The monthly job-cost and WIP package, drafted from your own exports.

At month-end the controller exports job cost by cost code, open POs and subcontracts, billings and approved change orders, then chases each PM for an estimate to complete. The WIP schedule and the questions for the job review meeting come out of that, often from a spreadsheet rebuilt every month.

For the test, AI takes copies of those exports and the forecasts your PMs gave, and drafts the package for each past month: a WIP row per job, the cost-code detail behind it, and a short list of jobs worth discussing, with the reason. Nothing posts and no forecast changes.

Committed cost is not cost to date. On a cost-to-cost schedule, open POs and unbilled subcontract balances stay out of percent complete, since nothing has been spent yet. They still belong in the estimate to complete, and a forecast that leaves out an issued PO is short by the whole PO. The draft marks any job where the PM's estimate to complete is lower than what is already committed, and leaves the forecast as it is.

Change orders and loss jobs. Approved change orders raise the contract value. Pending ones don't, so their cost lands with no revenue beside it and the job looks underbilled; many contractors carry pending change orders in a memo column on the WIP for that reason. When a PM's forecast puts total cost above the revised contract, the whole expected loss is recognized that month: ASC 606 replaced most of the old construction-contract guidance but kept that loss provision, in ASC 605-35. The draft marks those jobs; your controller decides the entry.

Material on site but not installed. Gear or fixtures delivered early add cost long before they add progress. Under ASC 606, contractors commonly leave significant uninstalled materials out of the cost-to-cost measure and recognize revenue equal to their cost, at no margin, until the material goes in. If your company does that, it is written into the success criteria, and the draft shows exactly which cost it set aside on each job.

The labels changed, and lenders read the trend. Under ASC 606 the older over- and under-billing captions map to contract liabilities and contract assets, netted job by job on the balance sheet, though many contractors still use the old terms on their own schedules. Sureties and banks read the WIP schedule beside the financial statements and watch for profit fade: a job's estimated gross profit slipping from the bid and from last month. So the draft shows each job's margin beside the prior month's and the original estimate.

The numbers come from more than one system. Cost and commitments come from your accounting system's job-cost reports; Foundation, for example, has separate committed-cost and over/under billing reports. Where PMs forecast in Procore, the budget's Forecast to Complete and Estimated Cost at Completion columns can be sent to the accounting side, and into Trimble Vista that export creates a JC cost projection. Your reviewer, usually the controller, watches the ties: totals that agree with the general ledger, billings that match what was invoiced, and every open job on the schedule.

After your reviewer's yes, the same job runs on your next month-end close, about 30 days.

Your controller approves the package before it goes to a PM, the owner, your surety or your bank. Percent complete and every forecast still come from the PMs, and no entry posts without a person.

It carries a fixed price you see before signing. The next job is priced separately, with monthly support once it runs.