See how Berkeley group gained total project financial control with IFS Cloud
By replacing two decades of fragmented legacy systems with IFS Cloud ERP, Berkeley Group unified project financial control across 200+ operating companies, integrating nine functional areas into a single platform and eliminating the manual reconciliation and Excel workarounds that previously introduced material risk into project cost reporting.
Companies unified
One ERP backbone replacing fragmented systems across all operating companies
Modules integrated
Finance, subcontracts, procurement, risk and forecasting in one system
Years of legacy replaced
Two decades of fragmented finance tools replaced by IFS Cloud ERP
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Across more than 200 operating companies, Berkeley Group ran on a combination of legacy finance systems and subcontract tools that had been in place for over two decades. Over time, these systems diverged, drifting apart in functionality, falling out of sync, and forcing teams to bridge the gaps with manual processes and Excel exports.
Without true integration between finance, subcontract management, procurement, and project control, Berkeley's teams had no reliable, real-time view of where any given development stood financially. Costs were entered in two separate systems. Reporting was ad hoc. Every project financial summary required manual reconciliation, a process that was slow, labour-intensive, and prone to error. As Chris Gilbert, MD and Group Head of IT at Berkeley Group, put it: 'Historically, we captured all of our costs within a financial system, but we then exported them through Excel and created a great big spreadsheet that looked at our project costs. Everybody trusted it - but as we looked more closely, there was lots of opportunity for error.' In a business where every residential development is its own profit centre, the inability to see live budget versus forecast versus committed cost across every project and every company meant financial risk was harder to identify, harder to manage, and harder to act on in time.
Berkeley Group ran a rigorous evaluation before selecting IFS as their ERP platform. Four decisive factors shaped the decision: an evergreen solution with no disruptive upgrade cycles; a project-centric architecture by design; the ability to consolidate 200 companies onto one core ERP backbone; and a genuine step up from accounting-only to true integrated project financial control.
For more than two decades, Berkeley Group managed project finances across more than 200 operating companies using a mix of legacy tools that were never designed to work together. Costs sat in one system. Subcontracts lived in another.
The bridge between them was a manually maintained Excel export that teams had learned to trust, even as its limitations became increasingly visible. When every residential development is its own profit centre, you need a system that treats the project as the primary unit of financial control. Berkeley's legacy setup did the opposite, treating accounting as the centre with project data bolted on through manual processes.
As the business scaled, the gap between what the systems could show and what the business needed to see kept widening.
Berkeley Group ran a rigorous evaluation before committing to IFS. The business needed more than a new finance system. It needed a platform that could scale across 200 companies, integrate subcontract and procurement workflows, and provide real-time project financial visibility from the moment a purchase order is raised.
IFS Cloud ERP met every criterion. It is project-centric by architecture, not by add-on. It is evergreen, meaning no disruptive upgrade cycles. And it offered the business simplification Berkeley needed: one core ERP backbone, one version of the truth, one integrated system replacing the fragmented tools that had served, and constrained, the business for over two decades.
With IFS Cloud ERP in place, project costing is now fully integrated within the application. Teams can view costs by plot, by phase, by project, and by development in real time, without reconciliation, without manual exports.
From the moment a purchase order is raised, costs are already allocated to the right point on the project. Finance, subcontract management, procurement, risk, and forecasting are connected in a single system. The management information that emerges is standardised across all 200+ operating companies, enabling faster, better-informed decisions at every level of the business.
The Excel-based workarounds that previously introduced material risk into project cost reporting have been replaced with integrated, trusted data.
Improved project financial control: Real-time visibility of budget, forecast, actual cost, revenue, and profit in one place. Variance analysis surfaces cost overruns before they become unmanageable.
Single source of trusted data: Standardised management information across 200 companies enables faster, better-informed decisions at every level of the business.
Reduced business risk: Integrated systems eliminate the manual reconciliation and Excel-based workarounds that previously introduced material risk into project cost reporting. The data is accurate, current, and consistent across the entire portfolio.
See how other leading businesses are using IFS Cloud to gain control, reduce risk, and deliver at scale.
