UK construction firms face delays in final accounts

Research published by Xpedeon suggests that more than half of large UK construction firms have faced delays in releasing retention or agreeing final accounts. The findings are based on a survey of 500 senior leaders in the sector.

The study found that 53% of organisations had experienced such delays, either frequently or occasionally, in the past 12 months. Respondents cited missing documentation and data silos between the site, commercial and finance teams as the main causes.

The figures point to wider concerns about financial oversight in large construction businesses, where project information does not always move quickly or smoothly into central finance systems. As a result, firms can take longer to settle final accounts and release retention, while executives may struggle to assess the true financial position of work in progress.

Confidence in reporting also appears limited. Only 16% of respondents said they were completely confident that work-in-progress and margin reports reflected the true status of projects before month-end close, without late adjustments.

A separate measure suggested that information from completed work reaches finance slowly in most businesses. Just 13% said completed work was reflected as coded cost data in finance systems on the same day.

Taken together, the results suggest the issue goes beyond paperwork at the end of a contract. They point to a broader disconnect between on-site activity and the financial records that commercial and finance teams use to track costs, margins, and cash.

Reporting gaps

The survey covered senior construction, finance and commercial professionals at UK companies with an annual turnover above £50m. Three-quarters of respondents came from businesses with turnover exceeding £100m, so the findings mainly reflect larger groups with multiple teams and more complex reporting structures.

Delays in final accounts and retention releases can directly affect cash flow, especially when disputed or incomplete records force a project to reconstruct its financial history. The research suggests many firms still rely on processes in which approved records, evidence and decisions are not consistently linked across departments.

The issue becomes more significant when management teams try to monitor projects before the month-end close. If cost data arrives late or needs revision, executives may not have a reliable picture of margins until after adjustments are made.

"The issue for many firms is that, as work moves through the project lifecycle, approved records, evidence and decisions are not always staying connected between site, commercial and finance. That makes it harder to trust cost positions, release cash on time and act early when margin starts to move," Vivek Sharma, Executive Director at Xpedeon, commented on the findings.

The research adds to a wider debate in the construction sector about whether investment in digital systems is translating into better operational and financial control. Many larger contractors have adopted specialist platforms across finance, procurement and project management, but the survey suggests integration between those functions remains uneven.

Cash impact

Retention releases and final accounts are often among the stages in a project's commercial lifecycle, so delays can tie up cash and prolong disputes over what has been delivered, approved, and recorded. When documents or decisions are scattered across teams, finance departments may struggle to validate costs quickly enough to close out jobs on time.

Sharma said the issue had moved beyond administration: "For large construction businesses, this is no longer just an administrative frustration. When records do not move cleanly from site to commercial and through to finance, cash gets held up, reporting confidence weakens, and commercial teams lose time reconstructing positions that should already be clear."

The findings also suggest a difference between owning systems and having systems that work together. For technology suppliers and buyers alike, that raises the question whether the industry's next challenge is less about adding new applications and more about ensuring approved project information remains connected from contract award to close-out.

As Sharma put it: "For businesses with systems already in place, the issue is whether those systems keep approved records, evidence and decisions connected as work moves from project award to close out. Where they do not, final accounts take longer to agree, retention is delayed, and live financial reporting becomes harder to trust."