Ben Goodman
Ask a property development project manager what they achieved today and the answer may involve far less project management than expected. They found an old approval, checked which cost report was current, chased a contractor for information and rebuilt figures for a board meeting. Morta.com was developed to reduce this administrative load by keeping project costs, decisions, tasks and delivery information connected throughout the development lifecycle.
The work appears necessary because each request serves a clear purpose. Stakeholders require updated forecasts, explanations of cost variances and confirmation of approved changes. The inefficiency arises when the project manager must repeatedly locate, verify and reassemble the same underlying information to respond.
Across a busy development portfolio, these interruptions can consume hours every week. They also draw experienced project managers away from the judgement-led work that protects the programme, budget and quality of a scheme.
Try Morta for FreeA project manager may begin the morning intending to review programme risk, prepare for a contractor meeting or resolve an issue affecting delivery. Before that work begins, an email arrives asking for the latest cost position.
The answer already exists, but it is fragmented across multiple sources. Progress updates sit in the site diary, revised quotations arrive by email, and the cost plan may not reflect the latest instruction. Additional changes discussed informally may also remain unrecorded, leaving the overall position incomplete.
The project manager now has to reconstruct the position before responding. This involves contacting several people, checking dates and deciding which record can be trusted. None of the individuals involved are necessarily slow or disorganised. The project has simply created information faster than its systems can organise it.
This is a familiar weakness in property development. Projects generate substantial amounts of data, but the information is often divided between inboxes, spreadsheets, messaging platforms, meeting minutes and specialist systems. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has warned that poor data management and limited information sharing can add significantly to total construction costs. Its discussion of data in project cost management also highlights how inconsistent structures and disconnected systems prevent teams from using project information effectively.
The cost of searching is rarely recorded against the development. It appears instead as a full diary, delayed decisions, and project managers who have little uninterrupted time to examine the project itself.
Once the project manager has established the latest position, the information often has to be presented several times.
The site meeting requires a clear summary of current commitments, open variations and packages awaiting decisions. The commercial team needs a more detailed view of forecast cost, actual expenditure and movement against the approved budget. The development director typically reviews a portfolio-level summary, while lenders or investors often expect the same underlying figures presented in a different reporting format.
Each audience has a legitimate reason for requesting a particular view. The wasted time comes from rebuilding the information manually rather than generating those views from the same live record.
Manual reporting also creates a delay between the project and the report. A document may be accurate when the project manager begins preparing it, then become outdated before it is circulated. A new variation is submitted, an invoice is approved or a cost forecast changes while the report is being formatted. The team then has to decide whether to issue the document, revise it again or explain the timing difference.
The result is a large amount of effort spent presenting information instead of interpreting it. A project manager’s value lies in recognising what a cost movement means for the development, which decision is becoming urgent and where the programme is exposed. Reformatting cells and transferring figures between documents uses time without applying that expertise.
Spreadsheets remain deeply embedded in property development because they are flexible and familiar. The difficulty begins when a working file is copied, emailed and edited independently.
One team member updates the shared document, while another relies on an outdated attachment and a third modifies a separate version for reporting purposes. Although each file may include accurate updates, none reflects the full and current project position.
When the figures no longer agree, the project manager has to determine where the versions separated. That can require reviewing formulas, comparing dates, tracing individual entries and contacting the people who made the changes.
Until that work is complete, the team cannot confidently rely on the report. A relatively small difference can delay approval because nobody knows whether it reflects a genuine cost movement or a missing update.
The risk extends beyond the time required to reconcile the files. A decision made using an incomplete version may affect procurement, cash flow or contingency. Research published by Autodesk and FMI estimated that decisions based on poor project data contributed to US$88.69 billion in global construction rework during 2020, representing 14 per cent of the rework examined. The findings are summarised in Autodesk’s global construction data strategy study.
A property development business does not need to be managing a global megaproject to experience the same underlying problem. One obsolete budget or missing approval can create unnecessary work on a scheme of any size.
Try Morta for FreeProperty development moves too quickly for every discussion to happen inside a formal meeting. Decisions are made during site walks, telephone calls and short exchanges between members of the delivery team.
The speed is useful. The record-keeping is often weak.
A change may be agreed verbally because a contractor needs an immediate answer. The project manager understands the reason and expects the formal paperwork to follow. Several weeks later, the valuation includes an additional cost and somebody asks who authorised it.
The project manager then becomes the project’s memory. They search emails, review meeting notes and reconstruct the circumstances around the decision. If the relevant person has moved to another project or left the business, the explanation becomes harder to establish.
This reliance on individual memory is particularly dangerous for developers managing multiple schemes. Project managers carry an increasing amount of context between meetings, contractors and internal teams. When that context is not attached to the relevant cost item, task or approval, the business becomes dependent on the continued availability of a few individuals.
A useful project record should explain what was decided, when it was agreed, who approved it and which part of the development it affected. Capturing that information at the point of decision takes far less time than reconstructing it months later.
A project meeting should help the team understand progress, resolve issues and agree actions. In practice, the preparation and administration around the meeting can take longer than the discussion itself.
The project manager gathers updates from consultants and contractors, checks which actions remain open, reviews the programme and prepares a cost summary. After the meeting, notes must be written, actions distributed and decisions transferred into whichever trackers the team uses.
The next meeting may begin with another round of information gathering because the previous actions were stored in minutes rather than connected to the live project record. Team members give updates that already exist elsewhere, and the project manager spends more time translating discussion into administration.
A more useful meeting begins with current information already available to the participants. The discussion can then focus on exceptions, overdue decisions and the effect of emerging risks. Actions should remain linked to the matter that created them, with clear ownership and dates, so the next review does not depend on reading several sets of minutes.
This approach does not eliminate administration entirely. Property development requires records, approvals and accountable decision-making. It reduces the amount of duplicated work required to maintain those records.
Producing a cost report and controlling cost are related activities, but they are not the same.
Cost control requires the project manager and commercial team to understand commitments, actual expenditure, anticipated final cost, contingency and potential exposure. Reporting communicates that position to other stakeholders.
When information is fragmented, most of the available time can be consumed by producing the report. Figures are imported, checked and formatted, leaving less time to question whether the forecast is realistic or whether an unresolved variation is beginning to threaten the margin.
This creates a misleading sense of control. The business receives a polished monthly document, but the data may already be several weeks old. Potential costs may remain outside the forecast because they have not yet completed the formal approval process. Decisions are then made using a tidy representation of an incomplete position.
For the developer, the quality of the underlying record matters more than the appearance of the report. A reliable cost position should update as procurement, payment and change information moves through the project. Reporting then becomes a view of that information rather than a separate monthly reconstruction.
The administrative cost becomes most visible when responsibility passes to another person or team.
A project manager preparing a handover may have to compile the current budget, programme position, approved changes, unresolved risks, contractor information and outstanding actions. If these records have been maintained separately, the handover becomes a substantial piece of work.
The incoming person still receives a snapshot rather than the history behind it. They can see that a cost changed, but not always why. They know an action is open, but may not understand the earlier discussions. Questions return to the previous project manager, extending their involvement long after responsibility was supposed to transfer.
The same issue appears when a development moves from construction into completion and aftercare. Defect information, inspection records, warranties and outstanding works need to reach the team responsible for handover. If the operational record begins only at practical completion, valuable context from the delivery stage has already been lost.
A structured project record changes the nature of handover. The next person receives access to the current position and the decisions that produced it. The handover conversation can focus on judgement, priorities and risk rather than locating documents.
The wasted time on one project is frustrating. Across several live developments, it becomes a management problem.
Every scheme may use different spreadsheets, naming conventions and reporting templates. Portfolio reporting requires information to be collected from each project and adjusted into a common format. By the time the consolidated report reaches the board, some projects have moved on.
The development director may see that one scheme is over budget without being able to trace the movement to a package, instruction or delayed decision. Project managers are asked to provide additional explanations, creating another cycle of reporting.
This limits the business’s ability to compare schemes properly. If costs and project data are structured differently, lessons remain trapped inside individual developments. The developer cannot easily examine whether the same procurement issue, contractor risk or forecasting weakness is appearing across the portfolio.
Consistent information does not require every project to be identical. It requires the business to use a shared structure for the matters that need to be compared. This gives senior management a current portfolio view while allowing each project team to retain the detail relevant to delivery.
Recovering these hours does not begin with asking project managers to become more organised. Many are already maintaining several informal systems simply to keep the development moving.
The underlying issue is that information has to be entered, transferred and explained repeatedly. A cost update begins in one place, is copied into another and is later rebuilt for reporting. An approval is issued by email but remains disconnected from the item it affects. A defect is identified during an inspection, then copied into a separate handover tracker.
A connected system changes this sequence. Information is recorded once and remains available to the people who need it. Different stakeholders can view the same underlying data at the level relevant to their role. Decisions, documents and activity remain attached to the project record instead of relying on somebody’s inbox.
This gives project managers more time to examine what the information means. They can identify a procurement delay before it affects the programme, challenge an unrealistic cost forecast or resolve a quality issue before it reaches handover.
The benefit is not measured only in hours saved. Better access to current information improves the speed and quality of decisions. It reduces the risk that an important issue remains hidden because the person who understands it is busy preparing another report.
Morta brings planning, cost reporting, procurement, collaboration, quality management, handover and defect information into one property development platform.
A project manager can work from the same live project record used by the wider development team. Cost changes, approvals, tasks and supporting documents remain connected, providing a clearer history of how the project reached its current position.
Reports can be produced for different audiences without rebuilding the source information each time. Senior teams gain a portfolio view, while project managers and commercial teams retain access to the detail behind each figure.
Morta software also supports the later stages of development. Quality inspections, handover information and defects can remain connected to the project rather than moving into a separate collection of files at completion.
The purpose is practical. Project managers should be able to spend their working day managing programme, cost, quality and risk. Their time should not be consumed by maintaining the trail of disconnected documents surrounding those responsibilities.
When a project manager spends a large part of the week chasing updates, reformatting reports and reconciling spreadsheets, the immediate response is often to improve individual discipline. That may produce a temporary improvement, but it does not resolve the way information moves through the development.
A better measure is whether the team can locate the current cost, understand an earlier decision and identify an outstanding action without asking one particular person to explain it. If the answer depends on who is available or which spreadsheet they opened, the project record is not doing enough work.
Property development will always involve pressure, uncertainty and decisions that cannot be automated. Those are exactly the reasons experienced project managers are valuable. Their working hours should be reserved for applying judgement to the development, not reconstructing information the business already possesses.
Morta.com gives property developers a connected system for managing that information from the earliest project stages through delivery, handover and defects. Book a discovery call today to see how Morta can help your project managers recover time and maintain clearer control across every development.
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