A sample built on fictional content. Holcombe Mechanical is not a real company and this reflects no real engagement.
Holcombe Mechanical is a fictional $16M commercial mechanical contractor. Its operations live in BuildOps and its costs in QuickBooks, which is what makes this brief possible: every number in it is computed from those records by plain code, links back to the record it came from, and anything past a threshold is flagged with the person who owns it. Brian Aldridge, the president, reads it before anyone else is in. Each step below is the screen a real person would be looking at.
The value in this workflow is the time it takes to assemble the weekly picture by hand, and how often somebody has to go check a number before anyone acts on it. We would measure both on your own reporting. The diagnosis measured quoting and not this one, so we do not put a number on it.
The week’s numbers, computed Sunday night from BuildOps and the QuickBooks exports. Three exceptions this week, each with its owner. Every number in the full brief links to its record.
7:00The brief was computed Sunday night and sent at 7:00, before anyone was in. Brian used to assemble a version of this himself on Monday mornings, from exports and phone calls, and it was done by Wednesday. The button opens the full brief.
| Measure | This week | Last week | Computed from, click to open |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backlog, signed work not yet complete | $2.34M | $2.16M | |
| Unbilled time and material | $84,200 | $71,900 | |
| Agreements coming due within 60 days | 9 · $312K | 11 · $348K | |
| Margin on jobs closed this month, against estimate | 23.8% vs 24.6% | ||
| Receivables, past 60 days | $146K | $139K |
7:05This is the full brief on Holcombe’s own SharePoint. Nothing here is a model’s impression of the week: every number is arithmetic over the records, and clicking it opens the records it came from. The exceptions are threshold rules, and each one names its owner.
| Phase | Estimated hours | Actual to date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sheet metal and piping | 410 | 398 | on estimate |
| Equipment set | 96 | 104 | close |
| Controls | 120 | 186 | the gap lives here |
“A-231 underestimates controls labor on DDC buildings. Flagging the assembly for a DDC variant before the next controls-heavy bid.” The flag is now on assembly A-231 in the approved workbook, and the next draft that prices controls on a DDC building will show it.
7:20This is what the margin exception opens into. The comparison is arithmetic; the judgment is Doug’s. His note went into the workbook the estimates are priced from, which is how a lesson from one job stops repeating on the next one. Post-job reviews used to find this months later, if at all.
This is the whole machine. The records stay in the systems that keep them, code does the arithmetic, the model writes only the sentences, and the exceptions land with the people who own them.
The brief computed itself Sunday night and was read before 7:30 Monday. Renee’s team billed the $84,200 that week, Doug’s workbook note reached the next controls bid, and Terry started the Caldwell calls Monday morning. Before the system, assembling the same picture took Brian most of two days, so it happened monthly at best.
At a distributor, this is open orders, fill rate, inventory turns, and receivables, computed from the ERP. At a professional-services firm, it is utilization, unbilled work in progress, and aging, computed from the practice systems. The pattern is the same: arithmetic over the company’s own records, every number linked, exceptions owned.