The project made money in the quote and lost it in the delivery.
For a subcontractor the processes that matter most are estimating, job costing, variations and progress claims. Ajility installs cost to complete, weekly labour cost reporting and a variation process; it does not do quantity surveying or legal claims work. For contractors, trades businesses, fit-out, electrical and construction-adjacent operators, margin is decided after the job is won. This is the operational commercial control that makes the position on every live job visible while it can still be changed. It is not quantity surveying and it is not legal claims work.
Six controls that decide the margin on a job
Most project businesses know their annual result and very little in between. These six controls turn a quoted margin into a tracked one, reviewed weekly by the people who can still do something about it.
Cost-to-complete visibility
A current view of what remains to be spent on every live job, rather than a record of what has already been spent on it.
Labour cost reporting
Hours booked against jobs at true cost, including on-costs, travel and non-productive time, reported weekly rather than at month end.
Progress claims discipline
Claims raised on schedule, supported by evidence, tracked to certification and payment, with someone accountable for each date.
Variation capture
Scope changes recognised when they happen, priced, submitted and approved before the work is delivered, not argued about afterwards.
Margin by job
Quoted margin, current forecast margin and final margin on one page, so a job going backwards is visible while it can still be changed.
The weekly commercial meeting
One short, fixed cadence where every live job is reviewed against those numbers, with named owners and dates on the actions.
The quote is an estimate. The delivery is the result.
A job usually loses money in small, ordinary ways: hours booked to the wrong job or not booked at all, a variation delivered on a handshake, a claim submitted a week after the cut-off, an allowance consumed early with nobody re-forecasting the rest. None of these is visible in a monthly P&L, which reports the average of good jobs and bad ones.
Commercial control is the weekly habit that makes each job visible on its own terms: what it was quoted at, what it will cost to finish, what has been claimed and what has been approved. The reporting is deliberately plain, because it has to be produced every week by the operations team without help.
Commercial control built in senior operating roles
Delivered in salaried operating roles before Ajility was founded, not as Ajility client engagements.
Commercial control disciplines built in senior operating roles across mining services, transport and electrical contracting
Senior operating roles
Delivered in salaried operating roles before Ajility was founded, not as Ajility client engagements.
Enterprise agreement financial modelling delivering a $1.2M three-year benefit
Kmart Tyre & Auto Service, Wesfarmers Group
Delivered in salaried operating roles before Ajility was founded, not as Ajility client engagements.
Winning the bid without buying the work
Commercial control starts before the job does. A bid priced off last year's rates, or off a cost base nobody has tested against actual delivery, produces a job that was unprofitable the day it was signed and a team blamed for it eighteen months later. The discipline is to price the bid from the real cost to complete, name the assumptions that the price depends on, and carry those assumptions into the job so variations can be claimed against them. At re-tender, the same job history is the argument: what the account earned, where it went wrong, what has been fixed, and which terms have to move for the work to be worth keeping.
Performance & Commercial Discipline install
This work is installed through the Performance & Commercial Discipline service line, or scoped first through the Operating Diagnostic where it is not yet clear that commercial control is the binding constraint. Both are published, with their scope and fee, on the packages page.
See the install and the Operating DiagnosticCommon questions
What does cost-to-complete actually mean?
- Cost-to-complete is the money still to be spent to finish a job, estimated from the physical work remaining rather than from the budget left over. It is the difference between saying 'we have spent 60% of the budget' and saying 'we are 40% built and the rest will cost more than what remains'. Only the second view tells you a job is in trouble while there is still time to act.
Why do progress claims slip?
- Claims slip because nobody owns the claim calendar. The work is done, the site team moves to the next job, the paperwork supporting the claim is assembled late, and the claim goes in after the cut-off, which pushes payment a full cycle. Fixing it is administrative rather than clever: a claim schedule per contract, an owner per claim, evidence collected as the work is done, and a weekly review of what is claimed, certified and paid.
How is margin-by-job reporting built?
- It starts with a job costing structure the operations team can actually code to, usually far simpler than the one an accounting system offers by default. Labour, materials, subcontract and plant are booked to jobs at cost, the quoted position is loaded at the start, and the forecast is updated weekly from cost-to-complete. The report is one line per job and is reviewed by the people who can change the outcome.
What changes in the first 90 days?
- The first weeks establish an accurate job list, a costing structure and a weekly commercial cadence. The middle weeks install cost-to-complete and the claims and variations discipline. By the 90-day boundary a business typically has weekly margin-by-job reporting, a claim schedule that is being met, and a variation process that captures scope changes before the work is done. What has been installed is reviewed against those priorities at that point.
Does this replace the accountant?
- No. This work feeds them. The accountant and the bookkeeper handle statutory reporting, tax and compliance, and they need clean job-level data to do it well. Commercial control produces that data as a by-product of running the jobs properly. It is operational commercial control, not quantity surveying and not legal claims work; where a dispute becomes legal, that goes to the appropriate professional.
Operations consultant or fractional COO for a construction company?
- For contractors the test is whether you need advice or control. An operator builds cost-to-complete visibility, variation capture and margin-by-job reporting into the weekly rhythm. Ajility does this work, but not quantity surveying or legal claims.
What should I do when a job is going over budget?
- Re-forecast cost to complete straight away, find which cost line is driving it, and check whether part of the overrun is a claimable variation. Then agree scope, crew or sequencing changes with an owner and a date while the job is still live.
What are good leading indicators for a construction or trades business?
- Quotes issued and win rate, labour hours billed against hours paid, jobs on programme, cost to complete by job, variations submitted and approved, claims raised on schedule and debtors over 60 days. Review them weekly.
How do I calculate cost to complete on a construction job?
- Estimate each remaining cost line, labour, materials, subcontract and plant, from the work physically left, and add committed costs not yet invoiced. Forecast final cost is cost to date plus cost to complete; compare it with contract value.
How do I do a WIP report if we use Xero?
- Xero does not produce a full contractor WIP schedule on its own. Most contractors code job costs with projects or tracking categories, then hold cost to complete and claimed versus earned in a job management tool or a weekly spreadsheet.
What does an electrician really cost per hour once on-costs are included?
- Add superannuation, payroll tax where it applies, workers compensation, leave, allowances, vehicle and tools to the base rate, then divide by productive hours rather than paid hours. Check that figure before you set your charge-out and quoting rates.
Delivered through: Project & Initiative Leadership, Performance & Commercial Discipline and Leadership Scorecard Build.
Start with the free Operating Scan
Twenty-one plain statements about how the business actually runs, answered from Not us to Always. In about six minutes you see a provisional score naming the weakest areas, then choose whether you want a conversation.