Last week, we opened the BigACR beta waitlist. For the first time, we’re offering our cost management software as a standalone product, outside our full project management services.
If you’d like to be part of the beta, add your name to the waitlist, and we’ll be in touch.
In 2018, my work in development changed overnight. I went from running large, $200mm+ projects to managing the renovation, design, and construction of 90+ hotel properties.
Most of the hotels were branded and required some type of periodic renovation, which in many cases was overdue. The task in front of me was assessing which properties were up for renovation, anticipating the ones about to come up on schedule, and figuring out how to schedule and track all the work. That adventure led to my building a team of six project managers.
Simultaneously, I was tasked with the audit of a large construction project that was 18 months into a 3-year schedule.
What allowed me to take on both at once, at opposite ends of the spectrum, was an industry-standard tool, the anticipated cost report. I built a single ACR standard that worked for both the portfolio of capital projects ranging from $200K to $5mm and the $300mm audit.
That surprised me.
The ACR is typically the domain of very large shops running very large projects that demand tight cost reporting. Here it was doing the same work across a $200K renovation and a $300mm build.
Same rigor, same clean data, useful for big-picture analysis at the PM level and at the broader project level, capital planning, insurance timing, operational startup, etc.
The audit was where I saw what happens when that rigor isn’t there.
I found change orders that had piled up unreviewed and were then settled in a single “global settlement” that cost considerably more than reviewing and reissuing them as they came up would have. I found incorrect retainage charges that had compounded over months and were much harder to correct after the pay apps had been approved and bank-funded.
I learned that tracking against a well-built, itemized budget saved the project time and money. I learned that tracking cost progress made it possible to tell whether the project was actually on schedule. Tracking made it easier to hold the parties to the contract. And a dedicated exposure column made it possible to see potential additional equity requirements coming before they became emergencies.
The audit showed me that the ACR process works, and that it only works when it’s followed strictly. Line by line, every pay app, every project.
The ACR framework worked. The team produced good reviews. But getting them there was enormously time-consuming. Every PM had a reasonable variation based on their management style, and I was spending a lot of time teaching the team how to read the ACR and enter the data properly, in addition to reviewing their work.
So, in early 2019, I started thinking about turning this industry-standard system into software. Something that could read the documents, take the data entry off the PM’s plate, flag line by line when a number didn’t match the contract, and track amounts billed vs. contracts and payments. I reached out to a few friends who worked in software and had a hell of a time getting any interest or help on what direction I could take this.
In 2020, I looked into building it myself. That was a dead end. Eventually, I had it built overseas, and we started using it in-house.
I considered making it public then, but between the engineering being controlled from overseas, and OCR being expensive and not very accurate at the time, the experience was workable for us internally, but not something I was comfortable promising to outside teams. I know how valuable that process and that data are in development projects. So, I kept it internal.
That changed last year. The shifts in AI have made document reading and software updates dramatically faster and more reliable, and it became clear that it made sense to onshore the engineering. The worries that had kept me from going public were resolved. We’d tested the system the software was built on, for years. We could control it from the US. And with AI, we could give anyone who trusted us with it a better experience than what we’d been running internally.
So, I reached out again to one of the friends I’d talked to in 2019. He had more time on his schedule now that his little one was a little bit older. Together with our in-house team, we’ve integrated AI into the app, rebuilt the workflows to be more robust, and focused on reliability and security.
We’ve spent the last 8 months rebuilding for public consumption.
That’s how the BigACR got here.
The BigACR is a line-by-line guided pay app review workflow, built on the AIA G702/G703 framework and the cost management practices that define rigorous project execution.
For senior reviewers, it offers speed. The mechanical extraction and validation work is automated, and the workflow highlights the items that require attention.
For junior reviewers, it offers on the job training. Line-by-line guidance replaces the kind of feedback that arrives days or weeks later, after a senior PM has finally had time to take a red pen to the junior’s work. They learn the process by doing it correctly from the start. And their work product is easier to review and easier to trust, because the formatting is normalized and the data entry is automated.
For principals and investors, it’s clean, consistent data across every project, every pay app. Anticipated cost reports, change order logs, contingency tracking, retainage, and pay app history, all reported the same way, on every project.
A few things the BigACR is not. It’s not a project management “platform” (we’re still not sure we know what this means). It’s not accounting software. It’s not a bidding or procurement tool. It’s not a scheduling tool. It’s not a replacement for an attentive project manager. Someone still has to analyze the data, synthesize what it’s telling them, make decisions, and push back on the GC when something needs to be corrected.
The BigACR does one thing and does it to the highest standard in the industry.
Development firms with people doing pay app review, including solo principals
Owner-side teams, not GCs
Emerging developers or family offices who don’t have a senior cost manager on staff yet, but need senior-level discipline applied to their projects
Large teams that want to standardize how ACRs are done across projects and have visibility across all active jobs
Large investor groups working with multiple GPs who want to ensure cost data is being tracked, tracked properly, and accessible as a measure of progress, compliance, and project health
We’re opening the BigACR to a limited group of beta testers for a 90-day run. The ask is real. Use it on an active project, give us feedback, sit for periodic calls, and help us shape the product before it goes wider. Your time and your honest input are what make this work, and we don’t take either for granted.
Interest has run ahead of what we expected, and we’re figuring out how to handle that. If you’d like to be part of the beta, add your name to the waitlist, and we’ll be in touch.
If you are interested in investing in our fund, let us know via the investor interest form below.
AND We are looking for long-term capital partners interested in a 5 to 10-year hold and looking for investment opportunities in the $10-$50mm range.
OR
If you have a development site that fits one the following criteria, we’d love to see it:
1 - In Manhattan with at least 40,000 buildable square feet zoned for residential use as of right, or a good candidate for an office-to-residential conversion
2 - Mixed-use, residential, or hospitality site in the mountain west
3- Destination or resort-anchored site with at least 50k of buildable ft
Most importantly, we want to meet and begin building relationships with people who are interested in what we are doing and who believe in how we approach the work, regardless of interest in our current deals.
Send us a note if you’d like to chat!
In addition to our development work, MADDPROJECT provides fee development and professional project management services across the US.
Need help and don’t know where to start?
Have a specific subject you want to see us tackle in a future Newsletter?
Drop us a note!
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.