Soll-Ist control on a running site

Generate the cost budget from the priced bill, then work down the budget lines category by category so the Soll carries the money your calculation carried, split the way site will actually spend it.

Bakit: A Soll is only worth comparing against when it comes from the calculation the job was priced on. A budget keyed in from memory turns every later variance into an argument about the budget instead of a decision about the work.

Create the baseline from that budget with its budget at completion, run the check, and approve it. From here the Soll is fixed and dated, and every later measurement is read against it.

Bakit: A budget nobody froze quietly swallows a Nachtrag, and the margin never moves - which is exactly how a job reads as healthy until the end. A dated, approved Soll makes added scope show up as a change you can see, price and defend.

On the cut-off date record the percent complete against the bill positions from the site measurement, then read the earned quantity and the quantity variance the entries produce.

Bakit: Built work is the one figure nobody can invoice their way around. Recording it position by position, on a date everyone holds to, is what keeps the value side of the reconciliation from turning into a feeling.

Raise the progress claim for the period and populate it from the progress you just recorded, then walk it from submitted through approved to certified so the period ends with a value both sides stand behind.

Bakit: The Leistungsmeldung is what turns built work into money you are allowed to count. Filling it from recorded progress rather than from a spreadsheet keeps the value in the reconciliation tied to something that was measured on site.

Book the cost that landed in the same period - subcontractor and supplier invoices, labour, plant - and bring in the orders placed but not yet invoiced so the Obligo sits alongside the Ist.

Bakit: Cost you have ordered but not yet been billed for is the part of the overrun that has already happened and cannot be seen yet. Leave it out and the margin looks fine for exactly as long as the post takes to arrive.

Open the month, set the value to date against the cost to date per cost head with the accruals in, and read the margin to date and the forecast margin. Finalise the month once the figures are agreed.

Bakit: One margin figure tells you there is a problem; a margin per cost head tells you which trade caused it. Finalising the month puts an agreed number on the record, so next month's movement is a comparison rather than a fresh opinion.

Record the measurement for the cut-off - earned value, actual cost, planned value - and work out the forecast. Read the cost and schedule indices, the outturn against budget, and pick up any alert that has tripped its threshold.

Bakit: An index under one is a forecast, not a report card: it says where the job ends up if nothing changes. Read in month three that is a plan to fix the trade that is losing. Read at the Schlussrechnung it is only the loss you already took.