CostIQ
Retire the copied-per-project spreadsheet. Keep one system of record.
CostIQ is project costing and financial control for high-value project businesses that outgrew the workbook but do not want a heavyweight ERP. It runs the whole lifecycle — first estimate to as-built actuals — with hard stage gates, a two-way link between commitments and actuals, and a multi-year cash-flow forecast built from real commitments. We built it in production and tailor it to your business.
Who it's for
- Specialist installers and contractors
- Niche manufacturers
- Specialist engineering firms
- Small-team, low-volume, high-value project businesses
- Businesses that have outgrown the spreadsheet but not the need for control
The workbook that runs the business is also the risk.
In a high-value project business the numbers usually live in a spreadsheet copied afresh for each job. It works until it doesn't: estimates drift from actuals, a committed cost and an incurred cost get counted twice, a variation moves the baseline without a signature, and no two projects are structured the same way. When the money is large and the volume is low, one workbook error is material.
A full ERP is the wrong answer for a small team — heavy to run, alien to the way the work is estimated and built. CostIQ is the middle path: enough structure to be a genuine system of record, light enough that a small team will actually use it, and built to connect the tools the business already runs rather than replace them.
What it does
What CostIQ does
From the first feasibility number to as-built actuals, in one place, with the discipline built in.
A four-stage costing lifecycle with hard gates
Feasibility, development, construction and as-built sit side by side; earlier stages lock as the project advances. A structured cost taxonomy replaces free-form spreadsheet rows, so every project is built the same way.
Design options and disciplined baselines
Carry up to three design options with one locked in; forecasts conservatively use the lowest until a contract is signed. Sub-costing takes evidence uploads, and only a customer-signed variation is allowed to move the baseline.
Commitments and actuals that never double-count
Purchase orders are raised from cost lines, with a two-way ledger sync: an open PO is a committed cost, a supplier bill is an actual, and the two are never counted twice. An invoice approval workflow runs finance match, PM approval, then finance sign-off.
Multi-year cash-flow forecasting
A monthly, multi-year cash-flow forecast is built from open POs, payment terms and milestones, across three scenario layers — contracted, probable, and all-targets-hit. Forecast accuracy is tracked, and a rate-card feedback loop uses as-built actuals to improve future estimating.
Company dashboard and field use
One dashboard brings together platform financials, execution from your PM tool and a read-only view of the CRM pipeline, with budget-versus-spend per job. It is offline-first for the field, with queued edits and per-record sync badges, a full audit trail, and single sign-on through your existing Microsoft 365.
How it's governed
Build only the gap, connect the rest
CostIQ is deliberately not an everything-platform. It is a system of record that respects the tools you already run.
Integrates, does not replace
It connects the accounting ledger, the field or PM tool and the CRM a business already runs, and builds only the costing and control layer that was missing. You keep the systems your team knows.
The baseline only moves with a signature
A customer-signed variation is the single thing that can move the baseline. Everything else is a forecast or a commitment, kept distinct, so the number you report is defensible.
Conservative by construction
Where there is a choice, the forecast takes the cautious view — the lowest locked design option until a contract is signed — rather than flattering the position.
Full audit trail and SSO
Every change is auditable, and access runs through the single sign-on your business already uses, so control does not depend on a separate password nobody manages.
Offline-first for the way work is done
The field is where the actuals happen, so edits queue offline and sync when there is signal, each record showing its own sync state rather than silently diverging.
The evidence
What we can and can't claim
As with our other builds, we make qualitative claims only where we have no audited figure.
CostIQ runs in production for a high-value project business, but no independently audited performance statistics exist, so we describe what it does rather than quoting numbers we cannot stand behind. During a build we agree the measures that matter to your business.
See CostIQ against a real project.
A short conversation with the people who built it about replacing the workbook with one system of record — costing, commitments and cash flow in one place.