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Project cost control: one expense in two spreadsheets
Short answer
When equipment worked on two projects and both managers entered the full rental cost in their spreadsheets, the company doubles the expense in its reports. A cost control app saves the source item once and shows the approved split and the history of corrections. First check whether the project module in your current system is enough. The app costs from €3,000 net at Syntalith and pays back in 1.9 months at 400 items a month.
How we workDetails ↓
- 01Call30 minutes with an engineer, free
- 02PrototypeA working system on your process and data, free
- 03ImplementationTarget and fixed price in the contract; 50% at signing
- 04Acceptance50% once the agreed target is met
- net per application, fixed price before contract
- from €3,000
- from signing the contract to acceptance
- 4–10 weeks
- free prototype on your documents
- €0
We belong to the OpenAI and Anthropic partner programmes and learn through their official courses. What this means ↓
Author: Syntalith · 3 min read
Statistics
Costs and automation in companies: statistics 2026
1.9 mo.
payback of a €3,000 app at 400 project cost items a month: €1,861 of reconciling by hand, €282 with checking. Scenario.
26.2%
According to Eurostat (2025), 26.2% of EU companies analysed data from transaction records such as sales and payment records.
Source: Eurostat, digital economy and society statistics, enterprises (2025) ↗
50%
According to the European Commission (2026), half of EU SMEs and mid-caps name high investment costs as a barrier to AI.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer on AI (2026) ↗
20.0%
According to Eurostat (2025), 20.0% of EU companies with at least 10 employees used AI.
90%
According to the European Commission (2026), 90% of EU companies that use AI say people take the decisions.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer on AI (2026) ↗
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
Where the item in the project came from
A company rents equipment used by the teams of two projects. Both managers get the same invoice line and copy its full value into their summaries. The financial controller notices the repetition and needs data on how the equipment was used, to split the cost by the rule finance has adopted.
- 01SourceThe invoice line saved once, with the rental period.
- 02UseConfirmed data on how the equipment was used in both projects.
- 03SplitThe controller prepares a split for approval.
- 04CorrectionA manager reports a gap in the register, and the reviewer corrects it and records the reason.
- 05HistoryBoth managers see the new split, and the previous version stays available.
The controller does not rebuild corrections from successive copies of a spreadsheet, because each change has a reason and a date. A manager opening the cost of their project goes to the shared item and sees what their part comes from.
What you need to know before comparing projects
Finance sets how shared costs are split and the data needed to apply the rule. The app mirrors that rule and shows which proposals are waiting for review, so that a manager does not take a working proposal for an approved one. Costs incurred also have to be kept apart from commitments for further work. The accounting entries stay in the current system, and the app serves internal project control.
An accounting system, an integration or a separate app
Dynamics 365 lets you compare the original budget with actual and committed costs, depending on the forecast and the configuration. Base the conversation with your administrator on one shared cost.
The system keeps the source and supports your split rule
configuring the module
no new app
The items are in the system, the use and explanations elsewhere
an integration with a review of the split
from €3,000
Reconciliation keeps happening outside the system
your own app for one kind of cost
from €3,000
What it costs and when it pays back
- Today
- 400 items × 8 min = 53.3 h (€1,861)
- With the system a person checks the output in 15% of the time
- €279
- Model, 1 call per case, Claude Sonnet 5.5
- €3
- Cost of one case
- €4.65 today, €0.70 with the system
- Saving
- €1,579 a month
Payback of €3,000
1.9 months
The volume, the time and the checking share are the scenario's assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat. Model: 2,000 input tokens and 400 output tokens per call at Anthropic's rates, at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
The quote depends on the number of sources and the work of tidying the existing records. With your own solution, agree with the contractor who maintains the connection to the system and who deals with an item that did not arrive or arrived twice.
Keep the sources when moving open projects
- Rows from different spreadsheets linked to the same source item
- An approved split told apart from one that needs clarifying
- An export with the source item, the split and the reasons for corrections
- Ownership of the code, the data and the documentation
- The access another contractor would need to take over upkeep
As part of custom apps and integrations, we join items from your current system with data on the use of shared resources and the approval of the split. Finance brings the split rules and the definitions of categories. For the conversation, bring a shared cost whose split recently caused a dispute, and a description of the places where the same item was recorded.
