Days 1 to 30
Stop the bleeding
The quick, high-payback fixes: notices and claims that are live now, approval limits with no control behind them, and the one or two reports that need to be trustworthy immediately.
Commercial & contract administration
Commercial capacity, without another permanent hire.
Cost reporting, forecasting, procurement, subcontract administration, variations and claims, all run properly on a predictable monthly rhythm by people who have done it inside a contractor.
Retainer, interim cover or one-off engagements
Start here
Commercial & Systems Health Check
A fixed-price, fixed-scope review of how your business actually runs commercially: process, controls, systems and reporting. It ends in a prioritised improvement plan and a 90-day action plan. Most engagements start here, and some finish here.
Fixed price 2 to 3 weeks
No obligation to engage us for the fix
What we review
Six areas, in the detail
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Commercial processes
How projects are set up, budgeted, procured and closed out. Where the process is undocumented, ignored, or different on every job.
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Financial controls
Delegations and approval limits, commitment and spend authorisation, subcontractor payment controls, and where the business is exposed to a single unchecked decision.
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Procore usage
What you are paying for versus what is actually used. Cost structure, workflows, permissions, templates and whether the commercial truth genuinely lives in the platform.
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Reporting
What gets reported, to whom, how long it takes to produce, and whether the numbers reconcile from project level to board level.
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Forecasting
How forecast final cost and margin are actually built, how much of it is judgement, and how quickly the business finds out when a job starts to move.
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Variations & claims
Whether entitlement is identified, notified and claimed inside the contractual window, both up the chain and down to subcontractors.
What you get at the end
A document set you own and can act on with or without us. Written to be read by the board, not to justify a retainer.
- A written findings report covering what is working, what is not, and what it is costing
- A risk register of the commercial exposures found, ranked by likelihood and value
- A Procore assessment: what is configured well, what is unused, what is misconfigured
- An improvement plan, prioritised by payback rather than by effort
- A 90-day action plan with owners, sequencing and effort against each item
- A findings presentation to leadership, with the awkward questions answered
The 90-day action plan
Three thirty-day blocks, in payback order
Sequenced so the cheapest, highest-return fixes happen first. Every item has an owner and an effort estimate, and none of it depends on us being in the room.
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Days 31 to 60
Fix the process
The procedures and controls that caused the findings get written, agreed and put in front of the people who have to follow them. Procore reconfigured where it is fighting the process.
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Days 61 to 90
Make it the default
New projects start the new way, reporting runs on the new cadence, and the team is trained on it. By day 90 you should be able to tell whether it held.
For builders & head contractors
The full commercial function, or the parts you are short of
Take the whole commercial workload on a project, or plug a specific gap. Most engagements start narrow and widen once the reporting is trustworthy.
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Cost reporting
Monthly cost reports that reconcile: committed cost, cost to complete, work in progress and margin movement, presented the same way on every project.
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Forecasting
Forecast final cost and margin built from the actual commercial position rather than optimism, with the movement since last month explained.
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Procurement
Package breakdown, tender lists, comparison schedules, scope gap analysis and recommendation, so awards are made on a like-for-like basis.
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Subcontract administration
Subcontract preparation and award, security and insurance tracking, progress claim assessment, payment schedules and back-charge administration.
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Variations & claims
Head contract variations and claims prepared and substantiated, and subcontractor claims assessed against entitlement rather than against pressure.
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Project commercial reviews
An independent deep-dive on a project that is not performing: where the margin went, what is recoverable, and what to change in the next two weeks.
For subcontractors
A separate offering, because it is a different job
Subcontractor commercial support is not a scaled-down version of head contractor work. Different contracts, different risks, different rhythm.
Full detail on the subcontractor offering
Claims, variations, notices and subcontract review set out in full, with engagement options, pricing structure and how the monthly cycle works.
When people call
Usually one of eight moments
Almost every enquiry starts with one of these. If you recognise yours, the conversation tends to be short and useful.
- Turnover has grown but the commercial team has not
- A CA or commercial manager has resigned and the seat is empty
- A project is going badly and you need an independent read on it
- Month-end reporting takes a week and still does not reconcile
- Procurement is happening on relationships rather than a process
- You are heading into a final account and want it run properly
- A tender or two too many landed at once and the workload spiked
- You want commercial capacity without another permanent salary
How it runs
From handover to a predictable monthly cycle
The first month is about finding out where things genuinely stand. After that it settles into a rhythm.
- No cost
Scoping call
Which projects, what stage, what is already in place, and what you actually want carried versus kept in-house.
- Week 1
Handover
We pick up the contracts, budgets, current cost position and correspondence, and confirm where things really stand.
- Week 2 to 4
Stabilise
Get the reporting current, close the gaps that are costing money now, and flag anything with a deadline attached.
- Ongoing
Run the cycle
A predictable monthly rhythm of claims, assessments, reports and forecasts, with escalation whenever a job starts to move.
Questions
Commercial services
The work overlaps, but the difference is method. A contract CA turns up and works the way your business already works, including its bad habits. We bring our own procedures, templates and reporting, so you get the output plus a documented way of producing it that stays behind afterwards.
Mostly remotely, with on-site time where it earns its keep: project start-up, procurement workshops, a review of a job in trouble, or training. Commercial work is largely document work, and remote delivery keeps the cost sensible.
Ongoing support is a monthly retainer based on a set number of days, so the cost is predictable and you are not watching a clock. One-off pieces, such as a project review, a final account or a procurement round, are fixed price against a defined scope.
Often, yes, and it is a common reason people call. An interim engagement can hold the commercial function together while you recruit, and has the side benefit of documenting the role properly before the next person starts.
Not on the same project, ever. Acting on both sides of a contract is an obvious conflict and we decline it. Across unrelated projects, working with both is normal and is frankly why the advice on each side is useful.
The contract, the budget, the current cost position and access to the correspondence. If some of that does not exist in a usable form, reconstructing it is usually the first week of work, and generally the point at which a few surprises surface.
Next step
Tell us which project is keeping you up
Most useful first calls start with one specific job rather than a general enquiry. Bring the problem, not a brief.
Within one business day No obligation, no sales pitch