Author

Carlos Pérez (Comandos)

CEO of Paladio

Founder and CEO of Paladio. He has spent more than 15 years building financial products that touch the lives of millions of people. He writes about what he sees on site: how progress is really measured and where the money leaks.

22 articles Writes about Costs · Guides · Site logbook · Construction tech · Productivity

Seventeenth-century Dutch painting of a woman in a white headcloth and an ermine-trimmed blue jacket, standing at a table and holding up a balance whose pans are still empty, with pearls, coins and gold chains spread across the blue cloth and a gilt-framed painting hanging behind her

Costs

Unit prices or lump sum: what changes and who carries which risk

The difference between unit prices and lump sum is not a matter of format: it decides who carries the quantity risk. Pros, cons and when each one fits.

Oil painting in the American realist style: a couple waits motionless at the door of a white house — she standing with crossed arms, he crouched on the step — while a collie wanders through the dry grass that has overtaken the yard

Costs

Price redetermination in Argentina: how it works and why filing late loses money

Redetermination keeps a public works contract economically balanced against price variation. How the national regime works and the deadlines you must meet.

Oil painting in the style of a Dutch night watch: a company of guards in hats and armour, each holding sheets and documents instead of weapons, while the captain at the centre reaches out for the next paper

Guides

Interventoría and supervision in Colombia: who oversees your contract, and with what powers

In Colombia a public contract is overseen by a supervisor or an interventor, and they are not the same. What each one does and what liability each one carries.

Oil painting of an old man with a long beard in a red robe, reclining in his armchair by lamplight, calmly reading a document beside a row of ring binders

Site logbook

The site logbook in Colombia: what to record and why it decides disputes

In Colombia the site logbook is mainly a contractual requirement. What to record, who signs and why it is the document that decides disputes at settlement.

Oil painting of an elderly bookkeeper leaning over his standing desk between shelves packed with files, reviewing a roll of accounts so long it spills off the lectern to the floor

Costs

Actas parciales in Colombia: what evidence they require and why they get returned

The acta parcial is the document used to bill progress on a works contract in Colombia. What it contains, what evidence the interventoría demands and why it bounces.

Orientalist oil painting in ochres and cream; a man standing in the street reads an open book of handwritten pages in front of a scribes' workshop, while two horses wait at his side

Guides

Construction audit: what they will ask for and how to be ready

A construction audit checks whether what was claimed matches what was built, and whether it is supported. What documents they ask for, how to organise them and what to do if something is missing.

Coloured-pencil illustration on tan paper; a brass automaton in a hard hat holds a plumb line against a freshly laid brick wall, with a steel frame going up, a crane and the city rooftops behind

Costs

Extraordinary unit prices in Mexico: when they apply and how they get approved

An extraordinary price is set for an item not contemplated in the original schedule. When it applies in Mexican public works, how it is built up and why it gets rejected.

Japanese woodblock print in black, orange and blue ink on fibrous paper; a clipboard holds a plate of a construction site — tower crane, scaffolding and workers among stacks of beams, planks and bricks — framed by a fret border, over a background of concentric waves

Site logbook

Time extensions on Mexican public works: how to request one and what backup it takes

In Mexico a time extension is formalised through a convenio, and it is won or lost on the backup gathered at the time. What to document and how to file it.

Vintage editorial engraving in sepia, ochre and teal on aged paper; a mason in shirtsleeves lays ashlar blocks at the top of a stone wall that rises in steps, and at its foot wait a leaning ladder, a wheelbarrow loaded with stone and a board with mortar and its trowel

Costs

Cost adjustment on Mexican public works: when it applies and how it is calculated

In Mexico, cost adjustment applies when unforeseen economic circumstances alter the cost of work not yet executed. The three LOPSRM procedures and how to file.

Japanese woodblock print split in two halves; on the left, a chaotic whirlwind of paper notes and speech bubbles; on the right, the same notes filed in perfect order in the drawers of a tall wooden cabinet; at the seam between both worlds, a figure in a hard hat catches a note out of the air

Construction tech

WhatsApp on the construction site: from group chaos to structured data

WhatsApp is already the operating system of construction sites in Latin America. The problem is not the channel: it is that information dies there. What can be structured, and how.

Japanese woodblock print of a row of documents pegged on a line like drying laundry, each stamped with a large circular seal; beneath them a small figure in a hard hat walks past carrying a lantern, inspecting them, against a geometric lattice background in indigo, burnt orange and cream

Site logbook

Giving your site logbook evidentiary weight: folios, signatures and certain date

What turns a site record into evidence: tamper-evidence, sequential folios, certain date and acknowledgment by the parties. Plus the contract clause that holds it all up.

Vintage colored-pencil illustration on tan paper of a notary's office; a clerk in shirtsleeves presses an oversized seal press onto a large sheet, and the impression the seal leaves is the outline of a building under construction with a small crane, between tall stacks of ledgers, an inkwell and pens

Site logbook

The construction logbook in Mexico: what the law requires and how to keep it error-free

In Mexico the bitácora is mandatory on federal public works and kept in BESOP. What the law requires, who signs and which mistakes void a note.

Site logbook

What the site logbook is: a guide for site engineers in Latin America

The formal instrument of communication between the parties to a construction contract. What it is, who signs it and what it is called in each country.

Vintage engraving of an S-shaped ribbon of road rising out of a valley and curving into the clouds; a lone engineer in a hard hat walks up the middle of it carrying a rolled drawing, tiny against its scale, with a construction site hatched on the valley floor below

Productivity

The S-curve: how to read it and what to do when you fall behind schedule

The S-curve compares planned progress against actual progress over time. How it is built, what the gap means and which decisions to take when it appears.

Japanese woodblock print of a giant wall calendar whose grid of days stretches like elastic towards the right; a small figure in a hard hat pulls at the last square with a rope, trying to drag it back into place, with a tower crane and decorative clouds behind

Productivity

How to calculate a project's delay and forecast the real completion date

Three methods for turning "we are behind" into a defensible number and a forecast date, with their assumptions and their limits.

Vintage engraving in which a surveyor measures a finished wall with a tape that runs across the plate and, on reaching the counting house at the other end, turns into columns of coins a clerk stacks on the counter

Costs

Measurement backup sheets: what they are and how to stop your claim being rejected

In Mexico the generador de obra proves how every quantity you bill was measured. What it must contain and why the supervisor sends it back.

Vintage engraving of a stone aqueduct carrying coins instead of water; midway across, a narrowed arch dams them into a heap and only a trickle reaches the far end, while a tiny engineer looks down at the blockage

Costs

Why payment runs late on construction projects and how to shorten the cycle

Late payment on a construction project rarely starts with the client. Where the chain between doing the work and getting paid actually breaks, and how to shorten it.

Japanese woodblock print of five figures in the dress of five different regions, each against its own colour and pattern, all holding up the same mason's trowel

Costs

Estimación, valorización, estado de pago, certificación: one concept, five names

Construction vocabulary changes in every country of the region. A dictionary of equivalences across Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia and Argentina, with the differences that are not just about the name.

Coloured-pencil illustration of an estimator at his drafting desk: above the board, a building block floats exploded into four separated slabs

Costs

How to build a unit-price analysis step by step

A unit-price analysis breaks the price of a line item into materials, labour, equipment and overheads. How each component is built, with a full worked example.

Coloured-pencil illustration of two identical houses in an empty field: the one on the left drawn as a perfect blueprint, the one on the right built and still scaffolded, with a surveyor looking between them

Productivity

Budgeted vs actual productivity: why there is always a gap

Budgeted productivity is an average under standard conditions. The actual figure almost never matches. How much of a gap is normal, and when it stops being normal.

Engraving of a masonry crew raising a wall whose courses rise in steps, like the bars of a chart

Productivity

How to measure a crew's actual productivity

A crew's actual productivity is measured by dividing the quantity executed by the crew-days spent on it. The formula, a full worked example and the mistakes that distort it.

Aerial view of a reinforced slab with a site crew

Guides

What must a construction payment estimate contain? (and why review it in 3D)

The minimum supporting documents of a construction payment estimate in Venezuela, the most common review mistakes and how a 3D digital twin changes it.

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