Business Systems Review
ForensicFixed FeeFor Subcontractors, Main Contractors & Clients10 working days
I read the commercial systems your business runs above its projects as one piece: how the jobs' CVRs roll up, how month-end reporting is assembled, how final accounts are forecast, where the sign-offs sit and what the directors are actually told. The write-up reports the hours each month going on assembly work that does not need a person, the gap between what the business believes about its jobs and what the jobs' records support, and a ranked list of fixes in the order they are costing you.
The problem
Above the projects sits a second set of systems: the CVR roll-up, the month-end pack, the forecast, the sign-off chain. In most firms they run on copying. Every job reports in its own format, somebody assembles the board pack by hand, the forecast is last month's number plus a feeling, and approvals live in inboxes. Nobody has counted the hours that burns each month, and nobody has tested how far the figures the directors read can be traced back to what the jobs' records actually support. That gap is where the surprises come from.
The solution
I read the business-wide systems end to end, working from a real month rather than a description of an ideal one: how each job reports, how the numbers roll up, how the forecast and the month-end pack are built, where the sign-offs actually happen. Where the trail matters I follow it down into a live job's records. The write-up gives you the hours each month going on assembly work that does not need a person, the places where the reported position is not supported by the records beneath it, and a ranked list of fixes matched to what you already own.
What you receive
You get the write-up with the working behind it: the hours, the gaps, and the ranked list of fixes in the order they are costing you. The list is yours either way. If you want the fixes built, the business-wide set-up is scoped and priced against these findings, and where it de-risks the change it starts by piloting on one project.
The Handover Pack accompanies the work with its dates and sources, likely outcomes and responses, scope boundaries and ready-to-send correspondence where needed.
Turnaround: ten working days.
The working days start when the agreed scope and required inputs are available. Optional items do not hold the start unless the agreed scope says otherwise.
How it works
You tell me how the business reads its jobs
A call, free, no preparation. How many live jobs, who reports what to whom, what the month-end looks like from the inside, and which software the business pays for. I put the fixed fee in writing before anything else happens.
You send me a real month, as it was issued
Last month's CVRs, the board pack, the forecast, in the state they actually went out. Nothing reformatted, because the review reads the process, and a cleaned-up month hides the copying it exists to count.
- A
Access across the business, not one project
EssentialWithout it: One project only tells you about that project; the review cannot say anything about how the business runs
Where to find it: Whoever administers your systems, IT or the person who set up the accounts, can add a login across the commercial function rather than to one project: ask for the cost system, the document platform and the shared drive together.
Why I need it: One project is a sample, not a business
- B
The process as described by each role, separately
EssentialWithout it: There is no first-hand account of how the process actually runs, so the review describes the procedure rather than the practice
Where to find it: Each role books their own hour, at their desk, going through last month's work on their own project rather than in a group session.
Why I need it: The same step is run differently by different people
- C
Sample records from at least three projects
ImportantWithout it: The report can only speak for the projects it actually saw, and every other project stays unreviewed rather than assumed similar
Where to find it: Wherever it already lives; nothing needs moving or tidying.
Why I need it: The finding has to be about the business
- D
The licence and subscription list, with usage
ImportantWithout it: The purchase findings rest on what people say they use rather than a verified seat count
Where to find it: Whoever pays the subscriptions can pull the list in minutes.
Why I need it: What is paid for and unused is the cheapest opportunity
- E
Who does what, by role, across all live projects
ImportantWithout it: Dependency across the business stays invisible, and cover is recorded as unknown wherever nobody said otherwise
Where to find it: A short note from the commercial manager naming who does what by role across the live projects, including who covers each role on leave.
Why I need it: Dependency across a business is invisible from one job
- F
The executed main contract and the executed subcontract for each sampled project, with every amendment
EssentialWithout it: The review has no contractual source for a cycle count and the work can verify no clause, so the portfolio exposure section has nothing behind it and the review reports on process without ever testing it against what the contracts require
Where to find it: Whoever holds the contract file for each sampled project, usually the commercial manager: the executed and signed documents with their amendments, not the standard form and not the tender version. Ask project by project, because the amendments are what differ.
Why I need it: The review takes each per-project cycles-a-year count from the payment provisions, and the work verifies every clause number against the executed document. Amendments differ from project to project, and that difference is usually the finding
Copies are fine. Send what you have and I'll tell you what's missing. Download the client request PDF or editable Word version to pass to whoever holds the files.
- A
I follow the month from the jobs to the board
I trace one reporting cycle end to end: what each job produced, what got re-keyed or reshaped by hand on the way up, how the forecast was actually built, and where each sign-off really happened, as against where the org chart says it should.
I test what the business believes against the records
I take the reported position on a job or two and follow it down to substantiation: the applications, the variation records, the instructions behind the numbers. Where the pack says one thing and the records support another, that difference gets valued, item by item.
Read job by job
Exposure findings are checked against each project's own signed contract, never a standard form, before any figure is put on them.
I write up the findings and the ranked list
The hours each month going on assembly that does not need a person. The gaps between what is reported and what is supported. Then the fixes, ranked by what each is costing the business, mapped to software you already own wherever that is honestly possible.
Sampled, not assumed
Findings rest on records sampled from the jobs themselves, and any project not sampled is named as unreviewed in the write-up.
I hand you the review and talk it through
Free Service Pack
A step-by-step Handbook, with the templates and working documents you need to carry out the work it covers yourself. You supply your own project information and records.
Follow the Handbook's scope and stopping points, and obtain independent advice where required. The pack is not project-specific advice or independent sign-off.
My products used
Tips that raise your odds of success
Questions I get asked often
The business review has a project-level sibling: the Project Systems Review embeds on one live job instead. What either finds, the set-up builds, and nothing obliges you to take that step. And if the trace turns up a dispute already live rather than a system to fix, that is the claims side of the practice, and I will say so.