Ship Log / Project Finances
Real-Time Contract Balance and Burn Visibility
The number in front of a client should be current, not reconstructed at month end
Problem
Contract balance was reconstructed at month end from timesheets, invoices, and memory — so the number in front of a client was always weeks stale.
Delivery decisions got made against a balance nobody fully trusted.
Time tracking, purchase orders, and invoices lived apart from the work that spent them, so attribution was an exercise rather than a lookup.
Overruns became visible after the month they happened in, which is the one point where nothing can be done about them.
Solution
Contracts, purchase orders, invoices, and time all tied to the work items that draw them down.
Balance recalculated as work and time land, not at close.
One record per client relationship, so the commercial view and the delivery view read the same data.
Everything with money attached linked to the work that spent it — including the work that hasn't been invoiced yet.
Result
The balance in front of a client is current rather than a month-end reconstruction.
Overruns show up while there's still room to act on them.
Month-end becomes a check instead of an investigation.