Most firms delivering services in the built environment already have reporting systems in place.
Architecture practices track project performance. Engineering consultancies monitor utilisation. Quantity surveyors measure cost movement and fee position. Leadership teams receive monthly reporting packs.
Yet reporting still slows decisions more often than it supports them.
Across industries, 99 percent of finance leaders say real-time data is important to them. Only 16 percent say they actually have it.
That gap is not about ambition. It reflects structural friction.
In many established built environment consultancies, information technically exists in the system, but insight arrives after the moment where it would have influenced action. Margin pressure becomes visible at month-end rather than during delivery. Resource imbalances surface after they have affected profitability.
When reporting lags, decision-making becomes retrospective by default.
The commercial impact is measurable. Around 34 percent of organisations report revenue loss linked to fragmented or disconnected data environments. In professional services, that loss is rarely dramatic. It shows up as gradual margin erosion across projects where corrective action was taken slightly too late.
Fragmented systems create delayed clarity
Fragmentation is still common, even in digitally mature firms.
Financial data may sit in a practice management platform. Project and operational data may live in separate tools. Important context remains in spreadsheets maintained locally by teams who trust them more than the system.
This fragmentation increases the amount of manual work required before insight can be trusted.
Research suggests that between 25 and 40 percent of finance time in many organisations is still spent reconciling, transferring or assembling data for reporting. In other words, a significant portion of effort is spent preparing numbers rather than interpreting them.
For established architecture and engineering firms managing multiple live projects, that is not a trivial overhead. It is time that could otherwise be spent protecting margin or forecasting with greater accuracy.
Trust in reporting remains low
Even where dashboards are in place, confidence is often partial.
Only around 9 percent of organisations say they fully trust their reporting data. That statistic should give pause.
When trust is incomplete, behaviour shifts. Leaders ask for additional validation. Finance teams double-check numbers before circulation. Operational decisions are delayed until figures are reconciled.
This hesitation is understandable in built environment consultancies where commercial decisions carry direct risk. But each additional validation layer slows response time.
Reporting that is not trusted will not accelerate decision-making, regardless of how sophisticated it appears.
Complexity compounds over time
Reporting environments rarely fail suddenly. They become harder to use as complexity increases.
Additional service lines. More concurrent projects. New offices. Custom workflows added incrementally. Bespoke reports created for specific meetings.
Each adaptation makes sense locally. Collectively, they increase fragility.
Legacy systems that have been heavily customised often struggle under this weight. Integrations require constant oversight. Reporting logic depends on specialist knowledge. Adoption narrows as fewer people feel confident navigating increasingly complex dashboards.
The result is a reporting environment that technically functions but is harder to live with across the business.
Why this matters for built environment consultancies
In project-led businesses, timing is not cosmetic. Profitability visibility depends on seeing issues early enough to act.
If margin drift, scope creep or utilisation pressure only become visible after reconciliation, corrective action is constrained. When data is fragmented or manually assembled, insight naturally arrives later than it should.
The headline figures reinforce this pattern:
- Almost every finance leader wants real-time visibility, yet only a fraction have it.
- A substantial share of finance effort is still absorbed by manual reporting work.
- Very few organisations fully trust their reporting data.
- A meaningful proportion report revenue impact linked to fragmentation.
These are not abstract industry concerns. They reflect daily operational realities in architecture practices, engineering consultancies and quantity surveying firms managing complex portfolios.
7 Practical Steps to Make Reporting Support Decisions During Delivery
If reporting feels slower than it should, the solution is rarely more dashboards. In established firms delivering services in the built environment, improvement tends to come from tightening how information flows through the business.
Here are seven practical areas worth reviewing.
1. Map where commercial decisions are actually made
Start with behaviour, not software.
Identify the recurring decisions that materially affect profitability: resourcing shifts, fee adjustments, recovery plans for underperforming projects, pipeline commitments.
Then ask:
- What information is used in that moment?
- How current is it?
- Does it come from a single trusted source?
If reporting sits outside those decision points, it will struggle to influence them.
2. Quantify how much time is spent preparing reports
The statistic that up to 40 percent of finance time can be absorbed by reconciliation is not abstract. It shows up in hours spent exporting data, correcting inconsistencies and manually consolidating information.
Track how many steps sit between delivery activity and leadership reporting. Each manual intervention increases delay and reduces confidence.
Even modest reductions in reconciliation work can materially improve decision speed.
3. Align financial and operational definitions
In many built environment firms, finance and delivery teams define performance differently.
Revenue recognition, utilisation, backlog, work in progress and margin calculations can vary subtly between systems.
Clarify:
- How core metrics are calculated
- Which system is authoritative
- When numbers are considered final
Alignment removes friction more effectively than additional reporting outputs.
4. Prioritise visibility during delivery, not just at month-end
If the first time a project margin concern is discussed formally is in a month-end pack, insight is already late.
Ask whether project leaders and operations managers can see:
- Emerging margin pressure
- Variances against planned resource
- Scope changes affecting fee position
If those signals are only visible retrospectively, decisions will naturally lag activity.
5. Identify where reporting depends on individuals
In many established firms, reporting works because a small number of people understand how everything connects.
That dependency introduces risk.
Review where:
- Only one person understands how a key dashboard is structured
- Only finance can interpret operational data
- Reports require explanation before they can be trusted
Adoptability across teams increases resilience and reduces bottlenecks.
6. Challenge unnecessary customisation
Over time, systems accumulate bespoke workflows and reporting logic that once solved a specific issue.
Not all customisation is harmful, but each additional layer increases maintenance complexity and fragility.
Review whether legacy adjustments still serve a clear commercial purpose. Removing outdated custom elements can simplify reporting more effectively than adding new systems.
7. Make reporting part of weekly practice
Reporting becomes more useful when it is embedded in routine conversations.
Encourage:
- Weekly reviews of live project performance
- Regular comparison of forecast versus actual
- Consistent use of a shared source of truth in operational meetings
When insight is used regularly rather than retrospectively, confidence builds naturally.
Many firms begin addressing these areas internally before changing systems. Over time, however, the practical limits of fragmented and manually intensive reporting environments become clearer.
This is where systems such as LiveSheets tend to add value, not by introducing another reporting layer, but by making profitability visibility easier to live with across finance and delivery. When insight aligns with how teams actually work, and when it updates without manual intervention, the friction described earlier reduces naturally.
The objective is not more reporting. It is earlier clarity and stronger confidence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What reporting challenges are most common in services in the built environment?
Common challenges include fragmented data across multiple systems, delayed visibility of project performance, heavy reliance on spreadsheets, low trust in reporting accuracy, and significant manual effort required to assemble leadership reporting.
Why do architecture and engineering firms struggle with real-time reporting?
Although most firms want real-time visibility, systems are often disconnected and dependent on manual reconciliation. This means insight is technically available but not trusted or timely enough to influence decisions during delivery.
How does fragmented data affect profitability in professional services?
Fragmented data makes it harder to identify margin drift, scope changes and utilisation pressure early. When these issues surface late, corrective action is less effective and profitability erodes gradually across projects.
What does real-time profitability visibility mean for quantity surveyors?
For quantity surveyors and cost consultancies, real-time visibility means having up-to-date fee, cost and delivery information aligned in one place so emerging risk can be addressed before it impacts commercial outcomes.
How can established consultancies improve confidence in reporting without replacing core systems?
Improvement typically comes from aligning definitions across finance and operations, reducing manual reconciliation steps, simplifying over-customised reporting logic and ensuring reporting is adoptable across teams rather than concentrated in specialist roles.