Built, and never billed.

“We built it. I watched them build it. Where is the change order?”

Projects lose money in the gap between what was instructed and what was agreed. Changes get built because the schedule demands it, and the paperwork follows later — or does not.

change order
retainage
WIP
over/under billing
schedule of values
pay application
time extension
back-charge
general conditions

Your words, not ours.

Where it concentrates here

Five places the money tends to go in construction and contracting. Each one is concentrated — a single agreement, a single queue, a single account nobody reviews — which is why sampling walks straight past them.

Changes directed verbally in the field, built, and never converted into an approved change order, so the cost sits in the job and the revenue never arrives.
Retainage released late or never chased at all, aging past the point anyone remembers the contract it came from.
Back-charges to subcontractors identified on site and never actually applied.
Over- and under-billing on WIP that makes project margin look stable right up until closeout.
Time extensions and delay costs not noticed within the contractual notice period, so a valid claim expires unused.

Not every construction and contracting is the same business

General contractingMargin lives in the difference between the estimate, the buyout and the final cost, and the estimate is rarely revisited once the job is won.
Mechanical, electrical and specialty tradesChange orders performed before they are approved, then negotiated from a weak position because the work is already installed.
Heavy civil and public workCertified payroll, prevailing wage and DBE participation, where a compliance failure is withheld payment rather than a fine.
Service and maintenance divisionsThe steadiest margin in the business, usually run on the estimating assumptions of the construction side, which do not fit it.

Where this data actually lives

Sage 300 CRE (Timberline) or Viewpoint Vista in established contractors
Procore for project management, often not reconciled to the accounting system
Foundation or Computer Ease in specialty trades
A separate certified payroll process for any public work
Textura or GCPay for subcontractor payment and lien waiver tracking

Named because it changes what the intake asks for. An extract from one of these has known gaps, and the review is built around them rather than surprised by them.

Reported in your numbers, not ours

gross margin by job
over/under billings
backlog
change order cycle time
cost to complete
labor productivity
EMR
days sales outstanding

The obligations that set the deadlines

Certified payroll (WH-347) and prevailing wage determinations on public work
Lien waivers, notices to owner and the statutory deadlines that void a claim
Surety bonding — the WIP schedule the bonding agent actually reads
OSHA 300 logs and EMR, which price the insurance
AIA G702/G703 applications and stored-materials substantiation

What the review would ask you for

8 requests written for construction and contracting and asked of nobody else — 3 of them core. They sit alongside the operating spine every business has — finance, revenue, receivables, payables, contracts, people, IT, operations, risk, commercial and governance — which is 107 further requests.

Project schedule with contract value and margin Core Budgeted versus current forecast.
Work in progress and over/under billing Core By project.
Change orders Core Raised, approved, disputed and unbilled. Unapproved variations already built are a common concentration of loss.
Retention held and released Aged. Old retention nobody is chasing is cash.
Subcontractor agreements and payment Terms, retention, and back-charge history.
Claims, delay and extension of time Position and quantum.
Plant and equipment Owned, hired, utilization and idle time.
Safety incidents and their cost Including insurance impact.

Anything you do not have can be skipped in one click, with a reason. The intake is completed in the client portal, which saves each answer as it is given and can be returned to as often as you like.

When this stops being interesting and becomes urgent

A bonding capacity review, where the WIP schedule is read by someone who knows how to read one
A job that lost money and nobody can say at which point it turned
An owner or generational transition
A bank line renewal against work-in-progress
An audit of a public contract

Who this involves

Signs it: Owner or president; CFO on anything touching the bonding relationship
Resists it: Project managers whose job margins become individually visible
Has been asking for it: The controller, and the bonding agent

Who commissions it

Project executives, chief estimators and finance leads. Phase one is priced before phase two is discussed, the report is yours either way, and we take no vendor commissions or referral fees on anything we recommend.

See the proposal and the price Talk it through first

The proposal sets out the sequence week by week, what we would need from you, and what it costs for your number of operating units. No call required to see the number.

Closest to this

Operations that share more with construction and contracting than the sector label suggests.