.
One important rule: only approved documents count towards costs. A report still waiting for the site manager's approval, or an invoice that has not been approved, does not change the figures. That is what makes them reliable.
The state of a site on one screen
The Costs tab on every site shows, for any period:
- total value — the contracted value of the site,
- charged so far — the sum of invoices issued,
- cost so far,
- remaining funds — value minus costs, green while you are within plan, orange once costs exceed the value.
A pie chart shows where the money goes: how much on materials, on workers, on invoices and on other expenses. A chart of cumulative costs with the budget line drawn in shows when spending sped up. All values are kept excluding VAT, so they are comparable with the contracted value.
Who sees what
Financial data is not for everyone. A director sees all of the company's sites and their finances. A site manager sees the sites they manage. A foreman writes daily reports for the sites they are assigned to.
Decisions while you can still act
The value of such an overview is not in a report at the end of the project, but in the week when you notice that something is going wrong: remaining funds are shrinking faster than the work is progressing, or one category of cost is growing unexpectedly. That is when you can still act: move a crew, check material usage with the foreman, or talk to the client about additional work.
What this looks like across the whole company is described in All your construction sites on one screen.
See it with your own figures
Cost tracking is part of Constructis, our software for construction companies. Get in touch and we will show it to you using your own sites as an example.