Industry — Construction
ERP for construction and contracting
Material issued to each site, subcontractor bills certified against work done, labour costed properly, and project margin visible while the job is still running.
The problem
What contractors tell us
“We know the margin when the job is finished.”
Costs arrive weeks after the work, so by the time a project looks wrong there is nothing left to do about it.
“Material at site is nobody’s stock.”
Once goods leave the store they stop being tracked, and the difference is written off as wastage at the end.
“Subcontractor bills are argued over every month.”
Certification happens on paper against measurements that live in someone’s file, not in a system.
The system
What ERPNext gives a contractor
| Area | What it does | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Project structure | Projects, phases and tasks matched to the contract and the BOQ | Planning |
| Site stores | Each site as a warehouse, with issue and consumption recorded against it | Stores |
| Subcontracting | Work orders, certification against measurement and retention handling | Commercial |
| Labour costing | Timesheets and wages posted to the project they were spent on | Site management |
| Progress billing | Milestone and percentage-completion invoicing from recorded progress | Finance |
| Profitability | Budget against committed and actual cost, per project and per phase | Management |
Why contracting needs cost tracking in the ERP
Construction is unusual in that the commitment is made long before the cost is recorded. A purchase order placed today becomes an invoice next month and a payment the month after, and a system that only sees the invoice is always reporting the past.
Running projects in the ERP makes committed cost visible at the point of ordering. A site manager who has issued eighty per cent of the budgeted steel with half the structure up is a problem you can still act on; the same fact discovered at final accounts is only a lesson.
We model each site as its own warehouse so material does not vanish from the books when it leaves the central store, and configure subcontractor certification against recorded measurement so that the monthly bill conversation starts from shared data.
FAQ
Questions we are asked before signing
Can we track material issued to each site separately?
Yes. Each site is set up as a warehouse, so transfers, consumption and the balance lying at site are all visible. Reconciling the site balance becomes a routine check rather than a year-end write-off.
Does it handle retention and subcontractor certification?
Yes. Retention is held against the subcontractor invoice and released on your terms, and certification is recorded against measurement so the amount payable is derived rather than negotiated from scratch.
Can we bill on percentage completion?
Yes, along with milestone billing and measurement-based billing. Most contractors use more than one, so we configure the method per contract type rather than site-wide.
What about equipment and plant?
Plant is handled as assets with maintenance schedules, and hire charges can be allocated to the project using it so that project cost includes the equipment it consumed.
Services
How we help construction businesses
Walk us through your operation.
A 30-minute call, no slide deck. You describe the process; we tell you honestly whether ERPNext is the right answer.