"Our project managers are excellent at getting receipts submitted; we are very meticulous."
Challenge
Rushmore Construction believed they were capturing 100% of their project costs. Receipts were collected, reviewed, and approved, and the team felt confident that all expenses were being properly recorded against their projects. But the financial results told a different story.
Solution
Rushmore implemented Controllr to ensure every dollar spent on a job was assigned to a project, and available for billing With Controllr, they gained automated receipt-to-project matching, project attribution before approval, real-time visibility into missing or unassigned costs, system-level enforcement of cost completeness. Instead of discovering gaps after the fact, missing costs were prevented upfront.
Like many construction firms, Rushmore's team was confident they were capturing every receipt and allocating every cost to the right project.That confidence went untested, until a data-driven audit told a different story.Across five projects, Rushmore was capturing less than 80% of their costs.
By implementing Controllr, Rushmore Construction eliminated cost leakage entirely. Today, they capture 100% of project costs, ensuring every dollar spent is a dollar billed, and every project reflects its true profitability.
Challenge: The Illusion of Confidence
Rushmore Construction operated under the belief that they were capturing 100% of their project costs. With a process in place to collect, review, and approve receipts, the team felt confident that every expense was being properly recorded against their respective projects. For a firm operating under Cost-Plus contracts, this accuracy is the lifeblood of the business; cost capture directly determines billable revenue, meaning every missed expense is quite literally money left on the table.
The Audit: Uncovering the Hidden Revenue Gap
To validate their assumptions, Monthend conducted a comprehensive audit of five active projects, tracing every transaction from the original source to the final project records. The results were a wake-up call. Out of 528 total cost transactions reviewed, 113 had never been posted to project budgets.
This revealed that only 79% of costs were successfully captured. These were not mere accounting edge cases; they were real, billable expenses that never made it onto client invoices. Under their Cost-Plus agreements, these missing transactions translated directly into unbilled charges, reduced revenue, and significantly lower realized margins. Rushmore wasn’t undercharging by choice, they simply lacked a system that guaranteed completeness.
Root Cause: Operational Blind Spots
The investigation identified several recurring operational gaps that allowed costs to slip through the cracks. Approved receipts were frequently never assigned to projects, and significant timing issues existed between the moment a receipt was submitted and when the cost was finally entered. Many transactions simply fell outside the manual review workflows, and there was no closed-loop validation process to compare approved expenses against final project attributions. Without system-level enforcement, the team was forced to rely on "best efforts," which proved insufficient for maintaining financial integrity.
The Solution: Implementing System-Level Enforcement
Rushmore implemented Controllr to transform their cost-tracking from a manual effort into a systemized workflow. The platform introduced automated receipt-to-project matching and mandated project attribution as a prerequisite for approval. This shift provided the team with real-time visibility into unassigned costs and enforced completeness at the point of entry. Instead of discovering gaps months later during an audit, the system prevented missing costs from occurring in the first place.
The Results: Eliminating Revenue Leakage
The impact of adopting Controllr was immediate and absolute. Rushmore moved from capturing just 79% of their costs to a perfect 100% capture rate. Today, every billable expense flows directly into client invoices, resulting in zero unbilled charges due to missing documentation. By eliminating revenue leakage entirely, the firm achieved total confidence in their Cost-Plus billing accuracy.
Why This Matters
In the world of Cost-Plus construction, cost capture is synonymous with revenue capture. While missing even a small percentage of costs can damage profitability, Rushmore was unknowingly losing over 21% of their potential billing. Controllr closed that gap, ensuring that the firm is finally paid for every dollar of work they perform.
"If you’re on Cost Plus contracts and don’t have system-enforced cost capture, you’re almost certainly underbilling."
