Project Businesses Don’t Lose Money in One Big Mistake. They Lose It in Small Leaks.

If you deliver project work, you already know:

You can be flat out and still feel like the profit is missing.

That usually means margin is leaking.

Common margin leak points

• variations not priced or approved properly

• labour hours drifting above estimate

• procurement decisions made late

• rework and defects treated as “normal”

• invoicing delayed after delivery milestones

• WIP not tracked realistically

• job close-out is slow and messy

Each leak seems small.

Together they erode profitability.

The fix is visibility and discipline

Not more spreadsheets.

Better hand-offs:

• job-level margin reporting

• a clear variation approval process

• weekly WIP reviews

• milestone-based invoicing

• early warnings, not hindsight

Why CFO and COO work must connect

Project profitability is rarely purely financial.

It’s operational:

• scoping

• sequencing

• procurement

• approvals

• communication

• reporting cadence

When CFO and COO thinking is aligned, margin stops being a mystery.

It becomes manageable.