The monthly director report is the most important single artefact Hawktress produces. It runs to between three and seven pages depending on the size of the builder's active book. It lands in the director's inbox by the 5th of every month. Read correctly, it gives you 90 seconds of certainty about whether the business is on track.
This piece walks through how to read it.
The structure
Every report has the same five sections in the same order.
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Section 1. Portfolio summary. One page. Total contracted revenue, total revenue received this period, total committed costs, portfolio gross margin, cash position relative to project commitments and 30 / 60 / 90-day forecast revenue.
Section 2. Job tracking grid. One row per active job. Original contract value, current contract value, committed costs, forecast final cost, gross margin forecast, variations approved this month, programme status and an alert column.
Section 3. Flagged items. Every line that triggered the 5% variance threshold across every active job in the previous month, with current status.
Section 4. Aged debtors and outstanding invoices. Anything over 30 days, with the contact you need to chase.
Section 5. Escalation items. Any decision that requires director sign-off before the CA can proceed in the next 14 days.
How to read it in 90 seconds
Every director who onboards onto the platform gets the same instruction from me. Read the report in this order, with a stopwatch.
0 to 15 seconds. Read section 1 only. Look at three numbers. Portfolio gross margin. Cash position relative to commitments. 30-day forecast revenue. If those three numbers are inside the bands you set at the start of the year, the business is on track and you can read the rest at your own pace. If any of the three are outside the band, you have a real meeting to run this morning.
15 to 45 seconds. Read section 2's alert column only. Anything red, anything amber. Skip the body of the grid. The alert column is engineered to be the first thing a director's eye lands on. If the alert column is clean, every job is tracking. If it is not, you know which jobs need a phone call before the day starts.
45 to 75 seconds. Read section 3's status column. Approved with note. Pushed back. Awaiting director decision. The "awaiting director decision" rows are the ones that block the CA from moving forward. They are the highest-leverage 30 seconds of your week.
75 to 90 seconds. Read section 5. These are the items that need your decision in the next 14 days. They are pre-formatted with the question, the recommendation from the CA and the option set. Most of them can be approved or actioned in under a minute each.
The other pages are for context. The first 90 seconds is for action.
The report is engineered around a director who has 90 seconds and a director who has 90 minutes. Both have to be able to use it.
What the alert column actually flags
The alert column has four possible states.
Green. Job is inside all forecast bands.
Amber. Job has at least one metric drifting toward a band edge but no breach yet. Common amber triggers: forecast final cost rising more than 2% in a single month, programme slippage of more than 5 working days against the contracted PC date, an unapproved variation backlog of more than five items or aged debtors on this job over 30 days.
Red. At least one metric has breached a band. Common red triggers: gross margin forecast dropped below the floor set at contract award, forecast final cost exceeding current contract value, programme slippage of more than 15 working days or a variation flagged outside the 5% threshold and unresolved for more than 14 days.
Black. Catastrophic. Job has a margin forecast below break-even, an unrecoverable cost overrun or a programme breach that triggers liquidated damages. These are escalated by the CA before the report goes out.
If you only ever read the alert column, you will catch every problem.
The report is also a behaviour-shaping artefact
This is the part most directors miss when they first come on board. The report is not just a status snapshot. It is a behaviour-shaping artefact for the entire team that touches the jobs.
The estimator knows that any quote outside the 5% threshold will appear in section 3 with their name on it. They estimate tighter.
The CA knows that any unapproved variation backlog over five items will turn the alert column amber. They clear variations weekly.
The site team knows that any programme slippage over five days will turn amber and over fifteen days will turn red. They flag programme risk early instead of hiding it.
The director knows that any decision they have not made within 14 days will roll forward into section 5 of next month's report and be highlighted. They make decisions on time.
The report is the operating cadence of the business. It is also the document that proves the operating cadence is being held.
The 5th of the month is non-negotiable
Reports issued on the 12th are reports nobody reads. The discipline of the 5th-of-the-month deadline is the discipline that keeps the report relevant. If your CA cannot produce the report by the 5th, the operating system upstream of the CA is broken. Fix that before you fix anything else.
What to look for in your first three reports
If you are new to Hawktress and the report has just landed for the first time, look for three things.
One. Are the numbers in section 1 the numbers you expected? If they are not, your forecasts were wrong, which is fine, you now have data. Calibrate.
Two. Are the alert states in section 2 consistent with your gut feel about each job? Where the alert disagrees with your gut, the alert is usually right.
Three. Are there flagged items in section 3 that you would have approved without question if they had not been flagged? If there are, that is the value of the threshold. Those are the items that would have eaten your margin invisibly. Make a note of which ones, why they were flagged and what you decided.
By the third monthly report, the rhythm is set. By the sixth, the report is your single most reliable source of truth about the business.
If you are a builder running a director-level dashboard right now from spreadsheets and gut feel, the difference between that and a structured monthly report is not technological. It is decision speed. Decisions made in 90 seconds with a structured report are different decisions from the ones made in 90 minutes wading through a spreadsheet.
Run the report on the 5th. Hold the structure. The business will follow.
