Live dashboards and WIP
Dashboards, WIP and portfolio views computed from the same records accounting closes on, current every day instead of rebuilt at month-end.
This describes how os.construction is being built. Details may change before launch.
Most construction reporting is a copy of a copy. Data is exported from the PM tool and the accounting system, cleaned up in Excel, then loaded into a BI tool or a WIP spreadsheet. It is accurate the day it is built. Analytics in os.construction work differently: dashboards read the data core directly, so they show the same numbers accounting closes on, every day.
No pipeline to break
In a typical setup, a dashboard is the end of a chain: source systems, exports or sync jobs, a warehouse or spreadsheet, transformations, then the report. Each link can fail or lag, and when two reports disagree, someone spends a morning finding out which copy is wrong.
When analytics read the core directly, there is no chain. An approved change order changes contract value on the dashboard as soon as it is approved, because it is the same record.
The views
One job, all the numbers. For Riverside Medical (sample data): contract $48.2M plus $1.1M approved COs, cost to date $31.7M, projected margin 11.4%, 23 open RFIs with 4 overdue.
- Budget, committed and actual cost by cost code, with cost-to-complete and projected over/under.
- Change orders by status: potential, pending, approved, billed.
- Open RFIs and submittals, with what is overdue.
- Billing and retainage, with lien waiver status.
Every job, one screen. Margin, fade and billing position across active jobs. In the sample portfolio, 14 jobs are active and 3 are fading margin.
- Projected margin versus bid margin, and the change since last month.
- Over/under billing by job.
- Jobs with the largest unapproved change exposure.
- Group by project executive, division or region.
The WIP schedule, any day. Contract value, estimated cost, percent complete, earned revenue, billed to date and over/under billing per job, computed with the cost-to-cost method. See WIP and over/under billing for the math.
- Month-end snapshots are kept so you can compare periods and see fade.
- Every number drills down to the records behind it.
Where the money is. Billings expected, retainage receivable and payable, AP due, and approved work not yet billed.
- Retainage held by owner and by job, and retainage you hold from subs.
- Approved but unbilled change orders.
- Pay apps waiting on lien waivers.
Drill down to the record
Every number on a dashboard is a sum of records, and you can open them. Click the 26 Electrical overrun on Riverside and you get the cost code’s budget, the Volt Electric commitments, the invoices posted against them (including INV-4471, on hold), and the PM’s cost-to-complete history. Click underbilling and you see which approved changes are not yet on a pay app.
That is the practical difference between a report and an operating system: you can go from “something looks wrong” to “here is the record” without asking anyone for an export.
Month-end, reframed
Month-end still matters. You still review cost-to-complete, sign off the WIP and close the period. The difference is that the numbers have been visible all month, so the review starts from current data, and surprises surface in week two, not on day three of the close. Each closed period is kept as a snapshot, so this month’s WIP can be compared with last month’s.
Your own tools
Some teams will keep using Excel or Power BI for their own analysis. That is fine. Data can be exported with permissions respected; see Data ownership and export. The difference is that those tools become a choice, not the glue holding your reporting together.
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