Construction site profitability analysis: How Dropia automatically calculates your margins

The problem of manual profitability analysis

tedious and repetitive calculations

To know the actual profitability of a project, you must:

1. Consolidate the hours worked by each worker

2. Value these hours at the loaded hourly rate

3. Add up all supplies and materials used

4. Add equipment rental costs, subcontracting

5. Compare this total actual cost to the estimated budget

6. Calculate the gross margin and the margin percentage

This process easily takes 30-45 minutes per project. For a company managing 10 simultaneous projects, this represents 5 to 7 hours of work... for a snapshot that is already outdated as soon as it is produced.

A vision always lagging behind

When the analysis is done manually, it is produced at best weekly, often monthly. Problems are detected several weeks late, when the damage is already significant.

Frequent errors

Between entry omissions, Excel formula errors, hours allocated to the wrong project, and supplies not accounted for, the reliability of manual analyses is rarely 100%.

How Dropia automates profitability analysis

Step 1: Automatic collection of actual costs

Dropia automatically aggregates all cost data:

Labor costs

• Each punch-in is automatically valued at the employee's loaded hourly rate

• Hours are allocated to the correct project and task

• Overtime is automatically marked up

• Calculations are done in real time with each new punch-in

Costs of supplies and materials

• Delivery notes checked on mobile are integrated

• Supplier invoices can be photographed and allocated

• The system automatically recognizes amounts (OCR)

• Each expense is linked to the relevant project

Other costs

• Equipment rental

• Subcontracting

• Travel expenses

• Any other cost specific to the project

Step 2: Automatic comparison with the estimated budget

When creating a project in Dropia, you enter:

• The total amount of the client quotation

• The estimated hours budget by task

• The estimated supplies budget

• The target margin

As soon as the first costs arrive, Dropia automatically compares:

• Hours consumed vs. hours budgeted

• Supplies used vs. supplies budget

• Total actual cost vs. total budget

• Actual margin vs. target margin

Step 3: Real-time calculation of key indicators

The Dropia dashboard instantly displays for each project:

Progress rate Percentage of physical progress of the project (manual or based on completed tasks)

Budget consumption rate Percentage of the total budget already spent

Progress/consumption gap The critical indicator: if you have consumed 60% of the budget for 40% of the progress, red alert!

Projected margin at completion Projection of the final margin if the current trend continues

Actual hourly cost vs. estimated To detect productivity issues

Profitability by task Identification of profitable vs. deficit tasks

The automatic Dropia alerts

Budget overrun alert Automatic notification when a project exceeds a configurable threshold (for example, 80% of the budget consumed)

Margin drift alert When the projected margin falls below a critical threshold (for example, below 10%)

Productivity alert When the actual hourly cost significantly exceeds the estimated

Delay alert When the budget consumption is ahead of physical progress

These alerts allow for intervention before the situation becomes irreversible.

Concrete case: Building renovation project

Estimated budget

• Client quote: €85,000 excluding VAT

• Hours budget: 800h at €45/hour loaded = €36,000

• Supplies budget: €32,000

• Other costs: €5,000

• Total estimated cost: €73,000

• Target margin: €12,000 (14.1%)

Situation at 50% progress (Dropia view)

Automatic dashboard:

• Physical progress: 50%

• Hours consumed: 420h (valued at €18,900)

• Supplies used: €18,500

• Other costs: €2,200

• Actual cost to date: €39,600

• Budget consumed: 54% (€39,600 / €73,000)

Automatic Dropia analysis:

• ✅ Progress/budget gap: favorable (50% progressed, 54% consumed)

• ✅ Actual hourly cost: €45 = in line with the estimate

• ⚠️ Supplies: slightly above (€18,500 consumed vs. €16,000 budgeted at 50%)

• Projected margin at completion: €10,800 (12.7%) slightly below target

Suggested corrective action: Pay attention to supplies: check negotiated prices and optimize purchases for the second half of the project.

Without Dropia, this analysis would have taken 45 minutes to produce, and would have been done with a 1-2 weeks delay. With Dropia, it is available at all times, updated in real time.

The profitability analysis reports

Synthetic report by project

Dropia automatically generates a PDF document including:

• Overview: budget, actual, gap

• Detail of hours by task and by worker

• Detail of supplies by post

• Time evolution graphs

• Key indicators and alerts

This report can be generated on demand or automatically (weekly, monthly).

Consolidated multi-project report

For a global view of the company:

• Profitability of each active project

• Top 5 most profitable projects

• Projects in difficulty needing attention

• Overall performance of the company

• Evolution of margins over time