01
CIS
0%, 20%, 30% bands per worker, monthly returns, CIS300 export, CIS deduction certificates issued automatically. Gross-status changes pulled from HMRC.
0 / 20 / 30%CIS300CertificatesHMRC verify
Financial · Module 04
The numbers,
The numbers,
with the why,
on one screen.
CIS bands, MTD VAT with domestic reverse charge, retentions, applications for payment, project P&L by cost code, CVR and WIP. Two-way sync with Sage 50, Sage 200, Xero, QuickBooks and BrightPay. The figures the QS, the FD and HMRC all read from the same record.
§ 01Where the margin leaks
Margins disappear
in the small gaps.
Most leaks are admin.
Construction firms do not lose money on the headline number. They lose it in the gaps — hours rounded the wrong way, a CIS deduction taken twice, a retention nobody chases, a variation done but never billed. Most of these are spreadsheet failures, not commercial ones.
Subbie invoice
CIS deduction worked out twice. Once wrong. HMRC letter follows.
Penalty risk
Variation
"Just crack on, we'll sort the paperwork." Three months later, no sign-off, no pay.
£14k unbilled
Project review
WIP, CVR and retention reconciled by hand from four spreadsheets.
≈ 5 hrs / week
Quarter-end
MTD VAT panic. Domestic reverse charge applied to the wrong line items.
Filing risk
Friday payroll
Hours from a paper timesheet, rounded the wrong way. CIS bands not on the worker record.
Hours lost
Final account
Retention chased six months after handover. Half of it the client has already deducted.
£25k stuck
Sage
Re-keying invoices from email into Sage. Three apps disagree on the number.
≈ 6 hrs / week
Director's question
"Are we making money on Beech Lane?" Bookkeeper says ask in March.
Decision blind
// Conservative drain · 30-person firm
Margin leaked to admin and rework
≈ £42,000/ yr
Admin chase, retention slip, variation drift, filing risk. Recovered when the figures live in one place.
§ 02What is in the box
Nine capabilities.
One module. The figures
the QS and HMRC both trust.
We did not start with a generic accounts tool and bolt construction onto it. CIS, MTD VAT, retentions, AfPs and project P&L are part of the data model, not a tab in a settings panel.
02
MTD VAT
Quarterly VAT, domestic reverse charge, EU services, partial exemption. Submit straight to HMRC with one click. Audit trail unfakeable, returns archived seven years.
Reverse chargeHMRC submitAudit trail7-yr archive
03
Job costing
Labour, plant, materials, subcontract, prelims, overhead. Cost codes you already use. Hours flow from the gate. Materials flow from the PO. The QS opens one screen.
Cost codesFrom timesheetFrom POPer project
04
Retentions
Held, released, chased. Auto-applied at the agreed percentage on every AfP and certificate. Calendar entry on the project for the release date. Nobody forgets the £42k.
Auto-appliedTrackedRelease calendarChase log
05
Applications for payment
Subbie submits on portal. CIS band auto-applied, retention auto-held, payable date set against the contract. Approved, queued, paid Friday. No spreadsheet ritual.
Subbie portalCIS-awarePay-less noticeApproval flow
06
CVR & WIP
Cost-value reconciliation and work-in-progress, live. Forecast final account moves with every variation, every cost line, every hour. The board pack writes itself on the 28th.
Live CVRWIPForecast FABoard pack
07
Project P&L
Per project, per cost code, per period. Click any line, see the source records. No frozen export from last quarter, no spreadsheet that nobody can reconcile.
By cost codeDrill to sourceBy periodVariances
08
Cash forecast
30, 60, 90 days. Pulls from quotes out, AfPs queued, retentions due, supplier payments scheduled. The number the FD looks at on Monday morning.
30 / 60 / 90From AfPsRetentions dueSupplier sched
09
Two-way sync
Sage 50, Sage 200, Sage Payroll, Sage Business Cloud, Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, BrightPay, Iris, Moneysoft. Bidirectional, not a CSV export. Conflict-safe.
SageXeroQuickBooksBrightPayRTI
§ 03HMRC, in the data model
HMRC's order.
Built into the data,
not a help article.
Every band, return, deduction and notice below is part of the model — the field, the calculation, the audit trail and the report. CIS rates change, VAT rules change, RTI windows change. We update the platform; you do not pay extra.
// Group 01
CIS
0% gross status20% standard30% unverifiedMonthly CIS300Deduction certificatesHMRC verifyUTR checkSubbie nominal codes
// Group 02
MTD VAT
Standard rateReduced rateZero rateDomestic reverse chargeEU servicesPartial exemptionQuarterly returnsHMRC API submit
// Group 03
Payroll · RTI
FPS · weekly / monthlyEPS · adjustmentsNI categories A · M · ZAuto-enrolmentStatutory payHoliday payP32 / P60
// Group 04
Contractual
Pay notice · 7dPay-less notice · 7dRetention releaseFinal accountDefects periodLoss & expenseNEC · JCT cadence
// Group 05
Reporting
Project P&LCVR · WIPDebtor daysAged creditorsCash forecastMargin by clientTender win-rate
// Group 06
Integrations
Sage 50Sage 200XeroQuickBooksFreeAgentBrightPaySage PayrollIrisMoneysoftNESTSmart Pension
§ 04A Tuesday in accounts
One Tuesday.
One module.
A real Tuesday in the accounts office of a 32-person firm running three live sites. Every event below touches one record, not three spreadsheets, and the QS, the bookkeeper and the FD all see the same number at the same time.
07:42
Hours feed
Hours feed
QR clock-ins post to project labour costs.
Twenty-two operatives clocked in by 07:45. Hours land on the project P&L by cost code, with CIS bands per worker. The labour line is live before the kettle has boiled.
Job costing · CIS
09:14
AfP
AfP
Subbie submits AfP #14 on the portal.
£8,420 gross. CIS 20% auto-applied (£1,684), retention 5% auto-held (£421), VAT domestic reverse charge applied. Net payable £6,315 queued for Friday.
Applications for payment · CIS · VAT
10:30
Variation
Variation
Variation #12 signed by client on email.
£4,800. Signed PDF stored against the project. Quote updated. Project P&L moves the same minute. CIS treatment auto-applied. Forecast final account up by £4,800.
Project P&L · Variations
11:50
Sage
Sage
Sage 50 sync runs. No conflicts.
Two-way sync: invoices in, payments out, supplier ledger. The bookkeeper does not re-key. The number on Sage matches the number on Unibuild matches the number on the project P&L.
Two-way sync
14:20
VAT
VAT
MTD VAT Q3 return prepared.
System pulls the period, applies reverse charge to in-scope supplies, flags two outliers for the FD to confirm. One click submits to HMRC API. Audit trail signed.
MTD VAT
16:00
Retention
Retention
Retention release on the previous job hits the calendar.
£42k due in 14 days. Email to the client triggered with the agreed clauses. Calendar entry created. The bookkeeper does not have to remember.
Retentions
17:15
Close
Close
FD closes the day on one screen.
Group margin 14.7%, debtor days 32, cash 30-day forecast £412k, CIS return due Monday, MTD VAT submitted. Phone goes in the drawer. Nobody chased a number.
Insight
§ 05The questions every FD asks
The questions every FD
asks in the demo.
The full list lives at /faqs. These eight are the ones we hear in every finance conversation.
01Do we replace Sage or sit alongside it?+
Either works. Most firms keep Sage as the statutory accounting record and use Unibuild as the operational view — project P&L, CIS, AfPs, retentions, payroll feed. The two-way sync keeps the records identical. Some firms run Unibuild as their primary record once they trust it; either way, your accountant gets a clean export.
02Does it actually handle CIS properly?+
Yes. 0%, 20% and 30% bands per worker, HMRC verify on first invoice, monthly CIS300 export, deduction certificates issued automatically, gross-status changes pulled from HMRC. Retention is treated correctly — held against the gross before deduction, not after. The bookkeeper stops re-doing the maths.
03Domestic reverse charge — is it actually working?+
Yes, since the rules came in. The system flags in-scope supplies on the AfP, applies the reverse charge correctly on the invoice, posts the right side to your VAT return and to your supplier's. We have rule tests covering 50+ edge cases (mixed-rate, zero-rated, end-user, intermediary). The audit trail is signed.
04Can we file MTD VAT directly to HMRC from here?+
Yes. We are an HMRC-recognised Making Tax Digital software vendor. One-click submit, instant acknowledgement, return archived. If HMRC rejects, you see the field-level error in plain English, not an XML stack trace. Returns kept seven years per HMRC retention rules.
05Will the project P&L actually be live?+
Yes. Hours from the gate, materials from the PO, plant from the hire ledger, variations from the sign-off, retention from the contract — they all touch the same project record. The P&L moves the minute the source data does. The FD does not wait for month-end to know which jobs are bleeding margin.
06What about retentions? They go missing on us all the time.+
Retention is held automatically on every AfP and every certificate, at the contract percentage. Release dates land on the project calendar with the chase email pre-drafted. The board pack shows aged retention. Most firms recover an unbudgeted five-figure retention in their first year on the platform — money that was already theirs.
07Is the payroll bridge to BrightPay / Sage actually two-way?+
Yes. Hours, holiday, sickness, SSP, SMP, statutory adjustments and CIS bands flow into the payroll software. RTI submissions return back. Auto-enrolment goes to NEST or Smart Pension. We pay for the certifications so you do not have to.
08Is the data secure? UK hosted? Audit-ready?+
AWS eu-west-2, London. AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit. ICO registered, GDPR by default, Cyber Essentials Plus. Every commercial event — AfP submission, VAT return, retention release — writes a signed entry with user, device, IP and timestamp. The audit trail is append-only, the kind a tax inspector accepts on the first read.
§ 06 · No card. No lock-in.
If the figures
are not tighter in week two,
we should not be paid.
✓
14-day free trial
Full module, your real Sage, your real subbies, your real CIS.
✓
Free migration
From Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, BrightPay, Excel, paper. We do the data move.
✓
HMRC-recognised
MTD VAT vendor, RTI flow tested, CIS300 export.
✓
UK data, UK support
UK office, working hours, real phone number.
✓
Cancel by email
One sentence. We export the lot in CSV and PDF.
✓
Audit-ready exports
P&L, CVR, WIP, retention log, AfP register, audit trail.
Next step
CIS, MTD, retentions.