You find out what a job really made when the final certificate is paid. That is two years too late to act on.
Contracting is the one industry where the commercial position and the accounting position are different documents maintained by different people. The quantity surveyor's spreadsheet is the truth; the ERP is the archive. Everything below comes from what that gap costs, and from the system we built for UAE contractors because of it.
Recognise any of this
Where the money goes before anyone calls it a problem
If more than two of these are true this week, the cost is already larger than the system you would replace.
- 01
The real margin on a project is known after the final account is settled.
By then the tender for the next three jobs of the same type has already been priced off the same wrong assumptions. A cost overrun you learn about at final certificate has already been repeated.
- 02
The commercial team runs its own spreadsheets in parallel with the system.
Two sets of numbers means two sets of decisions, and the one that is wrong is always the one management was shown. Nobody is being dishonest — the spreadsheet exists because the system never modelled a payment certificate properly.
- 03
Retention is released when someone remembers it, or when the subcontractor asks.
Half at practical completion, the balance at the end of the defects liability period, per contract, per subcontractor, across years. Money released early is money lent for free, and money forgotten on the receivable side is money you simply do not collect.
- 04
Free-issue material is given to subcontractors and reconciled at the end of the job, in a meeting.
The back-charge dispute at the end of a project is one of the most reliably expensive conversations in this business, and it exists entirely because nobody kept a running position on what was issued against what was consumed.
- 05
The site raises a non-conformance and the subcontract it belongs to never hears about it.
An NCR that does not become a back-charge is a cost you absorbed on behalf of somebody you are still paying in full. It also means the same subcontractor gets awarded the next package on a clean record.
- 06
The purchase order was placed before the material submittal was approved.
The consultant rejects the specification, the material is on site, and it is either a return with a restocking cost or an argument about compliance. A gate between submittal and order removes the whole category.
What we build
The system that removes those, specifically
Not a feature list. Each of these exists because one of the problems above cost somebody real money.
Tender and BOQ estimating that becomes the budget
The priced bill of quantities you tendered with is the baseline the project is then measured against, line by line. Cost to date and cost to complete are read against the item that was priced, not against a cost centre that resembles it.
Subcontracts, variations and back-charges in one chain
The award, every variation to it, the work certified against it, retention held on it and every back-charge raised against it — one position per subcontractor, always current, and reconciled against what accounts has actually paid.
Payment certificates measured cumulatively
IPCs are cumulative to date the way the industry actually certifies them, with advance recovered pro rata and retention deducted at the contract rate. The certificate, the invoice and the ledger are the same number by construction rather than by reconciliation.
Retention released on dates, not on memory
Retention is held in dated tranches — practical completion, end of defects liability — on both the receivable and the payable side, so what is due to you and what is due from you both appear before somebody has to ask.
Free-issue material with a live position
What was issued, what has been consumed against certified work, and what is outstanding, per subcontractor, at any moment. The final reconciliation stops being a negotiation.
Site quality connected to the commercial position
Non-conformances raised on site carry the root cause, the corrective action and the subcontract they belong to, so a quality event on Tuesday is a commercial entry on Tuesday.
Submittals, gate receipt and UAE e-invoicing
Material submittals gate the purchase orders that depend on them. Deliveries are received at the site gate with the vehicle and driver recorded. Invoicing meets the UAE e-invoicing requirement without a second system.
Already built
Movinti
We did not adapt a generic ERP for contracting — we built the contracting system and have been running it with UAE contractors since. Seventeen modules on Odoo 19, covering the commercial chain, cost and buying, site and materials, and the compliance layer underneath.
In this industry
Businesses we do this for
Bluespark MEP
MEP contracting
Our contracting system on Odoo: subcontract agreements, payment certificates and accounting in one chain, so a certificate is checked against the contract it belongs to.
- Subcontractors managed on it
- 50+
Platinum Contracting
Main contractor — Saudi Arabia
The same contracting system on Odoo, implemented for a main contractor operating in the Saudi market.
Onesta
Fit-out contracting
Our contracting system on Odoo, implemented for fit-out delivery.
Questions
What people in this industry ask us first
Do we have to move off our accounting system?
Eventually the accounts and the commercial position have to be the same set of records, or you are back to two truths. But the sequence is ours to plan around your year end and your audit, not the other way round. That plan is one of the outputs of the diagnosis.
Our quantity surveyors will not give up their spreadsheets.
They should not have to, until the system does their job better than the spreadsheet does. That is the test we hold ourselves to: the QS stops maintaining the parallel file because opening the system is faster, not because they were told to. If a module fails that test it is not finished.
How is this priced?
Odoo Enterprise licences are paid directly to Odoo at their published price — we do not mark them up. Implementation is quoted separately against a defined scope, and annual maintenance is a stated percentage with response times written into it. You get the full three-year cost before the second meeting.
How we deliver it
Contracting and construction
Start with a diagnosis, not a demo
Two weeks. We walk your floor and your books, and you get the list of where money is leaving the business with a cost against each item. The list is yours whether or not you work with us afterwards.
Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (GST)
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