See the true cost position before the invoices land.
This is how Budget Control actually works: from setting the advisor budget, through tracking committed and actual spend against scope, to the IC-ready cost story at the end. The same continuously-current view the deal lead acts on, walked through step by step.
How a deal budget moves through AdviLink.
The homepage compresses this into a sentence. Here is the mechanical version: five steps, from the first budget line to the export the investment committee reads.
Set the advisor budget, per workstream
Lay out the deal the way you scope it: legal, financial, tax, commercial, environmental. Each workstream carries the engagement-letter fee cap, the advisor, and a budget figure in GBP. This is the baseline every later number is measured against.
Baseline · fee cap per engagement letterTrack committed vs. actual vs. forecast as work happens
As advisors work and bill, each line carries three live figures: committed (what you are on the hook for), actual (billed to date), and forecast (where it lands). The deal lead sees the current cost position instead of reconstructing it from PDFs after the fact.
Committed · Actual · Forecast — continuously currentCapture a scope change the moment it is agreed
When an advisor proposes extra work, record it then and there, with its cost impact, rationale and an approval status, while there is still leverage to challenge it. A change becomes a record, not a conversation you half-remember when the invoice lands.
Requested → Approved / Declined, with cost impact attachedRAG status surfaces overrun risk before the invoice
Forecast over the fee cap flips a line to amber, then red, and rolls up to a single deal-level signal. You find out a workstream is heading over while there is still time to act, not when finance reconciles the bill after close.
Red / Amber / Green — per line, rolled up to the dealExport the IC-ready cost story
Generate the cost narrative — approach, scope, spend, variance and rationale — as an IC-ready PDF, and the budget-vs-actual schedule as Excel for finance. The picture is always the current one, generated rather than assembled by hand from hindsight.
IC-ready PDF · Budget-vs-actual ExcelEvery step lands in one place: budget, committed, actual and forecast against scope.
| Workstream | Budget | Actual | Forecast | Variance | vs budget |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legal | £420k | £268k | £408k | +£12k | |
| Financial | £340k | £231k | £356k | −£16k | |
| Tax | £190k | £158k | £238k | −£48k | |
| Commercial | £180k | £71k | £166k | +£14k | |
| Environmental | £110k | £14k | £96k | +£14k |
What the surface is built on.
Three things make the cost position trustworthy: the model the numbers live in, the logic that flags risk, and the formats they leave in.
Deals roll up from line items — every figure is a GBP amount, never a guess
A deal holds workstreams; a workstream holds advisors; an advisor holds line items. Budget, committed, actual and forecast live on the line and aggregate upward, so the deal total is the sum of the work, not a separately maintained number that can drift.
- Deal → workstream → advisor → line item, all GBP
- Amounts held as exact decimals, not floating-point estimates
- Totals roll up automatically — change a line, the deal re-totals
RAG is forecast against the cap, not spend against a calendar
A line is green while the forecast sits under its fee cap, amber as it approaches, and red once the forecast — including any pending scope change — would breach it. Because the signal is forward-looking, a workstream can read red while it is still under-billed: the warning arrives before the money is spent.
- Green: forecast within the fee cap
- Amber: forecast approaching the cap, watch the trajectory
- Red: forecast (incl. pending changes) would breach the cap
Two formats, one current source: the IC reads a memo, finance reads a schedule
The same live position generates two things. An IC-ready PDF tells the cost story — approach, scope, spend, variance and the rationale behind each change — in the register a partner can put in front of the committee. An Excel schedule gives finance the budget-vs-actual breakdown to reconcile against. Neither is rebuilt by hand.
- IC PDF: approach, scope, spend, variance, rationale
- Excel: budget vs. actual by workstream and advisor
- Always the current position — never a stale estimate
Built for confidential deal data, by default.
Advilink is a neutral operating layer between deal leads and advisors. Deal information is treated the way deal teams expect: enterprise-grade controls, data minimised to what cost control needs.
Run Budget Control on your next deal.
We're onboarding a small group of design partners who run their own diligence. Tell us about a live or upcoming deal and we'll walk you through the platform on it.