Operations - Closing a Completed Job and Reconciling Final Costs

Check every open PO for a corresponding delivery note. Chase outstanding deliveries or update PO status.

Verify all sub-contractor and freelancer invoices are received and matched before proceeding to final invoice.

Record any van stock or site store draws not yet attributed to this job by product code and quantity.

Compare total actual material costs against the quote baseline and identify recoverable cost overruns.

Verify all labour hours are coded to this job, not floating unattributed in overhead.

Confirm every verbal addition or scope change has a written, approved variation order before invoicing.

Issue final invoice with base contract value, all approved variations as separate named line items, and retention deduction if applicable.

Sync to accounting system on invoice day, approve supplier invoices after three-way match, and record actual vs estimated margin.

We completed the job and issued the final invoice without confirming all sub-contractor costs were in. A sub-contractor invoice arrived two weeks later and wiped out 40% of the margin on that job.

We cannot see what margin we actually made on a job until weeks after it closes, by which point it is too late to learn anything useful for quoting the next similar job.

We regularly issue final invoices without the variations included because they were captured in notes rather than the job record. By the time we notice, the customer has already paid.