A budget the board can interrogate.
Independent estimates and control budgets built from quantities, current pricing and the schedule. When a director asks where a number came from, the answer is one click away, not one week away.
Where budgets go wrong.
The number came first
A budget set to match the funding, then defended for two years. Every change order after that feels like a surprise, even when it was predictable.
Time was never priced
Escalation, general conditions and extended overhead all follow the calendar. An estimate built without a schedule misses the cost of a long job.
Contingency with no story
A round percentage nobody can explain gets spent early and fought over late. It should be the sum of named, priced risks.
How we estimate.
- 01
Quantities, not rules of thumb
We take off from the current design. Where design is incomplete, the assumption is written down and priced, not buried in a square-foot rate.
- 02
Coded to match the schedule
Estimate and schedule share one WBS and one set of cost codes, so the budget loads straight into P6 and earned value works from day one.
- 03
Escalation by the calendar
Cost is spread over the real construction period and escalated to the month the money will actually be spent.
- 04
Reconcile every milestone
At each design stage we walk from the last estimate and the contractor’s number to ours, line by line, and explain every movement.
- 05
Contingency from the risk register
Each major risk carries a cost range. Contingency becomes a sum of known exposures that is easy to track and defend as it draws down.
What you get.
Scoped to your project and delivered in native files your team owns.
A quantity-based estimate at each design milestone, with assumptions and exclusions written in plain language.
The approved budget by WBS and cost code, ready to load into the schedule and the cost system without rework.
A clear walk from the previous estimate or the GMP to ours, so a large gap becomes a short list of decisions.
Monthly spend tied to the schedule, so finance knows when draws, bonds and grants will be needed.
Named risks with likelihood, cost range and owner, summed into a contingency a board member can follow.
The gap was eleven decisions.
A typical GMP review starts with one alarming number: the contractor’s price against the owner’s budget. We reconcile scope, quantities, allowances, general conditions and contingency until the gap turns into a short list of decisions with a dollar value beside each. Owners sign knowing exactly what they bought.
- 1
- WBS shared with the schedule
- Line by line
- Reconciliation
- P80
- Contingency basis on request
See it in the work.
Confidential projects where these controls apply, and a live instrument you can run on the shared Controls Lab schedule.
Questions owners ask us.
Are you independent of the contractor?
Yes. On any one project we work for one party. We have no stake in the price, only in whether it is right.
Can you check a contractor’s GMP?
Yes. We review scope, quantities, unit costs, allowances, general conditions and contingency, then give you a reconciliation and the questions to settle before signing.
Why does an estimator care about the schedule?
Because time is money on a construction site. Escalation, general conditions and overhead all follow the calendar. Try the Cost of Delay calculator in our Controls Lab.
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