The quote to the client was 200,000. Mid-month you have spent 90,000, and you do not know if that is fine. Plumbing might be finished and tiling not started, or both might already be past what you planned. One sum feels calm until the day there is nothing left to pay the painter.
A line per trade is not bookkeeping. It is how you see, on site, which work is eating the money before that work is finished. Demolition, plumbing, electrical, tiling, paint, joinery, haul-off. What has no line disappears into the rest.
How you open the lines
- The same trades that appear in the quote, not a different list
- A planned amount on each line, before the work starts
- Every expense is written on one line, not on a general pile
- An approved extra raises that line, it does not sit on the side
- Once a week: how much is left on each line
An example of the shape, not a price list. The tiling line was planned at 30,000, material and labor. You paid 12,000 for tile and 8,000 to the contractor for the dry rooms. 10,000 is left, and the wet rooms are still ahead. That is the number that decides whether you order the next part or stop and talk.
What not to mix
Tiling material does not go on plumbing because the same supplier also brought pipe. Two suppliers, two lines, or at least a split in the note the same day. An expense with no line is an expense that shows up only at the end, when there is nobody to ask.
If there are two apartments, the budget is not shared. A tiling line on Herzl that absorbs Bialik's tile looks like an overrun on the wrong apartment, and the other client does not see their material. Put the apartment name on the expense the day you buy.
When a line runs out early
If little is left and the work is not finished, stop before the next order. Either there is an extra the client has to approve, or the estimate in the quote was low and you need to say so now, not on the final bill. Carrying on and writing we will close it later is how a line spills with nobody deciding.
The line does not have to be exact to the shekel every morning. It has to be right enough that you are not surprised on pay day. A receipt that goes in the same day keeps it that way. A receipt at month end turns the line into a guess.
A budget of lines tells you where to stop. A budget of one number tells you only after the money has left.