01
Margin known too late
Job profitability is calculated after the job is finished, when nothing can be corrected anymore.
THE REALITY
It's not a lack of control. The control is scattered.
The budget sits in the estimating tool, purchasing in the accounting ERP, timesheets on paper, the schedule in the site manager's spreadsheet and progress certificates in another one. Each is correct. Putting them together is what costs.
02
Invisible committed costs
Open purchase orders and uncertified subcontract work never show up in the numbers — so the margin looks optimistic.
03
Paper timesheets
Foremen retype crew hours at night and machinery costs are allocated by gut feeling.
04
Surprise delays
A late supplier becomes a surprise at the end of the job instead of an early warning to subcontractors.
WHAT WE BUILD
The job as the unit of management
With a well-designed construction ERP, the job stops being a cost centre that collects invoices at month-end. It becomes a living object with its budget by chapter, purchase orders, subcontractors, timesheets, machinery and progress certificates attached.
SuiteProjects & job Gantt
Chapters, line items, tasks with dates and predecessors, and a site Gantt anyone can read. Job profitability is looked up, not calculated.
Budget vs actual, line by line
Budgeted, committed, received or certified, and remaining — per line item, every week, not at closing.
Committed costs out of the box
Every purchase order carries its job and line item from creation, so committed cost appears automatically.
Change orders
Steel price increases, scope extensions or unexpected rock are approved as change orders; contract value and margin recalculate on their own.
Crews, machinery & mobile timesheets
Hours captured on site from a phone, owned equipment with hourly cost, rentals through their PO — and alerts when hours run ahead of physical progress.
Milestone billing & cash per job
Progress certificates invoiced when the milestone is met, revenue recognised correctly, and cash per job: collected, certified, paid and pending.
OUR PERSONAL TOUCH
A Gantt that warns you before it hurts
On top of SuiteProjects tasks and dependencies we build a custom view inside NetSuite that does three things: plots the schedule together with sales and purchasing events, propagates a supplier's new confirmed date through the whole chain of dependent tasks, and tells the site manager which subcontractors are affected and which client certificate moves.
A supply delay stops being a surprise at the end of the job and becomes a heads-up to the installation subcontractor weeks in advance. We have a working construction-control prototype on NetSuite, with data from a typical job, that we can show you in one hour.
“A job's margin exists from day one. The difference is being able to see it.”
WHY BIT
Implementations that get used, not tolerated
The difference is not the module list but the decisions of the first weeks — and almost all are business decisions: how the budget is structured, what is a client milestone versus a supplier milestone, who certifies what and how timesheets arrive from site.
Workshops with site managers
A short analysis with the people on site, not just with the back office.
Live in months, not years
A first scope that goes live fast. Real jobs teach more than any requirements document.
Few customisations
When the business answers are clear, configuration flows and custom code stays minimal.
Contractors & installers
Experience with civil works, medium-voltage networks and industrial installations.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Can NetSuite handle job costing for construction?+
Yes. With SuiteProjects each job carries its budget by chapter and line item, purchase orders, supplier bills, timesheets and machinery, giving real-time budget vs actual and job profitability.
How are change orders handled?+
Changes are approved as change orders linked to the job. The current contract value and the margin recalculate automatically, keeping original scope, approved and pending changes separate.
Does NetSuite support progress billing?+
Yes. Native milestone billing invoices the client when a milestone is marked complete, with correct revenue recognition and accurate receivables aging.
How long does a construction NetSuite implementation take?+
We aim for a first scope live in a few months, starting with a short analysis alongside your site managers and extending once real jobs are running.
Recognised yourself in the Tuesday question?
You're not alone and you're not late. Book a one-hour demo of our NetSuite construction-control prototype — no commitment, no filler slides.