Every number traces back to the row that made it.
One data model for budget, forecast, commitment, actuals, and revenue — so finance, accounting, the PM, procurement, and the client are all reading the same picture from their own point of view.
The Project Cost System provides time-phased project cost control with full transparency into all changes — from concept and budget, through planning and execution, to actuals and closeout.
The rule underneath every one of these numbers: every value is a sum of append-only log rows — summed once, at one grain, from one place. Nothing is overwritten. A correction is a new row, not a lost history.
A cost system, not another spreadsheet.
PCS is a browser-based subscription system — nothing to install. It sits where the spreadsheet used to sit: between the estimate, the schedule, the contracts, and the ledger.
Most projects have all the data. What they don't have is one place where budget, forecast, commitment, actuals, and revenue meet the same clock and the same coding structure. That gap is where projects lose money quietly.
It is far easier to collect all the details and report, than to generalize and estimate reporting. Short cuts are not short cuts.
- Time-phased, period-controlled. Every fact lands in a period, and periods close. Last quarter's report still prints the same numbers next year.
- Append-only history. Work In Place, Forecast To-Go, Forecast, and budget are logs. You can always answer "what changed, when, and who said so."
- Cost and revenue in one model. Client value is tracked next to cost, so profitability is a report, not a side spreadsheet.
- Cash is its own curve. Cash-out is driven by, but separate from, work in place — because they are not the same month.
- Multi-currency. Buy in one currency, bill in another, report in a third.
- Your coding structure, not ours. Up to 30 client-defined reporting columns per table, mapped at implementation.
- Industry agnostic, and it scales. One user or a hundred thousand. A $50K job or a $50B program.
The client's money is modelled like your own.
Most cost systems stop at cost, and then somebody keeps the revenue side in a workbook. That's how a project can be under budget and still run out of money.
In PCS, client value lives in the same model as cost, at the same grain, on the same clock. Control accounts link to the client contract. Revenue is phased for when it will be earned. Proforma invoices go draft → issued → paid. And cash-in gets forecast against cash-out — because the month you earn it, the month you invoice it, and the month it lands in the bank are three different months.
- Profitability is a report, not a reconciliation. Revenue forecast against cost forecast, per control account, live.
- Milestone or T&M. Milestone contracts get their own revenue-only control accounts; T&M revenue rides along with the cost CAs.
- Invoice aging that means something. Contract value, invoiced to date, paid to date, remaining to invoice — on every contract.
- Cash call. Current reserves against the cash-out forecast, so partners and investors know when the next call is coming before you have to make it.
- Multiple currencies. Buy in one, bill in another, report in a third.
The shaded area is the money you are funding on the client's behalf. Finance has always known it exists. This is where they can finally see it, forecast forward, and act before it's a phone call.
One data model. Everybody's report.
I believe the number one cause of project failure is poor communication. A unified cost system where every stakeholder sees the same picture, from their own perspective, QC'ing it their own way, makes projects more likely to succeed.
| Stakeholder | What PCS gives them |
|---|---|
| Finance | Integrated cash-out and revenue-earned curves for cash management. |
| Accounting | Completely auditable historical WIP reporting to defend an accrual. |
| Project Manager | Budget and forecast accountability, pushed down: the PM assigns segments of the budget to a Budget Owner (say, the Engineering Manager), who assigns scope to a Budget Manager (say, the Electrical Lead). |
| Partners & Investors | Cost mapped to their cost structure — plus a cash-call view of reserves against the cash-out forecast. |
Beta, and honest about it.
The system is built and running: the data model, the append-only math, the commercial chain, resources, schedule import, forecasting, trends, revenue, and the analytics layer. What's left is the honest part — a full test pass, end to end, and the first one or two clients to prove it against real work.
If you run project cost and you're tired of a workbook that can't tell you why the number changed, I'd like to talk to you. Early clients get direct access to me and real influence on what gets built next.
"Use other people's money." — The best advice a company president ever gave me. PCS is how you show them it was worth it.