Every term on this site, defined plainly.
One definition per term: what it means, how it is calculated, why it costs money, and where the number lies. Written for a finance lead on a project, not for a textbook.
20 terms · defined for construction and EPC projects · updated October 2026
Process
- Process miningprocess discovery · automated process discovery
- Process mining is a technique that rebuilds the real map of how work flows through a business by reading the timestamps its software already records, rather than by asking people how they think it works.
- Process intelligenceprocess analytics
- Process intelligence is process mining plus the money: it rebuilds how work actually flows and then prices each delay, so the output is a ranked list of what to fix rather than a diagram.
- Event log
- An event log is the raw material of process mining: a table where every row says which case moved, which step happened, and when.
- Casecase ID
- A case is the single thing whose journey is being followed through a process — one RA bill, one purchase order, one vendor invoice — identified by an ID that stays the same from first step to last.
- Bottleneck
- A bottleneck is the step in a process where cases wait longest, so the speed of the whole process is set by it and by nothing else.
- Rework loop
- A rework loop is a stretch of a process that the same case travels through more than once — sent back, corrected and resubmitted — and it is usually the largest single source of hidden delay.
- Conformance checking
- Conformance checking compares the process as it actually ran against the process as it was supposed to run, and lists every case that departed from it.
- Throughput timecycle time · lead time
- Throughput time is the total elapsed time from the first step of a case to its last — including every queue, weekend and rework pass, not just the time somebody was working on it.
- Cost of delay
- Cost of delay is what one more day of waiting costs at a particular step, and it is what turns a process map into a ranked list of things worth fixing.
Working capital
- Working capital
- Working capital is the money tied up in running the business day to day — what customers owe you and what you hold in stock, less what you owe suppliers.
- Cash conversion cycleCCC
- The cash conversion cycle is the number of days between paying for something and being paid for the work it went into — the length of time your own money is funding the project.
- Days sales outstandingDSO
- Days sales outstanding is the average number of days between billing a client and receiving their money.
- Days payable outstandingDPO
- Days payable outstanding is the average number of days you take to pay a supplier after their invoice is due for payment.
- Order-to-cashO2C
- Order-to-cash is the whole run from work being done to the money arriving — on a project, from site execution through measurement, certification and invoicing to receipt.
- Procure-to-payP2P
- Procure-to-pay is the run from a site asking for material to the vendor being paid for it — requisition, purchase order, receipt, invoice, match, payment.
Construction & EPC
- RA billrunning account bill · progress bill · IPC · interim payment certificate
- An RA bill is the periodic invoice a contractor raises for work completed so far on a project, measured on site and certified by the client before payment.
- Retention moneyretention
- Retention money is the share of every certified bill — commonly 5 to 10 per cent — that the client holds back as security, releasing it only at completion and after the defects liability period ends.
- Variation orderchange order · VO · EOT claim
- A variation order is work outside the original contract scope that the client has instructed, priced and agreed separately — and until it is agreed, it is work being done for nothing.
- Goods receipt noteGRN
- A goods receipt note is the record that material actually arrived on site, in what quantity and condition — the middle document of the three-way match.
- Three-way match
- A three-way match is the control that releases a payment only when the purchase order, the goods receipt note and the supplier invoice agree on what was ordered, what arrived and what is being charged.