Insights
The scope creep audit: a 15 minute check on your last three projects
Scope creep does not show up as a line on your P&L. It shows up as a margin that quietly fell and nobody can explain. This audit compares scoped hours against delivered hours on three finished projects, and usually finds the leak in one sitting.
Mohammad Azam, Aprecity Consultants · 5 min read
Why the P&L will not tell you
A profit and loss statement is organised by month and by cost type. Scope creep happens per project and per client. The two never line up, so the damage appears as a vague dip about a quarter after it happened.
By then the causes are mixed together with three other things and nobody can separate them. That is why this audit works backwards from finished projects instead.
The audit
Take three projects that finished in the last six months. Pick one that went well, one that felt hard, and one large one. For each, answer four questions.
- ( 01 )
What did we scope, in hours?
If the proposal was priced without an hours estimate, that is the first finding and it is a common one.
- ( 02 )
What did we actually deliver, in hours?
Ask the people who did the work rather than reading a timesheet, if the timesheet is optimistic.
- ( 03 )
At what point did the two diverge?
Almost always a specific moment: a new stakeholder, a changed brief, a third revision round nobody pushed back on.
- ( 04 )
Did anyone raise a change order?
If not, ask why not. The answer is usually that it felt awkward, which is a pricing culture problem rather than a client problem.
Reading the result
Overrun below 10 percent is normal and not worth chasing. Between 10 and 25 percent is a scoping problem, which means your estimates need work. Above 25 percent is a change control problem, which means the work is fine but nobody is stopping the drift.
| Overrun | What it means | What to fix |
|---|---|---|
| Under 10% | Normal variance | Nothing |
| 10% to 25% | Estimates are too optimistic | How you scope |
| Over 25% | Nobody is calling the change | How you say no |
What one overrun is worth
Run the numbers on a project scoped at 200 hours that quietly ran to 260.
60 extra hours x $110 blended delivery cost = $6,600 of unbilled work
Arithmetic on an invented project, not a client result. Six projects a year at that level is $39,600.
The fix is rarely charging more. It is noticing in week three rather than at the wrap meeting, when a change order is still a normal conversation.
Making it stick
- Put an hours number in every proposal, even a fixed fee one, so there is something to measure against.
- Name the number of revision rounds included, and what an extra one costs.
- Check delivered hours against scoped hours at the halfway point, not at the end.
- Tag costs to the project in your bookkeeping, so the overrun is visible in the numbers and not just in someone's memory.
The service behind this
Bookkeeping
We keep your books current in QuickBooks Online or Xero and close them by the 5th. Every cost is tagged to a client and a project as it lands.
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Why a large client's procurement team cares about your books
Above a certain contract size, winning work stops being a pitch decision and becomes a procurement one. A vendor onboarding check looks at whether your business is stable enough to deliver for two years. Weak financial records lose deals that the creative already won.
Next step
Found something you cannot explain?
That is the useful outcome. Bring the number to a 20 minute call and we will work out what is behind it.