Spreadsheets are not the enemy.
For many contracting businesses, they are exactly what helps the business get off the ground.
When there are only a handful of projects, a small team and an owner who knows virtually everything happening across the business, spreadsheets can work perfectly well.
The problem starts when the business grows but the commercial controls don’t grow with it.
More projects create more costs, more variations, more applications, more subcontractors, more information and more decisions.
At that point, the issue isn’t necessarily the spreadsheet itself.
The real question is whether the business can still answer the commercial questions that matter.
Here are seven signs you may have reached that point.
1. You can’t immediately say what every job is expected to make
Knowing the original tender margin is not enough.
As projects progress, labour changes, material costs move, programmes extend and variations arise.
Management should be able to see the Forecast Final Margin of every live project.
If finding that answer involves opening several spreadsheets, checking different systems and having multiple conversations, visibility is becoming a problem.
The question should be simple:
What is this job expected to make now?
Not:
What did we originally think it would make?
2. Commercial information lives in different places
Costs are in the accounts.
Variations are in another spreadsheet.
Project Managers have information in emails.
Site teams know about changes that haven’t yet reached the office.
Someone else is keeping their own tracker.
And the owner is often the person connecting everything together.
That isn’t really a commercial management system.
It is organisational knowledge being held together by individuals.
That can work while the business is small.
It becomes increasingly difficult as the number of jobs and people grows.
3. Variations are discovered or chased too late
Variations are one of the biggest areas where informal commercial processes can cost contractors money.
A change happens on site.
Everyone knows it is a change.
The work gets done.
But the record, notice, price or submission follows later.
Sometimes much later.
A growing contractor needs a consistent process:
Identify → Record → Notify → Price → Submit → Agree → Apply → Recover
Every variation should have:
- a value
- a status
- an owner
- a next action
If every Project Manager handles variations differently, commercial exposure increases.
4. Margin problems arrive as surprises
One of the clearest signs of weak commercial visibility is hearing:
“We thought that job was doing well.”
A project can appear healthy until a late cost, labour overrun, unresolved variation or programme issue suddenly changes the commercial picture.
Good commercial control means seeing margin movement while there is still time to understand it and respond.
The important question is not just:
What have we spent?
It is:
Where is this job heading?
That is why Forecast Final Margin matters.
5. Cash is managed from the bank balance backwards
A profitable contractor can still experience serious cash pressure.
Customer payments, supplier commitments, subcontractor applications, labour and major material purchases rarely happen at exactly the same time.
If the first indication of a problem is the bank balance falling, the business is operating reactively.
A forward commercial cash view allows management to see potential pressure several weeks ahead.
The objective is not perfect prediction.
It is earlier visibility.
6. The owner is still the commercial operating system
When a contracting business is small, this is normal.
The owner remembers the numbers.
The owner knows the jobs.
The owner knows which variations matter.
The owner knows which customer needs chasing.
But as the business grows, that creates dependency.
A useful question is:
Would the commercial controls continue operating effectively if the owner disappeared for two weeks?
If the answer is no, commercial knowledge has not yet become organisational capability.
7. Commercial reviews happen when there is a problem
Good commercial management needs a rhythm.
That means regular reviews of:
- Forecast Final Margin
- margin movement
- variations
- applications
- cash
- commercial risk
- actions
If commercial meetings only happen when something has already gone wrong, management will naturally spend more time firefighting.
Regular commercial reviews turn information into action before issues become urgent.
The real question isn’t whether you use spreadsheets
Spreadsheets can remain useful tools.
The question is whether your business can confidently answer:
- What is every job expected to make?
- What’s changed since our last review?
- What are we owed?
- What cash do we need?
- What needs action now?
If those answers are difficult to produce from current information, your business may simply have grown faster than its commercial controls.
That is the gap The Commercial Control Method™ is designed to address.
