Cost control for construction projects shared by several companies.

Each part of the project has a budget. Orders and invoices are booked against it when they are approved, so planned, committed and actual cost are shown side by side while the works are under way.

• Target costs are set once per activity in a shared code structure. The same codes are used on orders, site reports and invoices.
• Monthly planning by project and work area, with a forecast to completion.
• A chart of planned, earned and spent cost over time, and of the stock still on site.
• Open book: every partner reads the same budget figures.
• A closed month is frozen and archived. It can be displayed later as it was on the day it was closed.
• A monthly acceptance report for each partner and for the whole consortium, including risk allowance and fee. Each partner finalises its part, the consolidated report is signed electronically, and the project owner approves it or sends it back.
• Each cost code has its own comment thread, dated and signed.
• Exports are Excel workbooks with amounts, dates and percentages stored as numbers.

The approval route of a purchase order depends on its amount and on the partner company that issued it. Each approver decides in the system.

• Every order refers to a contract, a quotation or a lump-sum agreement.
• Full history of who approved what and when. A change to an order is made as a new, linked order and approved separately.
• An order submitted by mistake can be recalled to draft until an approver has decided on it.

The site manager records the day on a tablet: crews, machine hours, materials received, work done, incidents, photos and delivery notes. Each line refers to its purchase order, so a delivery is entered once, on site.

• Start from the previous day’s report and change what is different.
• Machines and materials are picked from the purchase order, with their unit, price and remaining quantity.
• A report cannot be submitted with a missing cost code, a quantity above the order or a unit different from the budget. The message names the line and the reason.
• Quantities can be entered in the unit used on site, for example tonnes where the budget is in cubic metres, and are converted.
• Each day shows its cost next to the quantities it produced.

An invoice is compared with its purchase order and with the quantities received on site. Each line is approved by the validator named in the contract of its order. If a quantity or a price differs, the invoice stays pending.

• One invoice can cover several purchase orders.
• Retention withheld and released is entered as printed on the invoice, and the net amount to pay is calculated.
• A line can be split again over several cost codes, also after it was approved for payment.

A subcontractor submits its monthly Application For Payment against its contract, and against its purchase order if there is one. The validator named in the contract approves or rejects each line. The last approval certifies the claim.

• A claim cannot be certified for more than the daily site reports show as received.
• The claim and its supporting documents are signed as one PDF.
• Only certified claims count as earned value in the budget.
• E-mails are sent only after the sender has confirmed them.

Hazard reports, toolbox talks and management safety walks are recorded on site in the same system as the costs. Certificates and machine inspections carry an expiry date.

• Anyone on site can report a hazard by scanning the QR sign of their work area. No account is needed, nothing about the sender is stored, and a tracking code shows the answer.
• Toolbox talks and management safety walks follow a fixed checklist and are filled in on a phone.
• Each person and each machine has a record of certificates, trainings and inspections, each with its validity period.
• Every month, site managers receive the list of what expires in the next 90 days.
• A QR code on the employee’s badge opens their record.

Photos are filed with the project, the date and the place where they were taken. Training videos are available in each worker’s language.

• Photo albums per project, with tags and captions. The position is read from the photo.
• One gallery shows all the photos already attached to daily reports, deliveries and safety forms.
• Annotations are saved on a copy. The original photo is kept unchanged.
• Training videos dubbed and subtitled per language, played on a phone or a tablet.