I've taken over a job with no financial picture at all

Taking over a job without records means the questions arrive faster than the answers: what has actually been applied for, what was certified, which variations are priced, what is on site and at whose risk, what the forecast says - and the honest answer to all of them is nobody wrote it down. Meanwhile the valuation date does not move.

The rebuild has an order. First the money spine: applications, certificates and payments reconciled, so the account's current position is fact rather than memory. Then the registers - variations, materials on site, subcontract liabilities - reassembled from what the paperwork and the site can still prove. Then the CVR and the forecast on top, so next month starts with a picture instead of another dig. It is days of work rather than weeks, and every month it is delayed the archaeology gets deeper.