The client has paid £266,219 so far, which is applications 1 to 4 after the 5% retention is held back. The value of work completed is £430,456, or 80.1% of the £537,730 contract, and we have spent £270,631. Cash is behind both of those because two applications are in but not yet paid: application 5 at £81,422, due at the end of September, and application 6 at £61,292, submitted on 4 September. Once those come in, the money received moves well ahead of what we have spent. This is about when we get paid, not about the job earning less. £21,523 of retention is held back, half of which we can claim at practical completion and half at the end of the defects period.

The two applications in but not yet paid are application 5 (£81,422.24 net) and application 6 (£61,292.14 net). Application 4 (£67,784.46) was paid in August. Cash being behind cost is only about timing and corrects as the two open applications are paid.

The job is 80.1% complete by the value of work signed off, against 76.5% of the expected cost spent. In July the value was ten points ahead of the cost; this month the gap closed to under four because £61,773 was spent against £64,518 certified, mostly the electrical second fix materials landing. That is the shape we expected, not a slip. The bars below are all drawn to the same scale, so their length shows how big each cost group is, and the gold line marks each one's budget. Every group is still forecast to come in under budget. Plumbing and heating is about £19,613 under, electrical about £9,766 under, the other lump sum lines about £11,350 under with the underfloor heating now invoiced below its price, and HVAC a little under.

The job needs about 130 more days of labour to finish on the cost model, of which 78 are electrical. In August the trades used 79 days between them: plumbing and heating 30.75 against a plan of 28, HVAC 12.25 against 10, and electrical 32.5 against the 40 the September target needed. The plan below spreads the cost model's remaining days on the project manager's July guide, with the bulk done in October and November kept for snagging and small items. On that basis the electrics run into mid October with two electricians on site. The table shows how many days each trade needs by month, and what share that is of the whole company's capacity for that trade. These numbers feed the company wide resource plan, where they are added to every other live job against our capacity of 2,724 days a year.

The month by month split is a spread of the cost model's remaining days on the project manager's July guide, not a firm programme; the project manager should confirm it. A further 3.5 days sit on the variation lines, taking the total to 130.5. Peak capacity is the busiest month's days set against what we can do in that trade in a month (plumbing and heating 94.6, electrical 94.6, HVAC 37.8 days).

Finishing the electrics matters beyond this job: another project starts in October that needs one or two electricians. The 30.5 day gap between the target and the model is worth about £6,100 of labour, so the choice is about where the electricians are in October, not about the margin.

Share of firm capacity drawn · monthly peak

Putting the labour plan, the cost forecast and the value still to bill together gives a rough picture of how the job finishes for profit and cash. The billing goes out fast: nearly all of the remaining £107,273 is claimed across September and October, when the electrical second fix and the last of the plumbing finish. Gross profit follows the same shape but stays small at £24,098 in total, because most of the profit is already in the work signed off. Cash comes in later and more evenly. Applications 5 and 6 are already in and get paid in September and October, and everything billed from September onward is paid about two months later on this job's terms, after the 5% retention, so money keeps coming in until January, well after the work on site is done. At practical completion we claim the first half of the retention, £13,443, which comes back in the final month, leaving the other 2.5% held until the end of the defects period. All figures in this section are before VAT.

Billing is spread across the months in line with the cost each month. Cash is set about two months after billing, on this job's terms of month end plus sixty days. Retention is 5% on each application, half claimed at practical completion and half at the end of the defects period. The shape follows the labour plan above and is a rough guide itself. Monthly figures are rounded; totals are exact. All figures before VAT.

These are the trades where the forecast margin now differs from what we priced. Every one is in our favour: each is set to come in under its cost budget, so its margin ends up above the price. Since July the picture has shifted a little between trades. Plumbing and heating gained 2.7 points as its remaining days fell from 49.75 to 37 and its final materials came in lower. The other lump sum lines gained 4.6 points because the Kensa underfloor heating was invoiced at £40,535 against the £47,762 it was priced at. Electrical gave back 1.9 points as its second fix days and materials rose a little, and HVAC gave back 3.1 points as it needed four more days than expected. Treat the HVAC figure with some caution, as it was priced by a subcontractor as a lump sum with no split between labour and materials.

Three adjustments keep this month on the same footing as July. The cost model as supplied has the CCTV variation back at £416; this report holds it at the £862 agreed for the July report, which adds £446 to the forecast profit and makes the contract value and cost model agree at £537,730. The underfloor heating budget is held at the £47,762 it was priced at, so the lower invoice shows as a saving against budget rather than a restated price. The pending £550 screed line that sits outside the model's totals is left out, as it was in July.

This sets how the job was priced against where it is now forecast to finish, on the £537,730 contract. It was priced to make £139,427 of gross profit at 25.9%. On current costs it is forecast to make £183,923 at 34.2%, which is £44,495 better, spread across all four cost groups as each comes in under budget. That gain is £2,450 more than July's, most of it the underfloor heating invoice and the plumbing and heating days. The chart shows where the gain comes from, group by group.

Other lump sum and variations groups together the preliminaries, design, the dry riser, underfloor heating, the main contractor discount and the ten variations. Only the site skips are charged to the job here; the rest of the prelims sit in company overheads.