In the active and complex world of construction, effective cost management stands at the very core of project success and long-term business sustainability. The industry’s ever-evolving nature, with its fluctuating material prices, increasingly complex projects and tighter timelines, means that keeping costs in check is no longer just a financial necessity: It is a fundamental element that impacts profitability, client satisfaction and a company’s competitive reputation.
Yet in today’s construction environment, the challenge of maintaining a strategic focus on cost management is more pronounced than ever. The latest CBIZ National Construction Survey reveals that construction company leaders are, more than ever, preoccupied with immediate workflow demands. When asked to identify their top business priorities for 2025, respondents selected all available options at lower rates than in past surveys. Notably, just 38% indicated that organizational planning was a leading priority — marking the lowest figure ever seen in the survey. Those prioritizing strategic planning dropped from 60% to 42%. This points to a troubling trend: Business owners may be so consumed by day-to-day operations that they neglect critical long-term strategy.
This lack of focus on high-level strategy can be detrimental. As one survey respondent warned: “One of the biggest challenges we face is inadequate planning, which often leads to straying from the project’s objectives and budget. Additionally, mismanagement of funding can create a backlog. This situation mainly arises from insufficient internal administration and lack of proper oversight on projects.”
These findings reinforce an essential truth: In construction, unmanaged costs can quickly spiral out of control, leading to budget overruns, project delays, strained client relationships and, ultimately, damage to a company’s reputation and profitability.
Conversely, meticulous and strategic cost management delivers a host of benefits. It fosters financial stability, improves decision-making, and builds trust among clients and stakeholders. In a sector where reliability is paramount, developing a reputation for cost control positions a construction firm as an industry leader.
Given this landscape, it has never been more important for construction companies to embrace best practices in cost management — not just as a tactic for keeping individual projects on track, but as a strategy for building resilient, thriving organizations. Below, we’ll explore how effective budgeting, rigorous cost tracking and proactive variance analysis form the backbone of project and business success, and we’ll share practical steps construction leaders can take to implement these practices.
Developing a Budget
It starts with planning the project.
- Clearly define the project’s objectives, scope of work, deliverables and timeline.
- Estimate costs accurately. Use your prior work knowledge to your advantage. Break down the project into specific components to estimate materials, labor, equipment needs and other related expenses.
- Remember to include your soft costs, such as insurance, security, permits and project management labor.
- Utilize industry-specific software to leverage technology for tracking costs.
- Think about possible cost savings. Buying out the contract at a profit is an art. Giving your team time by not waiting until the last minute to buy out contract items will provide opportunities for cost savings.
- We strongly recommend having a kickoff meeting between estimating, project management and the field supervisors. This is the time to ensure everyone is on the same page; questions can be answered and the field supervisors understand how the job was established.
Cost Tracking
This is an area that will make or break a contract. Too often, I see clients not properly tracking costs throughout the project, and only when the accountant comes to help with the financial statements do they learn if the project was profitable or lost money. I have a client who has this sign in their office: “If you don’t know your labor costs, you have already failed!”
These tips can help.
- Invest in software that tracks costs. Making a capital investment in this area will have long-term benefits.
- Utilizing software will allow management to track costs in real time. It is important to note that the software is only as good as the trained employees entering the information. This is where the old saying, “garbage in, garbage out,” comes into play.
- Maintain detailed records of all expenditures and out-of-scope work; this will assist you in getting change orders approved in a timely fashion.
- Make sure multiple people are familiar with the software. We strongly recommend cross-training. This will reduce downtime.
- Regularly monitor costs. Establish meetings between executives, project managers and field supervisors — more often is better. We recommend weekly meetings. This is a great opportunity to determine if there are change order opportunities or if a job is not going as planned, so you can step back, figure out why and correct the problem as early as possible.
- Perform site visits. Being able to see the actual progress of a project and comparing it to the information reported by the software is essential.
This leads us into variance analysis.
It is crucial to compare actual data to the budget in a timely manner.
- From the cost tracking software, compare the actual costs to the planned budget.
- Focus on variances. Don’t wait until the end of the project to analyze variances; these should be analyzed on a regular basis. We recommend discussing them during the weekly meetings between project managers and field supervisors.
- Common causes for variances include changes in the scope of work, unforeseen site conditions and delays.
- With the information collected from the variance analysis, management can determine if changes to the project need to be made. This might involve negotiating with suppliers on cost and improving efficiencies on the project to help reduce labor overruns.
- From the variance analysis, management can determine if submitting change orders is necessary.
- At the end of a project, a post-project review is essential. Perform a comprehensive review by comparing final costs against the original budget. See what was successful and what was not.
- Document lessons learned to develop organizational best practices and help improve future estimating and cost management processes.