Course overview
Project Commercial Reporting and Forecasting is for people preparing construction project forecasts and managers who rely on them. It focuses on the likely final cost, expected recovery and margin, together with the assumptions and decisions that could change that position.
Participants bring together actual expenditure, commitments, accruals, remaining work and assessed changes. Unresolved claims are considered for their effect on the forecast, using the available commercial assessment rather than preparing each claim or variation from scratch.
Using a worked monthly report, participants test the cost to complete, review recovery assumptions and explain movements since the previous period. They identify uncertainty, check for duplicated allowances and set out the decisions management needs to make.
What the course covers
Topics include:
Establishing the reporting position
- Budgets, cost codes and reporting cut-off dates
- Reconciling actual expenditure, commitments and accruals
- Checking reported progress against the remaining work
- Identifying differences between project forecasts and the accounts
Forecasting final cost
- Building the cost to complete from the remaining work
- Testing productivity, procurement and subcontract assumptions
- Aligning site overheads with the forecast completion date
- Checking allowances already included in work-package forecasts
Forecasting recovery and margin
- Using agreed adjustments and current claim assessments
- Recording the basis of expected recovery on unresolved items
- Showing uncertainty and the effect of alternative outcomes
- Avoiding double counting and unsupported offsets between cost and claims
Explaining movements and decisions
- Reconciling the current forecast with the previous report
- Explaining changes in final cost, recovery and margin
- Identifying decisions that could affect the outcome
- Assigning actions and checking their effect at the next review
The course uses existing commercial assessments as inputs to the forecast. Preparing a claim from the beginning is covered in Understanding Contractual Entitlements.
Course delivery
Training is delivered face-to-face, in-house, for organisations in Australia and New Zealand. The course runs over one day, with dates agreed before delivery.
The course can be delivered at entry or experienced level. We agree the level before delivery so that the examples and pace suit the group.
The session can use your organisation’s reporting format, with confidential project information removed. The emphasis is operational project reporting and its relationship with the accounts, rather than instruction in financial accounting standards.
Who it’s for
For people preparing project commercial reports and managers responsible for questioning the forecast and acting on it.
- Commercial managers and quantity surveyors preparing forecasts
- Project managers and directors reviewing final cost and margin
- Project controls and contract administration staff supplying forecast information
- Finance staff reconciling project forecasts with the accounts
