Site management: know during the works where your margin is going

The site budget: per item and per section

The site budget is a list of budget items on the project. Each item has a description, a quantity, a unit and a unit cost. The items sit in your sections, with subtotals per level that you expand and collapse.

You add items, copy lines, change quantities and costs in the list itself and export to Excel. You can also build a budget from the purchases already on the project.

If your project consists of parts, such as blocks or phases, the budget adds up from each part to the whole.

Job costing: what did the site earn, and why?

On the project, Lean compares the estimate with the outcome: revenue and cost as ordered, what has been delivered and invoiced, the actual cost, the cost still open and the final cost. From that follows the margin after job costing, against the margin you estimated.

A chart shows per material category where the cost ran away. The project result gives the explanation per cause: a higher purchase price, more consumption, more hours, extra services passed on and extra work. Each cause counts in the margin difference.

Hours come from the work orders and time recording, materials from purchases and consumption. Nothing has to be retyped to know what a site earned.

Progress claims without a spreadsheet

When a site runs for months, you invoice in instalments. Each instalment is a progress claim.

1. 1
   Prepare the orderThe order gets an invoicing plan for progress claims.
2. 2
   Draw up the claimYou choose the client, pull in one or more orders and see per line the budget and what was claimed before.
3. 3
   ClaimPer line, you enter what you are charging this time. Lean works out the balance for you.
4. 4
   Get approvalThe claim goes to the client as a PDF. You only confirm it after their agreement.
5. 5
   InvoiceWhat is confirmed is ready to invoice. One invoice can cover several approved instalments.

Budget minus already claimed minus current claim gives the balance. That calculation runs across all claims on the order.

Site documents, photos, reports and snagging

Documents sit on the project, as a list or a folder structure, together with the documents of whatever is linked to the project. Drawings, certificates and signed contracts: everyone finds them in the same place.

Photos are taken by the crew on site, with their phone, directly on the work order. Site reports are drawn up on the project, with the participants, who was present and who receives the report by email.

Snagging items and reports become tasks on the project, with the conversation and attachments. Everyone sees what is still open before the final invoice.

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