Material Reconciliation per Work Order for Contractors

Material reconciliation per work order is how a contractor proves where every quantity received from the utility for that order went: how much was issued to site, how much came back, and how much is still in its custody and due for return. The best time to close it is before the achievement certificate, so the order reaches the certificate and then the extract with every material settled.

This guide covers the stock movements that belong to a work order, the two formulas with a worked example, how to read the gaps and control returns, how ELX handles reconciliation, and a checklist for closing the balance.

What does material reconciliation per work order mean?

It is a material-by-material comparison of two figures: what the contractor received from the utility for one specific order, and what was actually consumed on its site. It runs per work order and material, not against total warehouse stock; the warehouse comes in when controlling returns, covered below.

The utility supplies materials against specific orders, and each order gets its own achievement certificate. A warehouse can balance in total while one order hides an unreturned surplus and another a shortfall covered by materials received for a third.

Received from the utility

Materials collected from the utility against a specific work order.

Issued to site

Materials sent from the warehouse to the job site under the order.

Received quantity

Receipts minus returns to the utility.

Consumed quantity

Issues to site minus returns from site.

Material balance

The position per material: received, consumed, and the quantity to return or issue so the two match.

Why do contractors say “SCECO received”?

In warehouse shorthand, materials received from the utility are often called “SCECO received” (وارد سكيكو), a name left over from the era of regional electricity companies before the merger. For context, the Saudi Electricity Company was established on 5 April 2000 by merging the central, eastern, western and southern regional companies and ten companies in the north with the electricity projects run by the General Electricity Corporation.

On 26 February 2026 the company launched a new corporate identity as “Saudi Energy”, describing a wider role in the Kingdom’s energy sector rather than a change to its core generation, transmission and distribution business. Whatever your team calls it, the meaning is the same. This guide says “received from the utility” and mentions the company only to explain the term.

Do not confuse reconciliation with the “material matching” the survey team records before execution: a field verdict that materials match or not. Reconciliation is a quantity calculation made after the movements. See the Kashfia site survey explained.

Which stock movements belong to a work order?

Record every quantity that enters or leaves the warehouse for a work order as its own movement, on a numbered document carrying the order, warehouse, material and quantity:

Four movements drive reconciliation: receipts from and returns to the utility on one side, issues to and returns from site on the other. Scrap, transfers and reservations are still recorded against the same order so its history stays complete.

How are consumed and received quantities calculated? A worked example

Reconciliation rests on two formulas and the gap between them, applied to each material separately:

1. Received quantity

   Receipts from the utility minus returns to the utility.

2. Consumed quantity

   Issues to site minus returns from site.

3. The gap

   Received minus consumed: a surplus is a quantity to return to the utility, a shortfall is a quantity to issue to cover what was used, and zero means the material is balanced.

4. The estimate check

   Set the estimated quantity beside consumption; a wide gap calls for reviewing the executed items or the estimate. See the material estimate (muqaysa) guide.

The order received a net 460 m of cable and consumed 420 m, so 40 m sits with the contractor and goes back to the utility unless the work still needs it. For joints, the site consumed 45 against 30 received: 15 pieces came from general stock, most likely materials received for other orders. This guide calls that shortfall the quantity to issue, and it appears on the owed-by-the-utility list because net issued exceeds net received for the order.

Cable came in under the estimate and joints over it. The estimate is not part of the calculation, but it tells you where to ask questions.

How do you know what to return and what to issue?

A gap is not automatically an error. What it means depends on where the order stands and whether every movement has been recorded:

• Surplus, work finished: return it to the utility, recorded on the same order.
• Surplus, work ongoing: hold the return until the execution team confirms the quantity is not needed.
• Shortfall: the site drew on general stock, or a receipt has not been recorded yet. Check receipts first; if the shortfall holds, it is a quantity to issue, followed up with the utility under the contract’s procedures.
• Zero gap: balanced; check consumption against the executed items.
• Unrecorded return from site: materials back in the warehouse without a document look consumed when they are not.

The best moment to close the balance is after execution and quality approval, and before the achievement certificate is prepared. After the certificate the order moves on to drawing and then the extract, and gaps are easier to settle while the order is still in hand.

How do you stop returns larger than the quantity issued?

Over-returns hide shortfalls. A return from site above what was issued inflates stock with materials that do not exist; a return to the utility above what was received records handing back materials that never arrived. The controls:

• A return from site never exceeds net issued for the same order, material and warehouse.
• A return to the utility never exceeds net received for the same order, material and warehouse.
• Record the issue before the return, against the warehouse the materials left from.
• Record damaged returns from site as scrap, not good stock.
• Attach evidence to every document and have the recipient sign the printout.

Owed by the utility vs owed by the contractor: what’s the difference?

Across many work orders, the gaps become two lists. Both compare net received with net issued for each order and material:

Grouped by material, the two lists show how many metres of a given cable are due back across all orders and how many pieces the utility still owes: the view a warehouse manager needs before any settlement. For the warehouse side, read contractor warehouse management software.

How to reconcile materials in ELX

ELX is a bilingual cloud (SaaS) service, hosted and operated by Matrix, that runs in the browser with no servers needed on the contractor’s side. It is built for electricity-network contractors in Saudi Arabia to carry each utility work order from registration to archive. In its warehouse and materials module, every movement is a numbered stock document tied to a work order and a warehouse.

• Utility receipts: recorded against the order number plus work description code; the order’s stage is shown and the document numbered automatically (type prefix, year, sequence), with file number, additional number and attachments.
• Excel import: a ready template with five columns (material code, order number, work description number, quantity, notes). Before saving, errors are listed by row, one warehouse is chosen for all lines, and one receipt document is created per work order, even when a material is split across orders.
• Site issues and returns: recorded by the storekeeper as documents on the work order; the execution team can also raise them as requests from the project screen that wait for storekeeper approval. The order cannot be relayed to the next stage while a stock request is pending.
• Work order material balance: consumed, received and to return or issue per material, as a printable review list and a utility-format version (construction network, actual and issued quantities, signature blocks for the contractor’s representative and supervisor), both on your letterhead.
• Estimate vs actual report: materials by E.M.S code with consumed, received, to return and to issue beside the estimated quantity; printable, with Excel export.
• Requirements report: “required from the utility” and “required from the contractor” (the two owed-by lists above) per order and material, groupable by material, with PDF and Excel export.
• Material movement details: each movement’s warehouse, document number, date, work order, quantity and type, to trace any gap.

The balance also appears on the achievement certificate screen in the extracts and achievement certificates module (actual and disbursed quantities, issue and return values), and opens from the work order status search in the header.

Each new receipt, issue, return, scrap or transfer document triggers a message with its details via Telegram, and via WhatsApp when enabled, to the recipient, the responsible engineer and the warehouse manager. Deleting a stock document is a soft delete that records who deleted it and when.

Want to see it on work orders like yours? Request a demo and follow materials from receipt to certificate. If your materials are tracked in Excel sheets today, Matrix moves that data into ELX and trains your team to use it.

Checklist before closing the material balance

• Every utility receipt is recorded against the right work order.
• Every site issue names the responsible engineer and recipient.
• Site returns are on the warehouse they were issued from.
• Damaged materials are recorded as scrap.
• No issue or return requests are pending.
• Any surplus is returned, or justified by ongoing work.
• Any shortfall is documented under “required from the utility”.
• Consumption is close to the estimate, or the gap is explained.

With this list complete, the material balance is a document you can defend, and the order reaches the achievement certificate with every material settled.