CONTROLQORE FOR TUNNEL CONTRACTORS.
Generic accounting software can't report cost per advanced foot while the drive is running, separate a stopped heading caused by the owner from one caused by your own machine, or carry what the iron costs to own per foot of advance. ControlQore can.
ControlQore for tunnel contractors uses cost codes by drive and by phase, meaning shaft construction, machine assembly, advance, lining and grouting, and demobilization, to track cost per advanced foot against the rate the bid carried. Downtime posts to its own code by cause: encountered conditions against the baseline, machine failure, logistics, or owner delay. Machine and plant carry, including refurbishment and the residual value assumption, is allocated per foot advanced rather than left in a lump on the balance sheet. Advance rates, cutter and consumable burn, and water inflow readings are captured as job data, which is the same record a differing site conditions claim is built from. The WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete.
Tunnel contractors at $1M to $5M net 6.5 percent before taxes on the SPM 48-trade dataset, and the CFOS target at that revenue is 10 percent. Gross margin for tunnel at the same revenue reads 23 percent, derived from the nearest comparable trade in that dataset rather than measured directly, so treat it as a reference point. Underground, the cost of being wrong compounds faster than in any other trade, because a stopped heading burns crew, power, and plant at the same rate it burns while producing. The whole question is whose stoppage it was, and that answer either exists in the daily record or it doesn't exist at all.
THE NUMBERS GENERIC SOFTWARE MISSES.
WHAT IT IS.
ControlQore is a job costing and WIP platform for contractors that tracks cost by job and cost code, so a tunnel contractor can read cost per advanced foot on an open drive, with every stopped hour coded to its cause and machine carry priced into the same number.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG.
No Cost Per Advanced Foot While the Drive Is Open
Production tunneling runs continuously, and the daily burn of crew, power, and plant doesn't pause when the advance rate does. The margin on the job is the spread between how fast the heading moves and what a day costs to run. A monthly P&L reports the second half of that equation weeks late and never reports the first half at all, which means the per-foot rate carried in the next bid is the rate somebody remembers rather than the rate the last drive produced.
Stopped Hours Pooled Into One Labor Number
A stopped heading costs the same whether the cause was harder material than the baseline described, a cutter change, a hoisting problem, or an owner decision. Only some of those causes are recoverable. When every stopped hour posts to the same labor code, the recoverable ones are indistinguishable from the ones you own, so the claim is either abandoned or argued from memory against an owner with better records than yours.
A Baseline Claim With No Ledger Behind It
The geotechnical baseline report states the conditions the bid is entitled to assume, and the differing site conditions clause allocates the variance: conditions materially different from what the contract indicated, or unusual conditions different from what's ordinarily encountered. Both are compensable only as documented against that baseline. Advance rates, cutter consumption, water inflows, and daily logs are the evidence, and a contractor who starts assembling them after the dispute begins has already lost the argument.
Machine and Plant Capital Left Off the Foot
The machine is project-scale capital on a long lead time, often specific in diameter and configuration to one job, and sometimes consumed or left in place at the end. The supporting plant for separation, ventilation, hoisting, and segment handling rivals it. Ownership cost, the refurbishment cycle, and the salvage assumption are bid-deciding numbers, and when they sit as depreciation in an overhead pool instead of a rate per advanced foot, every stopped day understates its own cost by the amount the iron was carrying.
WHAT WE BUILD.
SPM builds ControlQore cost codes for tunnel clients by drive and by phase: shaft construction, machine assembly and launch, advance, lining and grouting, and demobilization. On small-diameter work the shafts bookend a short drive and carry a large share of the cost, so they're never blended into the advance. Labor, power, consumables, and plant post to the phase that consumed them, and actual cost per advanced foot is calculated from those codes against the rate the bid carried.
Stopped time earns its own cost category. ControlQore carries separate codes for conditions against baseline, machine failure, logistics, and owner delay, and the field codes each stopped hour the day it happens rather than at the end of the month. That gives you two numbers where most contractors have one: what the drive costs to run, and what the stoppages cost and who owns them. The second number is what an entitlement conversation is built on.
Advance rates by day, cutter and consumable burn against the geotechnical class the baseline predicted, water inflow readings, and grout takes are captured in ControlQore alongside the cost they generated. A differing site conditions position is then a report rather than a reconstruction, because the encountered conditions and the money they cost are in the same record from day one. This is the trade's second set of books, and treating it as paperwork is how entitlement gets left on the table.
SPM builds the machine and plant into ControlQore with an ownership rate per operating day, the refurbishment cycle amortized across the drives it will serve, and the residual value assumption stated rather than assumed. That rate posts to the advance phase, so cost per advanced foot includes what the iron costs to own. When the heading stops, the report shows the capital carry alongside the idle crew, which is the honest size of a stopped day.
Payment runs on metered advance and installed lining against a schedule of values, verified by the owner, and each pay item is only as billable as the survey, segment records, and grout takes behind it. SPM configures ControlQore with the same schedule of values line items as the contract, so billing posts against them and an item missing its documentation is visible before the pay application goes out. The WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete, with underbilled positions triggering a corrected pay application.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SOFTWARE INVOICE.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. ControlQore comes with Strategic, and it never appears as its own line item on an SPM invoice. Which tier you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk.
Pricing
| 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.
