Knowing You Missed Budget Isn't Enough.
A standard budget-vs-actual report does one thing well: it puts the original budget, the actual cost and the variance side by side, by cost code. That tells you the size of the miss.
It does not tell you whether the same miss happened on your last three projects, or what it cost you in margin.
Free. Send one project to start.
Six questions behind every variance
Where it occurred
Which cost category, and whether the miss was in scope, pricing, quantity or timing.
How large it was
In dollars and as a share of the category and of total project cost — small percentages on big categories usually matter more.
Whether it recurs
A one-off site condition and a category that runs over on every job require different responses.
Whether similar projects share it
The same product type, size and construction period, so the comparison is honest.
The impact on margin
What the variance did to gross profit, margin and profit per month of duration.
What it means next time
Whether the next budget for that category should move, and by how much.
From a variance line to a better budget
With one project, Bivvit reports facts and observations: this is where the budget missed, and this is what it cost. With a few projects, the same analysis begins to show patterns — the categories that move on every job, and the ones that were genuinely unusual.
The report versus the analysis
- Records transactionsInterprets project performance
- Tracks job costsCompares job costs across projects
- Organizes cost codesFinds cost trends by category
- Produces financial reportsExplains what the project did
- Reports actual spendingExplains variance
- Focuses on individual transactions and projectsCompares your completed projects
- Records historyHelps you use history on the next project
You need accounting. Bivvit makes that data more valuable.
Related Guides
- Construction Job Costing
How to understand costs by job and cost code.
- Construction Cost Per Square Foot
How to compare cost/SF correctly.
- Builder Profitability
Where profit on a residential project comes from.
Put It Against Your Own Projects.
Send us the records from a completed project. Bivvit organizes the numbers, shows what happened, and helps you understand what to carry into the next one.
Free Project Snapshot. Every completed project makes your Project Pulse more useful.