The construction programme
Not a SaaS roadmap — a programme, the way you'd read one on site. Low blast radius first, the financial core behind validation gates, and work-in-progress & close as the final exam. Every phase ends at a gate, and no module leaves a phase until it has passed.
Phase 1 — Around the ERP
Low blast radius: capture, approvals, portals, reporting.Gate: No module leaves this phase until it's in daily use on real projects and a mistake still only costs an hour, not a month-end.
Phase 2 — The financial core
Gated: job costing, billing, ledgers, CVR, payroll allocation, cash book & VAT.Gate: No module leaves this phase until it has survived validation against live historical project data — partial approvals, back charges, ugly exceptions and all.
Phase 3 — WIP & close
The final exam: work-in-progress, trial balance, period close.Gate: No 'ready' label until a real month-end has been closed on it in parallel with the incumbent system — and the two agreed.
Backlog — DiaryAgent ↔ ERP integration
Unscheduled · gated on the public voteUnscheduled — shared projects and single sign-on between DiaryAgent and the ERP. Whether this gets built is gated on the public vote on the hub. Vote on the hub →
Phase 1 — Around the ERP
Low blast radius: capture, approvals, portals, reporting.
Document & Receipt Capture
Capture delivery notes, receipts and invoices against a project — a bounded, low-risk first module.
Approvals & Purchase Orders
Raise purchase orders and route approvals against cost codes, with a clean audit trail.
Subcontractor Portal & Compliance
A portal for subcontractors to share documents and keep compliance (insurance, CIS) up to date.
Reporting & Dashboards
Live dashboards that read ERP project and cost data — reporting without touching posting logic.
Validation gate: No module leaves this phase until it's in daily use on real projects and a mistake still only costs an hour, not a month-end.
Phase 2 — The financial core
Gated: job costing, billing, ledgers, CVR, payroll allocation, cash book & VAT.
Job Costing, Budgets & Change Orders
The cost source of truth: budgets, committed costs, cost-to-complete and change orders/variations.
Applications for Payment, Retainage & Back Charges
Subcontractor billing done right — applications for payment, retentions and back charges.
Accounting Foundation: Multi-tenancy & Master Data
The bedrock of the financial core: tenants and companies, the chart of accounts, VAT codes, costheads, a unified party repository, accounting periods and role-based access.
Purchase Ledger & BACS
The first double-entry ledger: post supplier invoices against approved POs (match-to-zero, multi-VAT, cost-code distribution) to the creditors control account, then settle them through BACS payment batches with aged-creditors reporting.
Subcontract Ledger & CIS
Subcontract orders certified cumulatively with retention derived automatically and CIS deducted at the HMRC-verified rate, posting balanced double entry to the subcontract control account, plus a monthly CIS return export.
Cost Value Reconciliation
A surveyor's CVR per contract and period — committed and actual cost pulled from Job Costing, certified sales and subcontract values pulled from the ledgers, adjustments layered on top, a cost-vs-value report and contract status that rolls forward each period.
Payroll Allocation & Timesheets
Capture hours per worker against each job and cost code, then post the timesheet to allocate labour cost straight into job costing — cross-job pay periods and auditable re-allocations included.
Cash Book, Bank Reconciliation & VAT Returns
Cash book and bank reconciliation feeding the nominal ledger, plus VAT return preparation across the standard and reverse-charge codes.
Validation gate: No module leaves this phase until it has survived validation against live historical project data — partial approvals, back charges, ugly exceptions and all.
Phase 3 — WIP & close
The final exam: work-in-progress, trial balance, period close.
WIP, Month-end Reconciliation & Close
The capstone: work-in-progress, period close per ledger, trial balance and consolidation across the tenant's companies, validated on real projects.
Validation gate: No 'ready' label until a real month-end has been closed on it in parallel with the incumbent system — and the two agreed.
Changes to the plan
Every re-sequencing decision, dated, with reasons. Changing our minds in public — with receipts — is part of the experiment.
14 July 2026
Site Diary shipped as a standalone app ahead of the formal module sequence
Site Diary (daily site records and photo logs) went live at diary.construct365.com before the experiment's formal module sequencing caught up with it, so we're claiming it honestly: it runs standalone today and is free to use. Full ERP integration — shared projects, single sign-on — is deferred and has been added to the public vote, so the poll now asks about deep Site Diary ↔ ERP integration instead of offering a site diary as a future build. Votes already cast for the old option have been archived, not deleted.
11 July 2026
Repositioned the programme as The ERP Experiment
An unrelated US company markets a construction ERP under a confusingly similar product name, and the old framing over-promised polish we haven't earned yet. Same modules, same sequencing, same subscription — but the build now ships under its honest name, with statuses, limitations and this change log published on every surface.