CONSTRUCTION WIP MEETING BEST PRACTICES.
A WIP meeting only works if it happens monthly, includes both the financial owner and whoever runs each job day to day, and walks every active job individually asking why it moved the way it did since last month. A WIP report emailed around with no discussion catches almost nothing. The meeting is where variance gets explained and corrected.
A WIP report shows the numbers. A WIP meeting asks why the numbers moved, and that question is where the diagnostic value sits. Nobody reading a spreadsheet alone knows that the cost to complete on job four went up because a crew got pulled for two weeks, or that the overbilled position on job seven is a change order billed before the cost hit the books. The person who knows is the one running the job, so the meeting exists to put that person in the same room as the number.
WHAT IT MEANS.
A WIP meeting is a monthly working session where the person who owns the financials and the people who run the jobs walk every active job and explain why its numbers moved since last month.
THREE THINGS SUBS BELIEVE.
We email the WIP report around, and that counts as review
A report with no discussion rarely gets read closely enough to catch the specific variance driving a number, because nobody is asking why a job moved the way it did. The number gets seen and the cause doesn't, which means the correction never happens and the same number moves again next month.
We only pull everyone together when a bonding renewal is coming up
Reviewing WIP only around a renewal misses months of drift that could have been caught and corrected earlier. The habit needs to be monthly rather than event driven, because a cost to complete that slipped in February is cheap to fix in March and expensive to fix in July.
Our project managers don't need to be in the WIP meeting, that's a finance thing
Project managers carry the operational context, meaning what happened on the job, and that context is what explains why the numbers moved. Without them in the room the finance side is left guessing at the why, and a guess in the WIP becomes a wrong cost to complete next month.
HOW THE MEETING GETS RUN.
At minimum, the person who owns the financials, whether that's a controller or a CFO, plus the project managers or superintendents who run the jobs day to day. Financial numbers need operational context to be read correctly, and that context only exists in the field.
Walk every active job individually and ask three questions on each one. Has the overbilled or underbilled position changed since last month, and why? Is the cost to complete estimate still accurate? Are there change orders performed but not yet billed, or billed but not yet reflected in cost? Those three questions cover most of what a WIP hides.
Action items get tracked and closed out before the next meeting, whether that's a cost to complete update or a change order to file. A meeting that raises issues and never resolves them turns into the report nobody reads, just with more people in the room.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing, no payroll, and no add-ons.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee |
|---|---|
| Up to $1M | $1,900 to $2,900 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $3,900 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $5,700 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $7,100 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $8,500 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $11,000 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $13,500 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually |
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items.
You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions rather than a report.
Your bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Nobody in your office is answering coding questions or chasing a reconciliation at month end.
We do the books. No payroll.
Every job shows its margin while it's still running.
Everything in Executive, plus the job costing and WIP platform set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed for you every month. You never have to learn it.
We do the job costing.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
