Construction cost control: four decisions taken well, job after job
- Work order total
- $863.16
- Labour
- $510
- Parts, marked up
- $288
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs entered, by the method stated below it. Jobcardo publishes no tax rate, no wage figure and no trade standard: the rate, the markup and the tax on the parts line are yours, and the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own figures.
Cost control is the part of the job that happens between the estimate and the final account, and on a small construction job it is mostly four decisions taken over and over: whether to place the order now or later, whether a change is chargeable, whether to self-perform or sublet, and whether to accept a supplier price or shop it. Each decision is cheap to take well if the current position is visible and expensive to take badly if it is not, which is the entire argument for keeping the cost position on the job record.
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Cost control in construction projects: catch the chargeable change before it becomes goodwill
Cost control in construction projects fails most often at the moment a customer asks for something small and a foreman says yes. The log entry is the control: a note of what was asked and when, reviewed weekly against what was signed, turns a drift of small favors into a priced change while the memory is fresh.
Construction project cost management controls commitment, not just spend
Once an order is placed the cost is real, whatever the invoice date says. Construction project cost management that only looks at invoices is looking at a number weeks old. Approving commitments against the remaining budget for that element is the one control that works before the money is gone.
Review at a fixed time, with the same page
A fifteen minute review at the same hour each week, reading the same elements in the same order, finds problems that a monthly deep dive misses. What is needed is not sophistication but regularity, and a record that is current enough to be worth reading.
Construction cost control: common questions
What is the difference between cost control and cost reporting? Reporting describes what has happened. Control changes what happens next. A report that nobody acts on is an expensive way of keeping records, and it is the most common form of cost control in small firms.
Who should own cost control on a small job? One person, usually the owner or the person running the office, with the site giving them the information. Split the responsibility between site and office without a shared record and each assumes the other is doing it.
When is it too late to control a cost? When the work is done and the invoice is in. Everything before that point is negotiable in some way: the sequence, the specification, the supplier, the scope of the change. The value of a current cost position is precisely that it gives you those choices while they still exist.
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Keeping what you raise
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