Trust
How every number is computed
You are being asked to run your estimating and your billing on this. That is only reasonable if you can check the arithmetic. So here it is — the rule the product is built on, then the formula behind each figure it puts in front of you.
The rule the whole product is built on
Models read and propose. Engines compute. People approve.
- 01
Models read, and propose with a quote
A language model reads your drawings, specs, quotes, contracts and email. Everything it proposes carries the verbatim line it read. If that quote cannot be found in the source document, the item is discarded before you ever see it.
How you check it: Open any proposed item and the source line is shown beside it, with the page it came from.
- 02
Deterministic engines compute
No model sets a quantity, a duration, a rate or a dollar figure. Those come from ordinary code with tests around it: geometry from the PDF's vector operators, float from a forward and backward pass, earned revenue from cost-to-cost.
How you check it: Re-run the same inputs and you get the same outputs, to the cent and the millimetre.
- 03
People approve
Nothing is issued, ordered or billed until a person with that role approves it. Approval is recorded against the person, the time and the version of the input.
How you check it: The approval trail sits on the record and is exported with the pay application.
The formulas
Nothing here is proprietary maths
These are the standard methods your surety, your bank and your PM already use. The product’s contribution is doing them on every job, every day, from the source documents, without someone re-keying a spreadsheet.
- Wall quantities
- centreline length × height, grouped by matched thickness
- Parallel line pairs are matched within an angle bucket, the gap between them gives the thickness, and the centreline gives the length. Scale is taken from the title block and cross-checked against a dimension string on the sheet.
- Door count
- quarter-arc swings matched to leaves, reconciled to the door schedule
- A swing without a schedule row, or a schedule row without a swing, is raised as a discrepancy rather than silently counted.
- Total float
- late start − early start, on the job's working calendar
- Forward pass gives early dates, backward pass gives late dates, FS/SS/FF/SF links carry their lags. Float measured against the contract date can be negative — that is the number that matters, and it is shown as a negative.
- Percent complete
- cost to date ÷ estimate at completion
- Cost-to-cost, the method a surety and a bank expect. The alternative methods are available per job, but this is the default and it is labelled wherever it is used.
- Over / under billing
- billed to date − (contract value × percent complete)
- Positive is over-billed, negative is under-billed. Both are shown; neither is hidden behind a positive-only display.
- Margin fade
- (contract − budget) ÷ contract − (contract − EAC) ÷ contract
- Reported in percentage points against the bid, with the cost lines that caused the movement listed underneath.
When a number looks wrong
Every figure opens to its inputs
Click any derived figure and you get the line above it: which version of which input it came from, who approved that input, and when. If the number is wrong, that trail tells you which of the three layers to look at — a misread source, a wrong input, or an approval that should not have been given.