Run the Monthly Cycle in BST

The monthly cycle and the numbers it produces

Module 8 covers managing execution, the work of holding scope, schedule, and team through the middle of a project. Module 9 continues that work in numbers, reviewing schedule and budget variance at each accounting cycle and tracking physical percent complete. Between the two sits the accounting cycle itself, the monthly sequence that produces the scorecard Module 9 opens.

The sequence is short: consultant pre-bills arrive, a project manager reviews the pre-bill, the invoice goes out, and the client pays on terms. Every column Module 9 reads, Revenue, Effort, Variance, Unbilled Days, and Receivable Days, is a product of how those four steps ran the month before.

The course names the BST pre-bill review in eight places. It gives the deadline, the 25th. It gives four quality criteria. It gives a system of record, BST. It never gives a procedure. In the responsibility matrix built from 570 observations logged by 20 groups across five offices, the monthly BST11 pre-bill review ranks 11 of 44 at a priority of 32.5.

What does each date on the monthly clock cost when it slips?

The cycle runs on four dates, and each one hands work to the next. A date that slips moves every date behind it. The last thing it moves is the day the money arrives.

The dates are fixed in the course standards table and repeated in the Quick Reference: consultant pre-bills in by the 20th, pre-bill review by the 25th, invoice out by the 7th, and terms of net-30 running from the invoice date. Two of those four dates sit inside Grace. The first belongs to the consultant, and the last belongs to the client.

The span from work to cash is 60 to 90 days on the course’s own figures. Payroll runs every 14 days against that span. The firm carries $230k to $350k of float on roughly $115k earned per month, which is the money that covers the distance between paying for work and being paid for it. Each day a review slips widens that distance for every project in the office at once.

What does a pre-bill review actually check?

The course states the project manager’s billing move in three verbs: review pre-bills, finalize, send invoices. The first verb carries the other two. An invoice that leaves Grace should be one a client can pay without asking a question, and the review is where that becomes true.

Four criteria define the review, stated in a single line against the 25th: right phases, clean descriptions, backup attached, consultant lines verified. Each one is a check with a named failure behind it, and the course adds one instruction about all four. Resolve them here.

1. Right phases. Every line sits in the phase where the work happened. A charge in the wrong phase misreports two phases at once, and phase level Variance is the number Module 9 acts on.
2. Clean descriptions. Each line describes the work in the language of the agreement, so the client’s reviewer recognises what is being billed. Most disputes originate on a sloppy invoice.
3. Backup attached. Reimbursables, consultant invoices, and whatever else the agreement requires travel with the invoice. The course names three ways cash goes slow: sent late, sent wrong, and sent and never followed up.
4. Consultant lines verified. Review consultant invoices like internal pre-bills: right phase, right amounts against their agreement, clean backup. A disputed consultant line holds the entire invoice.
5. Retainage checked against the agreement. Some agreements hold 5 to 10 percent of every invoice. The review confirms the held percentage matches what was signed.
6. Resolve, then release. A line questioned inside Grace costs an exchange of email. The same line questioned by a client holds the whole invoice until it is answered.

The consultant checks carry the most schedule risk, and they carry it before the 25th rather than on it. A consultant who bills late makes Grace late, and no amount of care inside the review recovers the days already lost upstream. The responsibility matrix places consultant invoice approval on the project manager, at rank 19 and a priority of 26.7, alongside reviewing profitability and logging additional services.

What does the scorecard say once the invoice is out?

The month closes and the scorecard carries its result. The read has a fixed order: Revenue beside Effort, the Variance between them, the ratio of the two, and the projection at the end.

Revenue is recognized revenue to date. Effort is the amount spent to date, valued at billing rate rather than at raw cost. Variance is Revenue minus Effort, the live margin on the project, and a negative Variance means effort is outrunning revenue.

The Effort Performance Index is Revenue divided by Effort, and it is the fastest health check on the screen. A value above 1.0 is healthy. A value below 1.0 means effort is outrunning revenue. The Profit column is a projection rather than a record: EAC is spend to date plus the estimate to complete, and Profit is the fee minus the EAC at today’s pace.

Consider the Oakhaven scorecard at the data date, with the project total set beside one phase.

The project total reads healthy, with Revenue Percent Complete tracking close to Effort Percent Complete, the Index sitting just above 1.0, and Variance positive by $12,000.00. Construction Documents reads differently, with Effort Percent Complete past Revenue Percent Complete by more than twenty points, the Index at 0.7500, and $100,000.00 of margin already given up inside a phase priced at $490,000. The course states the lesson in one line: a single phase can read red while the project total reads green.

Two panels on the same tab hold the detail behind that phase. Active Tasks With Negative Variance Current lists the four tasks inside the selected project where Effort has passed Revenue. Active Tasks Behind Schedule Current holds none, which is the good news, and a slipped task lands there before it shows at the project level.

When does a forecast need rebuilding, and what moves it back?

A forecast is a claim about where the phase lands, and it stops being true at identifiable moments. The course names three of them.

1. Variance runs negative two reviews in a row. One bad week is noise. Two is a trend with a cause.
2. A phase review, a priced scope change, or a staffing change. Each one changes the work the remaining fee has to cover.
3. Percent complete gets re-based. A new percentage against the same spend produces a new estimate at completion.

Two methods produce the estimate to complete. Pace-holds is the fast check: spend divided by the percentage truly complete, thirty seconds with the scorecard open, and this is the number BST projects. Bottom-up is the plan: re-estimate the remaining work task by task. Consider Construction Documents. Spend of $400k divided by a percent complete of $300k over $490k projects roughly $653k at completion, a projected minus $163k on a phase priced to make about $90k.

Four recovery levers answer that number, and the course fixes their order. The order matters more than the list, since each lever changes what the next one has to do.

Why does earned money take so long to become cash?

Earned money becomes cash in two stages, and each stage carries its own delay. Unbilled Days measures how long earned work waits before it reaches an invoice. Receivable Days measures how long a sent invoice waits before it is paid. Added together they give days to cash.

Unbilled Days has a stated healthy range. On the rhythm it runs in the single digits to about 15. Drifting, it reaches 45 or more. Oakhaven carries Receivable Days of 42.00 at the data date, and the Construction Documents phase carries Unbilled Days of 21.

Two panels hold the detail. Aged Unbilled Tasks over 30 Days lists work done and earned that no one has put on an invoice yet, in bands of 31 to 60, 61 to 90, 91 to 120, and over 121 days. On Oakhaven the panel holds five tasks totalling $39,950.00. Receivables Aging over 30 Days lists invoices already sent and still unpaid, in the same bands. On Oakhaven it holds two, GRC-26-0142-008 at $31,200.00 and GRC-26-0142-006 at $14,600.00, $45,800.00 in total.

The two panels ask for different work. Unbilled dollars convert to cash by being invoiced, which is the fastest cash the firm can raise. Aged receivables convert by being collected, and collection runs on a ladder the firm has already written.

Summary

The cycle is four dates and one review. Consultant pre-bills by the 20th, subject to the agreement. Pre-bill review by the 25th, checking right phases, clean descriptions, backup attached, and consultant lines verified. Invoice out by the 7th, and payment due on net-30 terms from that date. Then the read: Revenue beside Effort, the Variance between them, the Index above or below 1.0, and the Profit column as the fee minus the EAC.

Where the read comes back negative, the response has an order. Re-forecast on the stated triggers, then work the levers from the first one. Where the cash is slow, the response has a ladder, and the first rung is invoicing the work that is already earned.

Module 9 opens next and works entirely on the output of this cycle. A scorecard produced by a cycle that ran on time reports something a project manager can act on this month. A scorecard produced by a cycle that slipped reports last month.

Come prepared

1. Bring last month’s pre-bill for one live project.
2. Note the date the invoice actually went out, against the 7th.
3. Read that project’s Variance and Effort Performance Index and write both figures down.
4. Read its Unbilled Days and Receivable Days, add them, and bring the total.
5. Bring one line from that pre-bill that was wrong, or one line whose phase was not obvious.