From Cost Overruns to Control: How Consolidated Data Transforms Construction Finance
The New Reality of Building in Europe
Construction has always been a balancing act between ambition and constraint. Across Europe, that balance has grown more precarious. Prices rise and fall with global supply chains, regulations multiply, and the search for skilled labour feels unending. Each project now resembles a miniature economy: complex, interdependent, and vulnerable to disruption. For the finance leaders who keep those projects on track, clarity is both essential and increasingly difficult to achieve.
Information is abundant, but order is not. Budgets live in one system, procurement in another, and payroll in a third. Reports arrive in fragments, often telling competing versions of the same story. What was once a challenge of measurement has become one of connection. In boardrooms from Dublin to Düsseldorf, financial directors are asking the same question: how can a business plan effectively when its data refuses to cooperate?
Labour costs across the EU construction sector rose by nearly 5 per cent in early 2025, while project delays linked to supply chain fluctuations continue to push budgets upward.¹ These conditions have forced finance teams to look for new ways to anticipate volatility rather than react to it.
Fragmented Systems, Fragmented Decisions
Over the past decade, construction companies have adopted a host of digital tools intended to modernise their operations. In practice, these tools have multiplied faster than they have integrated. Project management software, resource scheduling platforms, and ERP systems each perform their duties, yet together they can resemble a job site without a foreman. Every application operates to its own rhythm, producing reports that seldom align.
This fragmentation rarely produces a single dramatic mistake. Its effects are subtler, manifesting in slower decisions and missed opportunities. A project manager spots an early delay but cannot assess its financial consequences until the next reporting cycle. A finance director spends valuable hours consolidating spreadsheets, only to find that material prices have already changed. The business continues to move forward, but it does so with blurred vision.
A recent study on the European construction industry highlights this fragmentation as a major barrier to efficiency and profitability, noting that inconsistent data flows between project teams and finance remain one of the most persistent obstacles to growth.². The insight is simple but telling: the problem is no longer a lack of data but a lack of unity.
What Extended Planning Really Means
Extended financial planning and analysis offers a way to regain that unity. The concept is simple, even if the systems behind it are complex. Instead of treating financial data, project data, and operational data as separate streams, extended financial planning and analysis brings them into one shared environment. The goal is not only to record what has happened but to anticipate what comes next. Solver, a leading extended financial planning and analysis platform, is built on this premise and has become a valuable ally for construction finance teams looking to unify their data landscape.
At its best, Solver acts as a common meeting point for information that was never designed to meet. Budgets created in one system, payroll data stored in another, and project forecasts built elsewhere can finally exist together. For finance teams, this reduces the endless cycle of manual consolidation. For executives, it provides a single, consistent view of performance across projects, divisions, and entities: an achievement that once required several late nights and a small army of analysts.
From Fragmented Data to Forecasting Power
The real strength of this approach lies in its ability to handle complexity. Many European construction firms operate across multiple entities and currencies while following varied reporting standards. Solver automates the heavy lifting of currency translation, eliminates intercompany transactions, and aligns reports with IFRS compliance. Tasks that once absorbed weeks of attention now take hours, freeing teams to focus on insight rather than input.
Forecasting also gains new precision. Finance leaders can model how rising steel prices might affect margins or how workforce adjustments could influence project delivery. In France, for example, the cost-of-construction index rose by more than seven per cent in 2024³: a reminder of how small shifts in materials pricing can echo through an entire portfolio. By linking planning, reporting, and analysis, Solver turns forecasting into an ongoing practice rather than a static annual event. When the market shifts, the model shifts with it. A business that once reacted to change can now prepare for it.
Turning Data into Decision-Making Power
For construction firms, the difference is as strategic as it is technical. When every department draws from the same data foundation, the conversation changes. Meetings once dominated by reconciliation can focus instead on direction. Executives understand performance across the portfolio, project managers see the financial story behind their schedules, and finance professionals gain the time to analyse rather than assemble.
This shift also restores the human side of finance. Professionals trained to interpret trends and manage risk can finally spend their energy on analysis instead of administration. They move from reporting what has already happened to advising on what should happen next. In a market where skilled financial expertise is increasingly scarce, using it wisely becomes a form of competitive strength.
Culture, Collaboration, and Control
Technology, however, succeeds only when culture supports it. Data consolidation delivers value when it becomes a shared habit rather than a finance initiative. Procurement teams, project managers, and executives all have a role to play in ensuring that information flows both accurately and openly. When a business treats data as a shared language, collaboration improves naturally. Solver provides the architecture, but alignment across people and processes gives that architecture purpose.
Construction has always depended on coordination: of materials, people, and timing. Managing information is no different. Companies that weave financial planning into their operational rhythm build resilience in a sector where volatility is a given. The goal is not to remove human judgment but to strengthen it through better visibility and faster feedback.
Building a Future on Data You Can Trust
For European construction companies, the argument for consolidation is less about technology and more about control. A business that can see its financial and operational landscape clearly is better equipped to meet rising expectations from clients, regulators, and investors alike. The European construction market is projected to recover in 2025, led by renewed public investment in energy and infrastructure⁴, which will demand sharper financial governance and reporting agility from firms of every size.
Consolidated data is not merely a reporting convenience; it is a foundation for a stronger, more informed organisation. By connecting every financial and operational element, Solver helps construction firms replace uncertainty with insight and build a future defined by readiness rather than reaction.
References
- Eurostat (2025). Annual increase in labour costs at 3.4% in euro area (Q1 2025 data). https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w/3-16062025-bp
- Leontie, Vlad. (2022). CURRENT CHALLENGES IN THE EUROPEAN CONSTRUCTION SECTOR: A THEORETICAL APPROACH. Journal of Public Administration, Finance and Law. 11. 181-189. 10.47743/jopafl-2022-26-16.
- INSEE (2024). Cost-of-Construction Index, Q1 2024. https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/8210682
- Linesight (2024). Construction Market Insights Report Europe, H2 2024. https://www.linesight.com/en-us/insights/construction-market-insights-h2-2024-europe