FAQs for Commercial Systems Review

Question 1

Should we review one project or the whole business?

Accepted Answer

Start where the doubt is: one live job if the question is how projects actually run, the business-wide systems if the question is what the directors are told. The review runs at two levels, and the honest answer is to start wherever the doubt lives. The project review embeds with one job's commercial team, a day as standard or up to a week, and watches the month run: the valuation, the variations, the CVR, the records. The business review reads the systems that sit above the jobs: how the CVRs roll up, how the month-end pack and the forecast are assembled, where the sign-offs sit, and how far the reported position can be traced back to what the jobs' records support. They answer different questions, and one often leads to the other: a project review that finds the same gap on every job points upwards, and a business review that cannot trace the numbers points down into a project. Both close the same way, with the hours, the exposure and a ranked list of fixes.

Question 2

How long does a review take?

Accepted Answer

A day embedded with the team as standard; up to a week where you want a whole slice of the month watched rather than sampled. The standard project review is one working day inside a live commercial cycle, timed for a week when real work is happening: a valuation being assembled, variations being priced, the CVR being updated. A day is enough to count where the hours go and to read one job's records properly. Where you want more than a sample, I embed with the team for up to a week and watch a whole slice of the month run, which catches the quiet failures a single day can miss: the chase that takes three days, the record that only thins when the job gets busy. The business review is sized differently, by the number of live jobs and the weight of the month-end, and usually runs across a month-end so the reporting can be watched being assembled rather than described. Either way the fee is fixed and in writing before anything is booked.

Question 3

Should we tidy the files before you arrive?

Accepted Answer

No. A tidied folder hides exactly what the review exists to find, and the fixes end up designed for a state that does not exist. The review prices the real state of things, so the worst preparation is making it look better than it is. The exposure number comes from reading records as they stand: the instruction with nothing in writing behind it, the notice that never went, the variation with no substantiation. Tidy those away for the visit and the review reports a job in better health than the one you are actually running, the ranked list solves the wrong problems, and the fixes are built for a team that does not exist. There is no judgement in the reading; every busy job's records look like a busy job's records, and the gaps are the point of the exercise rather than an embarrassment in it. The same rule holds at the business level: the month-end pack should arrive in the state it actually went out, because the copying and reshaping between the jobs and the board is precisely what gets counted.

Question 4

Will the review tell us to buy new software?

Accepted Answer

Almost never. The ranked list maps every fix to software you already pay for wherever that is honestly possible, and I sell nothing. The review is not a procurement exercise wearing a diagnostic's clothes. Most construction businesses already pay for more capability than they use: Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, a cost system, and a scatter of tools that arrived with particular people. The ranked list starts from that cupboard, and each fix is mapped to something you already own wherever one honestly fits, because a fix inside a tool the team already knows is cheaper to build and far more likely to stick. Where nothing you own can honestly do the job, the list says so plainly and names what the gap is, and the decision to spend stays yours. I do not sell software, I do not resell licences, and I take nothing from anyone who does, so there is no version of this where the answer is shaped by somebody's commission.

Question 5

Where does the AI actually come in?

Accepted Answer

Inside the tools you already pay for. Most of it sits switched off or unused, and the review's job is to say which parts are worth switching on, and for what. The unglamorous truth is that the AI is mostly already in your building. Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and the newer cost systems now carry AI features as standard: drafting, summarising, pulling the contents out of documents, finding patterns across folders. In most commercial teams these sit switched off, or switched on and unused because nobody has had time to work out what they are for. The review does not start from the technology; it counts the hours and reads the records first, then asks what would close each gap, and the answer is AI where AI honestly fits: lifting instructed changes out of email threads into a register, turning site diaries into a searchable record, drafting the notice a person then reads and signs. Where the answer is a shared folder and a naming convention, the list says that instead. The point is the record and the hours, never the technology.

FAQs for Commercial Systems Review, Quantity Surveying

Frequently asked questions

Before the review

Should we review one project or the whole business?

How long does a review take?

Should we tidy the files before you arrive?

Will the review tell us to buy new software?

Where does the AI actually come in?