Site-to-Commercial Control
Turn what happened on site into cost the commercial team can use.
Foras connects daily site activity to the project cost structure, so labour, plant, materials and subcontract activity become commercially useful evidence — with anything unassigned made visible.
Built for site teams to capture the day — and commercial teams to use the result.
Site Diary — 28 Aug 2026
Northgate Logistics Park — Phase 2 · Demo data
- People
- Plant
- Progress
- Vars
- Allocate
- Subcontractor Activity
- Materials
- Notes
| Person | Role | Cost Item | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. HughesGeneral Operative | General Operative | 211 Labour | 9.5 h |
| J. ReidPlant Operator | Plant Operator | 211 Labour | 10 h |
| T. MorganNo role — needs attention | No role — needs attention | Unassigned | 8 h |
The problem
Site activity is only commercially useful if it lands against the work it belongs to.
- Hours without a Cost Item
- Time is recorded, but not against anything the commercial team can price, compare or forecast.
- Activity spread across places
- Plant, materials and subcontract activity are captured in different systems and reassembled by hand.
- Site runs ahead of Finance
- The work — and the cost commitment — exists well before an invoice is posted anywhere.
- Gaps found at month end
- Classification problems surface during the review, when the people who know the answer have moved on.
The objective is not more data entry. It is to preserve site evidence in a form the commercial position can use.
The capture flow
One daily workflow. Eight views of what happened.
The Site Diary walks the day through the same eight steps every time, so nothing depends on remembering a separate process. Vars is the Variations step.
- 01PeopleSelect who worked and record their hours.
- 02PlantRecord plant and equipment quantities and hours.
- 03ProgressRecord progress quantities against work sections.
- 04VarsRecord the variations worked on that day.
- 05AllocateAllocate people and plant hours across work sections and variations.
- 06Subcontractor ActivityRecord company, activity and the related cost or hours.
- 07MaterialsRecord description, quantity, unit, unit cost and PO or reference information.
- 08NotesRecord progress and issue notes, photos and variation flags.
The workflow is the same whether the project uses a detailed WBS or a simpler project structure. Material Supply, Subcontractors and Management Costs are maintained as commercial registers alongside the diary, not inside it.
Classification
Classification starts with the people and resources doing the work.
A person’s Role determines the Cost Item their hours land against. Role is maintained on the personnel record — it is not chosen again every diary day.
Quick-adding someone from the diary requires a Role, so new starters do not enter the project unclassified. Where an existing person has no Role, Foras says so rather than hiding it, and the cost stays visible as Unassigned until it is fixed.
Fix the classification, not the total.
A. Hughes → General Operative → 211 Labour
Captured
T. Morgan → No role → Unassigned
Needs attention
Capture routes
Put the activity through the capture route that owns the cost.
Delivery Type shapes where activity belongs, so self-perform labour, plant and subcontract work each have a clear home.
| Activity | Where it is captured |
|---|---|
| Self Perform people | People step in the Site Diary |
| Self Perform plant | Plant step in the Site Diary |
| Subcontract activity | Subcontractor Activity step in the Site Diary |
| Materials used on site | Materials step, linked to the Material Supply register |
| Management Costs and overheads | Management Costs — outside the Site Diary |
Where a resource does not belong in the step being used, Foras names it and points to the route that does own it, instead of quietly leaving it out. Unclassified resources can still be selected — they are flagged so the gap is dealt with rather than lost.
Project structure
Use project structure where it adds control — without making it mandatory.
WBS is optional per project and Work Item is optional on diary lines. The same eight steps work either way.
- Cost Item
- 211 Labour
- WBS (optional)
- 02.10 Retaining Walls
- Work Item (optional)
- RW-14 North retaining wall
- Allocated
- 18.5 labour hours
- Cost Item
- 211 Labour
- Allocated
- 18.5 labour hours
Progress and Allocate still work on simpler projects — the diary does not change shape.
Commercial attribution can be as detailed as the project needs, and no more.
Material occurrence
Cost should land when the material was actually used.
Diary-linked material cost is dated by the Site Diary occurrence, not simply the commercial register's administrative date.
A register entry of 25 units at £300 is £7,500 of committed material. If 10 units are used in March and 15 in April, the captured site position should show £3,000 in March and £4,500 in April — not the whole £7,500 on the register date.
Occurrence cost uses the applicable register rate. Where diary quantity and the register diverge, or a rate cannot be resolved, the condition stays explicit as commercial evidence rather than being normalised away. Closed reconciliation periods remain governed.
This affects how captured project cost is dated. It does not change Finance dates or accounting treatment.
Material Supply — 25 units × £300
Register total £7,500 · Demo data
- 12 Mar 202610 units used on site · Captured in March£3,000
- 13 Apr 202615 units used on site · Captured in April£4,500
Cost Capture
If cost cannot be attributed, it should be visible — not look like zero.
Unclassified cost is bucketed as Unassigned and surfaced in Cost Capture, where it can be traced back to the record that created it.
Cost Capture — Aug 2026
Northgate Logistics Park — Phase 2 · Demo data
Site Captured
£131,260
Labour
£42,860
Plant
£18,400
Unassigned
£6,250
| Cost Item | Captured | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 211Labour | £42,860 | |
| 310Plant | £18,400 | |
| 520Materials | £27,750 | |
| 707Subcontract | £36,000 | |
| —Unassigned | £6,250 | Needs classification |
Unassigned · source records
- 28 Aug 2026 · People · T. Morgan£2,480Open diary
- 27 Aug 2026 · Plant · 13t excavator£1,320Open diary
The Unassigned tile appears when there is something to deal with. Diary-sourced rows open the exact diary date and step, so the person who can classify it does not have to go hunting for the day it came from.
Downstream
Capture once. Use the same evidence in the cost position.
- Site Diary & commercial registers
- Cost Capture
- Project Cost Control
- Finance Reconciliation
- Forecast
Site Captured combines labour, plant, supply, diary subcontract activity, the subcontract register and Management Costs — broader than the diary alone. The same captured-cost sources feed the commercial cost position rather than being re-keyed into a separate reporting model, so the commercial view does not require the site team to enter the day twice.
Diary control
Protect the day once it should stop moving.
Control is intentionally simple today: save the day, protect unsaved work, and lock the week when it should stop changing.
- Unsaved changes
- Navigating away from a part-completed day prompts you before anything is lost.
- Save
- The day's diary entry saves as one unit, so a day is never half-recorded.
- Locked week
- Once a week is locked, interaction and saving are blocked and the day shows as Locked.
Who it's for
Site enters the evidence. Commercial uses the position.
Site Delivery Lead / Engineer
Record who worked, what progressed, which resources and materials were used, and the issues worth noting.
Understand what actually happened today and how the work is progressing against the plan.
See captured cost against Cost Items and work areas, and investigate Unassigned cost before month end.
Related solutions
Show us how your site records the day today.
We’ll map the same labour, plant, material and subcontract activity into the Foras capture flow and show how it becomes usable project cost.