"Steer by delivery notes and contracts, and you'll always be ahead of the invoice."

Many construction companies still manage by invoices. Understandable, but dangerously late: accounting looks backward while the job site needs to move forward. Deviations in costs and margin only become visible when corrective action is expensive or impossible. Meanwhile, crucial agreements with suppliers and subcontractors often live in notebooks, Excel, or OneNote. Handy for project and site management, but not transparent and not steerable.

"Accounting looks back; project leaders must be able to steer ahead."

Procurement driven project control changes this. You shift the focus to purchase orders, delivery notes, and contractual commitments, with a 3 way match as the quality filter. This lets you see costs and risks early and keep control of margin and cash.

Procurement-driven working, as discussed below, is one building block. In the full controlling process we also connect labor and crews, equipment and rentals, production and revenue, and changes with their margin impact. We'll dive deeper into that in a next blog post.

• Managing by invoices is too late. The supplier sets the pace of your costs in the reports.
  • Result: reliance on accruals. Because invoices arrive late, reports depend on project managers remembering to book accruals for invoices still to come. That creates a risk of missed costs, noise in the numbers, and swinging margins.
• Fragmented agreements. Agreements and commitments with suppliers and subcontractors live in notebooks, Excel, or OneNote—not in the system, and therefore not in the reports.
• Margin erosion. Deviations creep in. The warning signs only show up with the invoice, which is too late.

"If you steer by invoices, you steer on what happened, not on what will happen."

1) 3 way match as a quality filter

An invoice only passes when the purchase order or contract, the delivery note, and the invoice match on quantity, price, and terms. This stops errors, duplicate invoices, and ghost invoices at the gate and enforces data quality at the source. The result is reporting that rests on facts, not surprises after the fact.

"The purchase order is the agreement, the delivery note is the fact, the invoice is the confirmation."

2) Steer on delivery notes instead of invoices

Shift reporting from invoices to delivery notes, so costs become visible at the moment of delivery or performance. You gain insight weeks or even months earlier, and stand-alone accruals for invoices still to come become largely unnecessary. The risk of missed costs and swinging margins drops significantly.

People and process
Digital tools only work when people use them. On site, that means creating the delivery note the same day the work is done or goods are delivered, and linking it to the correct purchase order. Agree as a team who does this and by when. If something is missing, give feedback that same week. Keeping registration close to the moment is what makes real steering possible.

"The delivery note tells it today; the invoice confirms it tomorrow."

3) Include commitments immediately

What you agree with suppliers and subcontractors in a price comparison, contract, or addendum is recorded in the system as a commitment. Those commitments sit right next to the budget and form your cost to come: the costs still expected on the way to the total cost at completion. Whether it's unit rates, lump sum, or rentals and terms—by recording this structurally, you see margin impact early and can steer deliberately.

In short: the 3 way match keeps quality high, delivery notes provide timely insight, and commitments make the future transparent. That way you steer on what's coming, not on what has already happened.

• Delivery note equals direct cost → no more separate accrual lists.
  Commitments are the cost to come → automatic visibility of what is still to come.
  3 way match → invoices align neatly and deviations are resolved deliberately.
  Result: stable margins month over month and reliable information to steer by.

"Make delivery notes the standard and accruals the exception."

We are controllers and understand the field from site to accounting. We implement from a controlling perspective: discipline around purchase orders and contracts, digital delivery notes, 3 way match, and commitments as early signals. We anchor this with integrations, workflows, and clear dashboards. Book a conversation with one of our controllers.