Every budget in construction goes over the same way: quietly, in $600 increments, on a line nobody was watching, and then all at once on the invoice that shows up in week nine. BLT AI runs the live ledger against what your closed builds actually cost and says something the day the arithmetic stops working — not at the monthly review.
Baseline is locked at kickoff. Current is the live plan, and every move carries a who, a when, and a why. Committed is approved and not yet spent. Actual rolls up from real transactions and is never typed by hand. Almost every signal BLT raises comes from the distance between committed and current.
| Line | Baseline | Current | Committed | Actual |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lumber & sheathing | 18,000 | 22,000 | 2,400 | 18,700 |
| Hardware & fasteners | 2,500 | 2,500 | — | 3,140 ↑ |
| Framing labor | 12,000 | 12,000 | — | 5,410 |
| Crane & equipment | 3,000 | 2,000 | — | 950 |
| Phase total | 35,500 | 38,500 | 2,400 | 28,200 |
Illustrative phase. Hardware is over because two runs to the supply house got coded here instead of to hangers on the lumber line.
They run continuously against the live stream, not on a schedule. A signal fires the hour the number changes, which on most jobs is somewhere between the supply house and the truck.
Not “framing materials at 85%.” “Framing materials at 85%, with $2,400 committed that puts it at 96% once it clears, and two deliveries still scheduled this week.” The percentage everyone quotes is the one that’s already history; the useful one is where the line finishes.
Foundation at $18,400 on this lot against $13,300 and $13,500 on the last two comparable builds — 38% above. The comparison is named, not implied: which two jobs, which phase, which months. Sometimes the answer is rock, and rock is a change order. Sometimes it’s a sub who repriced and nobody noticed.
A budget line raised because of a quote, and then an invoice that exceeds the quote. Every current move in BLT carries the reason someone typed, so the signal can hold the invoice up against the specific sentence used to justify the increase. $1,180 over, on May 22, against a reason written on May 14.
The purchase request approved Thursday is real money, and on most jobs it doesn’t appear anywhere until the invoice lands three weeks later. BLT counts it the moment it’s approved. Four phases each sitting on committed money they haven’t felt yet is how a job goes from fine to $22,000 over in a fortnight.
“Costs are trending high” is a horoscope. A signal in BLT names the exact line, cites the exact records it compared, and puts a date on both sides of the comparison — because you’re going to have to repeat it to a client, a sub, or a lender, and you need to be able to defend it.
Where the comparisons come fromUrgent signals interrupt. Everything else waits for one weekly summary that arrives ahead of your budget meeting, so the meeting is about decisions instead of about finding out.
Which currents were raised, by whom, and the reason they typed. Six moves across three jobs, in one list, with the dollar change on each.
Committed money by phase, and the lines that finish above current once it clears. This is the section that changes what gets ordered Monday.
Phase by phase against your own closed builds. The ones running under get named too — that’s the number your next estimate should be using.
Signals also appear in the 6 a.m. recap and on the line itself in the ledger. Nothing lives only in an email.
Bring the spreadsheet, get a live ledger by lunch. Free on one project, full AI.