RealTorch › The 15 Functions › Accounting
Function 09 of 15Accounting
Accounting looks backward, records what happened, and makes it checkable. Its real value is variance nobody has to hunt for.
Accounting handles bookkeeping, financial statements, accounts payable and receivable, construction draws and closings. The knowledge base places it under Finance in the org and defines it by direction: it records and analyses what has already happened, while Finance anticipates what is coming.
Its highest-leverage integration is with Estimating. Job cost codes have to align between the two, because that alignment is what makes estimate versus actual a real number instead of an argument. When the charts diverge, variance analysis quietly becomes impossible, and the same cost error repeats on every home until someone notices it in a margin report a year later.
One chart of codes
Estimating and accounting share it, or nobody can answer where the money went.
Timely beats perfect
A close that lands three weeks late informs no decision. Accuracy that arrives too late is a history project.
Variance is the report
The statement everyone reads should be estimate vs actual by code, per home.
Draws are a process
Construction draws and closings are operational deadlines, not paperwork — they gate cash.
Atlas in action
The month is closed, the margin is two points light, and nobody can say why.
Two transactions, both coded to framing, neither of them framing.
Five of the seven homes are within half a point of plan. The miss is concentrated in two: Lot 14 carries $18,400 of warranty repair from a closed home coded to 06 · framing, and Lot 9 carries a $9,100 change order that was never billed to the buyer. Recode those and margin lands at 0.3 points under plan — a normal month. The warranty item also matters upstream: it belongs to a home you closed in November, so your warranty cost per home is understated by the same $18,400.
| Home | Plan GM | Actual GM | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lot 6 | 21.4% | 21.1% | — |
| Lot 9 | 20.8% | 16.9% | Change order never billed to buyer · $9,100 |
| Lot 11 | 22.0% | 21.8% | — |
| Lot 14 | 21.2% | 13.4% | Warranty repair from a Nov. closing coded to 06 · $18,400 |
| Lots 17, 19, 23 | 21.5% | 21.2% | — |
| Portfolio | 21.3% | 19.2% | 2.1 pts — $27,500 in two entries |
Composite example. Atlas reconciles the GL detail against job costs per home, which is how a portfolio-level miss resolves into two specific entries.
A margin miss is almost never spread evenly
Atlas reads the close against the job cost detail and names the transactions, so the conversation starts at the entry instead of at the summary.
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