Billing and finance
How money moves through a job — budget and cost, variations, RA bills and certification, tax invoices, receipts, and the margin that comes out of it.
Every rupee on a job goes round the same loop. You plan it at cost, commit it, spend it, vary the contract when the client changes the work, claim what you built, get the claim certified, invoice it, collect it, and read the result.
📷 Screenshot spot — the Finance hub with its Money in, Cost & reporting and AI agents sections
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The money loop
- Budget — the job priced at cost from the contract BOQ. It carries no profit.
- Committed cost — money promised: a purchase order issued, a subcontract awarded.
- Actual cost — money the job has used: material issued to site, a muster approved, a plant log, a subcontract bill certified.
- Change orders — a variation the client approves moves the contract BOQ, the contract value and the budget together.
- RA bill — you measure work done to date against the contract BOQ and claim it.
- Certification — the client's engineer allows the claim, sometimes for less. This is the moment revenue is recognised.
- Tax invoice — raised off the certified bill, with GST worked out once and frozen.
- Payment — the receipt is recorded and allocated to the invoices it settles.
- Financials — budget against actual, progress, forecast and margin, all derived from the above.
Pages in this section
| Page | What you do there |
|---|---|
| Cost ledger | See committed and actual cost by head, and the document behind every entry. |
| Change orders | Raise, price and submit variations; apply the approved ones. |
| RA bills | Measure, submit and certify running-account bills; manage retention. |
| Tax invoices | Raise and issue the GST invoice from a certified bill and send it. |
| Payments | Record receipts, allocate them to invoices, clear or bounce cheques. |
| Project financials | Read progress, forecast and margin for one project. |
Where finance lives in the app
Open Finance in the sidebar. The hub has three sections:
- Money in — Payments opens the company-wide payment register. RA Bills and Tax Invoices are greyed out on the hub, because both belong to a project.
- Cost & reporting — Cost Ledger and Project Financials, also greyed out for the same reason.
- AI agents — the finance agents your role can use.
So most finance work happens inside a project: open Projects, pick the job, and use its Billing, Change Orders and Budget tabs. The cost ledger opens from the Budget tab.
Apart from the Company Admin, you only see a project if you are on its team.
Who does what
| Role | What they do here |
|---|---|
| Company Admin | Everything. The only role that approves and applies a change order, and the only one that can create or revise a budget. |
| Project Manager | Drafts and submits RA bills and variations, certifies bills on projects where they are marked Certifies, releases retention, sees cost and margin, views payments. |
| QS / Estimator | Measures and submits RA bills, prices and submits variations. Does not see the cost ledger, the budget or the margin — the person who prices the work does not see the margin on it. |
| Accountant | Raises, issues and sends tax invoices, records payments, sees cost and financials. Reads bills and variations. |
Site Engineer, Store Keeper, Procurement Manager, Safety Officer and QA/QC Engineer do not see the Billing or Change Orders tabs. A team member whose role does not see cost can still be given the Sees financials tick on the project's Team tab; it shows them the contract value and budget cost in the project header and the cost side of change orders.
The rules that govern the money
Each is explained, with its reason, on the page shown.
- Revenue is recognised once — when the client certifies an RA bill. Not when you invoice, not when you are paid. See Tax invoices.
- GST is charged on the gross value of work done, never on the amount after retention. See RA bills.
- Material becomes project cost when it is issued to site, not when it arrives in the store, and committed cost never includes recoverable GST. See Cost ledger.
- Nothing is billed beyond the contract quantity unless an approved variation raised it. See RA bills and Change orders.
Five agents work on this area: Cost Overrun Watch, Cash-flow Forecast, RA Bill Drafting Assistant, Collections Agent and GST & TDS Agent. They read and report, or draft for you to confirm. Nothing changes until a person confirms it.