Project Commercial Health Check
ForensicFixed FeeFor Subcontractors & Main Contractors5 working days
I examine the whole commercial position of one live project and hand back a findings report with every exposure ranked in money and a named fix against each. Anything with a live deadline is flagged the day I find it, never held for the report.
The problem
Commercial damage on a live job is invisible until the final account, when it is expensive. The variation being built without an instruction, the application that missed its cycle, the retention nobody diarised, the pay-less deadline passing quietly next Tuesday: none of it shows on site, and the monthly report was built to reassure. Caught mid-job, most of it is cheap to put right. Caught at the final account, it is a dispute. The difference is whether anyone looked while the job could still be steered.
The solution
I examine one live project the way a dispute would later: what has been paid against what was applied for, what variations are agreed against what is exposed, what notices have been served against what the contract requires, and what the records would prove if tested. You get a findings report with every exposure ranked in money, a named fix for each, who owns it and what ignoring it costs. The urgent never waits: a live deadline found on day one is flagged on day one, in writing, while the rest of the report is still being built.
What you receive
A findings report on one live project: every exposure valued and ranked, the fix for each named, who owns it and what leaving it costs. With it comes a forward notice register covering the next sixty days, built as a document you can run the job from rather than an appendix, and anything urgent was already flagged the day it was found. Read it in half an hour and you know where the job actually stands, which is the one thing the monthly report was never built to tell you. A thirty-minute walkthrough call is included if you want it.
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: five 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 about the job
One call: the project, what is nagging you about it, and ten minutes with whoever runs it commercially, because the person who knows where the bodies are buried is never the paperwork. The first conversation is free.
You send the paperwork
Everything below in one go, untidied. The check reads the job as it is, not as it presents.
- A
Contract and amendments
EssentialWithout it: The check has no document to test the job against, and that becomes the first finding itself
Where to find it: The job's commercial folder or the order email.
Why I need it: Everything is tested against what actually governs
- B
Payment paper trail
ImportantWithout it: Any cycle with no paper behind it becomes a gap on the record, reported as a finding rather than reconciled
Where to find it: The email trail and the portal, one folder per cycle if you keep one.
Why I need it: The money reconciliation is the spine of the check
- C
Variation account
ImportantWithout it: The account is rebuilt from whatever instructions and correspondence exist, and having no register at all becomes a finding in its own right
Where to find it: The QS's working file, or the site team's list if that is where it lives.
Why I need it: Usually the largest unagreed exposure
- D
Records as they are
ImportantWithout it: The records are graded on whatever was actually produced, and thinness is reported as the finding rather than excused
Where to find it: Site folders, phones, whiteboards, wherever they truly live.
Why I need it: Untidied records are the finding, not an obstacle to it
- E
Ten minutes of answers
OptionalWithout it: The report simply notes the conversation did not happen; nothing else changes
Where to find it: Whoever runs the job commercially day to day: ten minutes on the phone or in person once the papers are in front of me.
Why I need it: The papers say what happened; the answers say why
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 establish what governs
The contract, its amendments and the payment timetable as actually operated, tested against the Construction Act where the drafting falls short.
Governing Contract Produced
The check runs only against the contract that governs; if it cannot be produced, that is the first finding, and what runs instead is agreed with you in writing.
I reconcile the money and the variations
Cycle by cycle: applied, notified, paid, retained. Then the variation account against the paper behind it: agreed, unagreed, or uninstructed and exposed.
I test the notices and the records
Notices both directions against what the contract requires, a forward notice register built for the next sixty days, and the records sampled to the standard a dispute would apply.
Deadlines Flagged Same Day
A live deadline is flagged to you the day it is found, by phone where it sits inside seven days and in writing the same day; it never waits for the report.
I rank what I find, in money
Every exposure with a value, a named fix, an owner and the cost of ignoring it. A live deadline never waits for the report: found today, flagged today, in writing.
I hand back the job's true position, ranked in money
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.
Tips that raise your odds of success
The free Contract Health Check reads your contract and tells you what it actually gives you; this check examines the whole commercial position of one live job being run under one: money, variations, notices and records together. They pair naturally: the contract sets the rules, and this service tests how the job is scoring against them.