Jacob Austin (00:00:17) - Hello, all. Jacob Austin here, owner of QS.Zone. And welcome to episode 37 of The Subcontractors Blueprint, the show where subcontractors will learn how to ensure profitability, improve cash flow and grow their business. Today's episode, number 37 is going to be about project reporting. And I wanted to do this episode because I've mentioned in quite a few shows now the old QS mantra of records, records, records. So I thought we only right to do an episode talking about exactly what records I think it should be taking and how you should be reporting them on a monthly basis.
If you're new to the show, please subscribe for a more user friendly advice on all things subcontracting. Now, unless you work for a particularly big subcontractor, you're probably not getting asked to put together a project report. But working for a large main contractor, it's part of the regular recipe. So we sit down with our client on a monthly basis, and we would typically present a report as part of a project catchup meeting. And whilst I wouldn't expect you to be reporting to the same degree as a subcontractor, it is sensible to keep records and reports.
Jacob Austin (00:01:31) - And if you are involved at any level in regular progress meetings with the rest of the construction team, then it's sensible to have some details to hand so that you're able to present facts. You're able to demonstrate quite quickly things that are causing you issues on site records of any delays that you're encountering, plus some other interesting metrics that should help you either to defend a claim or perhaps to put your own together should things go sour. And I would encourage you to complete some of these actions, whether you end up reporting them to your contractor or not. Because, as I say, if things end up turning for the worse and you end up in a delay situation and the fingers being pointed at you, then the best way to be able to defend that is to have taken contemporary records as and when issues crop up, so that one you can keep yourself informed and to you can rely on those records at a later time, and you'll always find the same thing. That time when you really need to rely on the records is probably the time when you've been least on top of keeping them, particularly if the relationship starts to get a bit fractious.
Jacob Austin (00:02:38) - If your supervisor's feeling like they don't want to be there on site, they just want to get in, get the job done and clear off to the next job. Those are probably the times when you need the records the most, even though perhaps the people best suited to take them are less interested in them. And I would encourage you to take records of the good things, the bad things, and whatever else so that you get into the habit of regularly doing it, and so that if you do need to have that frank and open conversation around the table, you can do so with honesty and credibility, because you'll not only be able to point the finger at issues that have held you up, things that have delayed you, and so on, but you'll be able to easily defend the things that you've not done so well. And when somebody turns around to you and says, yeah, I hear that, I hear all of these issues, but what about X, Y, and Z? That's your problem.
Jacob Austin (00:03:28) - You can say, yeah, I know about that. And I hold my hands up to it. And this is what the impact of it was. And it's by taking ownership of the things that haven't gone so well, that gives you the credibility and that solidity in your argument on the other issues that perhaps you're not at fault for, that should hopefully lead to a good outcome. So I'd expect you to be reporting on safety in this day and age. Everybody has a safety officer, and you're expected for that safety officer to visit the site and undertake safety reports, undertake critique of your own actions and identify areas where you could be doing better to keep your staff safe. And perhaps the contractor could be doing better to keep the whole site and the whole site staff safe themselves. It is good as a contractor to have that extra pair of eyes when somebody else's safety officer walks the site and they sometimes pick up things in a fresh perspective and they can be fed in and improved upon. So being that everybody's primary driver is to keep everybody safe, to keep their staff alive and well, promote a good working environment and promote the site as a place where everybody goes, does a good, honest day's work and goes home safely at the end.
Jacob Austin (00:04:41) - And to achieve that, I would be issuing your safety report to the contractor as and when your safety man visits. And doing that is part of the continual improvement that we need to strive for across the industry to keep working conditions improving, and to keep health and safety incidents at bay. You've then got your reporting Holy trinity of time, cost and quality and depending on the kind of contract that you're working on, will depend as to what degree you're reporting all of these things. But it's important for there to be an accurate reflection of where you are on program. And this ought not. To be a glass half full situation where we just report that everything's rosy and we're getting on with it. And yes, we're going to finish on time. And aren't we good? And isn't life rosy? There is a phrase for that which you more than likely will have heard, which is optimism bias, where for whatever reason, we always have a tendency to think we can achieve whatever we set out to achieve, whether or not it was actually even achievable at the start.
Jacob Austin (00:05:42) - And there's a tendency to think that we can always catch up on the small bits of delay that happen here and there, and sometimes we can. But by failing to report on those little bits of issues, what we're doing is veering away from acknowledging the bad things that happen. And it might be the case that you can do a few good things, and that offsets the bad things that has happened this time. But it isn't always the case. But the best thing to do is just to be honest about it and say, look, this has happened. And also the better. If you can present something to say and look, this is what I'm going to do to make it better, because at least it demonstrates that you're trying to rectify a problem. You're using your endeavours to get back on track and good on you for doing that. But if you can't, then catch up. What you've then got is a problem the following month where you're actually having to report a worse situation, and it could likely be the case that the contractor can do something slightly different, alter their sequence of works to help out the situation, and prevent that from escalating into a situation that's far worse.
Jacob Austin (00:06:45) - And if you think about it, with the benefit of hindsight, where things have gone sour on a previous project, how many times is it the case where if you just had an open and frank conversation about something that had gone wrong, that a plan could have been put in place to remediate the problem and get everybody back on track, whereas once the thing has happened and it's a fait accompli, that ability to influence anything is long gone. And then the same goes for quality, because how many times do you have an argument with the contractor where they're saying, okay, you've completed some day works, but where's the acknowledgement that anything of your own that you've caused yourself, your own defects, have been put right? Why am I just lumbered with this big day work bill, when there's no actual evidence of your own snagging taking place and your own finishing man going round and putting those defects right? And again, it's a case where being open about these things, it gives you that credibility. And it says, no, you can't knock hours off this sheet.
Jacob Austin (00:07:44) - Look, here's the snags that I've already completed. These are the ones that I was liable for myself. And I've done those at my own cost. So I expect to be paid for the ones that I've done for you. But I don't think there's been more than once or twice where I've received a subcontractors honest assessment of their own snags to demonstrate that they've snagged them. And now what you're paying for, Mr. Contractor, is those snags that have been caused by somebody else. Now, as far as cost goes, that is a matter that you have to treat differently depending on the contract that you're working on. So if you're working on a target cost or an actual cost job, I would expect you to be monitoring the cost against the amount of the work that's elapsed or being completed, so that you can give an indication of whether things are going to be achieved within budget, or whether there's going to be any kind of overrun. And then on the flip side, if you're on a lump sum, I would expect you to be reporting variations that you've been instructed against to date so that it's giving that running total of where things are heading.
Jacob Austin (00:08:51) - So you've got number of variations, claimed number, agreed number, outstanding, the value of them all and whether any decisions are required, be it to instruct a change or continue with the original spec. Or you might be offering options of change to this spec or that spec, and a choice might be required which way to go, but you should be calling these out and asking for direction on them. You should also be including provisional sums, so if there are provisional sums within your subcontract, the protocol is for an instruction to be issued to tell you what to do for that sum of money, and inevitably that sum of money will be omitted, and the actual cost of completing that work will be added back in. But the issue lies with the instruction of what to actually do. You can't just go disappear off onto site and do whatever you think you should be doing, and then charge the contractor for that piece of work. You've got to seek the design, and you've got to seek that instruction to carry it out.
Jacob Austin (00:09:54) - And then in an ideal world, you'll be able to price it, deliver it, agree it upfront, and it just becomes a change as part of your variation account. But what you regularly ought to be doing is prompting that instruction to make sure that it happens, and you get clarity on what to do at the right time. As I've said before, on the subject of changes, timing is everything. And it's the exact same issue with provisional sums. A provisional sum could quite easily be incorporated seamlessly into the work that you're carrying out, as a matter of course. Or if the instruction is late, it could mean expensive unpicking of other work, impacting no end of other trades just to achieve the same outcome and to avoid being accused of contributing to that issue. A really simple and powerful thing you can do is to repeatedly ask for the instruction, because then you've got a readymade defence. I've been asking you for these details for months. Other things you can include. If you are designing as part of your subcontract package, then if there are any queries relating to design, any requests for information outstanding, any design approvals outstanding, any items that you think are a change as part of the design submission procedure? All of those things can be captured quite simply in an easy to read table, and they can act as a record to then demonstrate if things were approved late, that a delay has been caused either by the client or by the contractor, and it's not down to you.
Jacob Austin (00:11:30) - Another powerful thing you can use, it's really simple and you can use it to good effect. Our progress photos, particularly if you're regularly issuing progress photos that demonstrate the state of the site, the work that you're finishing and when you're finishing it, the work that you're working on together with any issues that you're coming across. And of course, the work that you're about to start or work that you should be getting available to you. Now, if there's any issues with continuity of works because people aren't finishing their work fast enough or something's missing, then a simple way to capture those issues is to just simply take a photograph of them. A tiny bit of narrative goes a long way to just say, I'm supposed to be starting on this area in Tuesday of next week, and it doesn't look like it's going to be ready for me. There's 3 or 4 days work still to be done that can be really useful if you've got multiple gangs on site and you've got to keep them all busy, and it can also be good if you're the kind of contractor that has intermittent visits on site.
Jacob Austin (00:12:37) - If your contracts manager is able to spare a couple of hours here and there to go and check up on what he's going to be doing next week. Those are the kind of things that he can be picking up on as part of a pre start inspection are the areas that I'm supposed to be working in going to be ready for me, and if not, what's holding me up? You've then also got the good old valuation document. And don't forget that when you submit your valuation, as long as you're accurate in claiming for what you've actually completed, then it does stand up as a good record of work that you've actually completed. And when you've done it, that can help you. If you end up in a disruption situation to complete your measured mile, an analysis and another record that you should regularly take is the number of man hours worked. Ideally, you want to break this down into a week by week, and that will then, if you do end up in a claim situation, enable you to start looking at an earned value analysis because you can demonstrate the resources that you've committed to the site on any given week, you can work out with your valuation what value of work has been completed by those resources, and you can start to see then a pattern where if there are things disrupting you, how that earned value is decreasing, and accurately try and demonstrate what your loss is.
Jacob Austin (00:14:01) - And finally, I've mentioned at a couple of points things that are delaying you, things that are holding you up or disrupting you on site. It's sensible to draw these things together into a little table showing when the issues start. When the issues stop, you don't have to issue this to anybody, but if you've got that record as and when the things crop up, then it's there so that you can rely on it if you actually need to. And that for me, gives you most of the information, if not all, that you should need to capture on a regular basis on a construction site. So hopefully you'll find that of use.
My mission is to help the million SME contractors working out there in our industry. If you've taken some value away from today's episode, I'd love it if you'd share the show and pass on that value to someone else who would benefit from hearing it. And of course, subscribe yourself if you haven't already. Thanks for tuning in. If you like what you've heard and you want to learn more, please do find us at QS.Zone.
Jacob Austin (00:15:03) - That's the letters Q and S dot zone Z-O-N-E. Or you can subscribe to our training and support system for like minded subcontractors. And now you'll find templates, how to videos, interviews, and more. It's less than the price of a cup of coffee per day, and you can cancel any time. We're also on all your favourite socials at @QS.Zone. Thanks again! I've been Jacob Austin and you've been awesome.
