Key facts
| Organisation | NG Bailey |
|---|---|
| Role | Data and AI Consultant |
| Dates | September 2026 to October 2026 (1 month) |
| Type | Freelance |
| Location | Leeds, England; hybrid |
| Relationship | The engagement served the Freedom Group of Companies, which NG Bailey bought from Spice PLC, where Matthew worked for a decade (1999 to 2011). A client relationship renewed fifteen years on. |
| Status | Confirmed by Matthew, 6 October 2026 |
| LinkedIn says | Data and AI Consultant, Contract, Sep 2026 to Present |
| Old CV says | No entry |
| Knowledge base | Personal\CV\kb\employment\2026-09-ng-bailey.yaml |
Summary
CVR reporting
NG Bailey ran an established Cost Value Reconciliation (CVR) process built on Excel templates connected to a SQL Server database. Commitments and project transactions were not part of that process, limiting the QS teams' visibility of committed spend on their projects.
Began by agreeing a firm definition of commitment with Finance (whole order, posted only, credits netted, floored at zero), then implemented that definition in SQL Server as views and stored procedures, forming a single source of truth for commitments and project transactions.
As a short term tactical step, added Commitments and Project Transactions tabs to the existing Excel templates, bringing both into the CVR process and giving the QS teams immediate visibility of committed spend. Rolled the refreshed templates out to all 17 divisions through an automated PowerShell pipeline, and updated the existing SSRS reports to use the same views, keeping the reports and the CVR templates consistent.
Alongside the tactical work, advised on the strategic direction: replacing the CVR spreadsheets entirely with a Power Apps and Power BI solution.
AI enablement
Finally, designed and ran enablement sessions with the NG Bailey Data and Analytics team on AI-assisted delivery.
Demonstrated Claude Compass, a structured workspace approach for organising customers, projects and repos, maintaining living project documentation, and tracking agents and skills. Then showed how the team could structure and deliver Microsoft Fabric development using AI, working through source-controlled Azure DevOps repos with Claude Code or GitHub Copilot.
Achievements
- Re-engaged by the Freedom Group, the business NG Bailey bought from Spice PLC, fifteen years after working within it.
- Ran enablement sessions with the Data and Analytics team on AI-assisted delivery with Claude Code, demonstrating agentic ways of working.
- Demonstrated a structured AI workspace approach (Claude Compass) for organising customers, projects and repos, maintaining living project documentation, and tracking agents and skills.
- Demonstrated AI-assisted Microsoft Fabric development, working on Fabric items through source-controlled Azure DevOps repos with Claude Code.
- Advised on the strategic replacement of the CVR spreadsheets with a Power Apps and Power BI solution.
- Defined and agreed the project commitment definition with Finance stakeholders (whole order, posted only, credits netted, floored at zero).
- Surfaced a £3.8M visibility gap from matched but unposted batched invoices and raised it as a discussion point with Finance.
- Built SQL Server views and stored procedures as the single source of truth for project commitments and transactions, with period fencing and review status change detection.
- Implemented cap and pool invoice allocation with order and line level over-invoiced flags, surfacing misallocated invoices for correction.
- Relinked and republished the ProjectCommitments and Project Transactions SSRS reports against the new views.
- Built CVR Excel template tabs (data connections, slicers, conditional formatting) and automated the rollout to all 17 division templates with a PowerShell pipeline driving Excel, with every template file-verified.
- Reconciled the new reporting to the finance main sheet to the penny and documented the reconciliation method for the QS team.
Technologies
SQL Server, T-SQL, SSRS, Excel, PowerShell, Claude, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Fabric, Azure DevOps.
Open questions
LinkedIn still shows the role as Contract and Present; update it to Freelance with an October 2026 end date.
Portfolio artefacts
For interview walkthroughs only. Not for the rendered CV or public distribution.
- Project Commitment — Definition — the agreed commitment definition and the business reasoning behind it.
- Technical Implementation — Project Commitments — the views, stored procedure and cap and pool allocation logic.
- Technical Implementation — Project Transactions — the transactions view and proc, period fence and posted-only filtering.
Sources
Matthew's confirmation (6 October 2026), the LinkedIn experience capture of 5 October 2026, and the NG Bailey CVR project documentation in Claude Compass (Current State & Next Steps and linked pages).