Builders and remodelers
Residential and light commercial general contractors with subcontractors on most jobs, who need profit by job and not just for the year.
Construction and trades
Know which jobs make money, before the next bid goes out.
Bookkeeping, job costing and benchmarking for builders, remodelers and trade contractors in Maryland, Virginia, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania. A CPA reads your numbers job by job, compares you with contractors who do the same kind of work, and shows you in dollars where margin is leaking.
Markup is not margin
The two are easy to mix up, and the difference comes straight out of profit. The margin you keep is always smaller than the markup you add.
| Markup on cost | Price on $10,000 of cost | Gross margin you keep |
|---|---|---|
| 25% | $12,500 | 20.0% |
| 35% | $13,500 | 25.9% |
| 50% | $15,000 | 33.3% |
| 55% | $15,500 | 35.5% |
| 100% | $20,000 | 50.0% |
Gross margin equals markup divided by one plus markup. A job priced at 50% over cost keeps 33.3% of the price, before overhead.
Arithmetic, not a benchmark. Your own Snapshot compares your margin with contractors in your industry.
Built for contractors who run several jobs at once
If the bank balance is the only number you trust, this is for you.
Specialty trade contractors
HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing and other trades that need margin by job, field labor cost and revenue per technician.
Contractors with a service side
A building business that also runs maintenance, lawn care or service work, and needs each side’s profit on its own line.
What we look at in a contractor’s books
Six places where contractor profit usually goes missing, and how we find it.
- Job costing by job, not by customer
- One customer often has several jobs at different addresses. Every cost and every invoice lands on the job it belongs to, so a profitable kitchen does not hide a losing basement.
- Estimate against actual
- What each job was bid at compared with what it cost, line by line: materials, field labor, subcontractors and the sales tax you pay on materials. A budget that combines two jobs, or leaves out a cost line, gets caught here.
- Billed against finished
- Every finished job, change order and service visit matched to an invoice, and accepted estimates that never became invoices listed for you. Work done and never billed is the quietest leak in contracting.
- Building and service divisions
- A building side and a service side, or a business that also trades under another name, each get their own profit and loss statement. The two add up to one combined statement without adjusting rows.
- Subcontractor records
- A running total of what each subcontractor is paid, the ones over the 1099 reporting threshold for the payment year flagged, and missing W-9s and certificates of insurance listed for you and your tax preparer.
- Cash, deposits and owner accounts
- Card and payment app deposits recorded at the full sale with fees shown separately, what you sold kept apart from what you collected, and personal spending kept out of the company’s books.
Benchmarked against the right kind of contractor
A general contractor and a trade contractor spend money in very different ways. A builder who subcontracts most of the work will always show high subcontractor cost and low payroll. Measured against trade contractors, that normal pattern looks like a crisis.
We confirm your industry on the first call, then compare you only with businesses that do the same kind of work: residential builders and remodelers, nonresidential builders, or your specific trade.
What the comparison covers
- Direct costs: materials, subcontractors and field labor
- Gross margin
- Overhead
- Total profit, and the dollar gap to the best operators in your industry
- On the Advanced plan, every cost category each month on your trailing 12 months
I’m a CPA and a business owner. I have built and run companies of my own, and I still do.
Robert O’Connor, CPA
Five signs your numbers are not telling you the whole story
Busy all year, short on cash
Full schedule, steady crews, and payroll weeks still feel close.
You know revenue, not profit by job
The year looks fine overall, but you cannot say which jobs carried it and which ate into it.
Deposits do not match sales
What hits the bank and what the books call sales are two different numbers, and nobody can explain the gap.
The bid looked right, the job did not
Materials and subs came in over the estimate, and you found out after the final invoice.
One card for everything
Personal and business spending share a card or an account, so the profit number is a guess.
Our Bid and Job Cost Workbook, set up for your business
Built from a working contractor’s estimating sheet, then rebuilt and tested line by line. It is not a download: contractor clients receive it set up with their own cost codes, markups and target margin.
- More than 200 cost codes, from design and permits to closeout, with separate bathroom and kitchen sheets
- Markup on every line, and the gross margin it actually produces
- A bid target from the margin you want to keep, with sales tax on materials when your costs exclude it
- Estimated, quoted and actual cost side by side, with the variance on every line
Want to see it? Ask on your complimentary call.
A look inside
Four of the cost lines, figures held back.
| Code | Item | Cost | Markup | Actual less estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLN100 | Architectural drawings | $X,XXX | XX% | $XXX |
| FND105 | Flatwork and slabs | $X,XXX | XX% | $XXX |
| RFR500 | Framing labor | $X,XXX | XX% | $XXX |
| FIN101 | Cabinets | $X,XXX | XX% | $XXX |
Illustrative lines, figures held back. Provided to contractor clients; not sold or sent as a download.
How to start
Begin with the free Snapshot, or go straight to the depth you need.
Free Benchmark Snapshot
Send last year’s P&L. See your direct costs, gross margin, overhead and total profit against your industry, and the gap in dollars.
About the SnapshotProfit Leak Assessment
Last year rebuilt from your bank and card statements, every cost category against your industry, and what to fix first. One time, $999.
How it worksMonthly books and benchmarking
Books kept every month and reviewed by a CPA, starting at $325 a month. Advanced adds monthly benchmarking and a brief.
See the plans
Questions owners ask
We are a trade contractor, not a builder. Is this for us?
Yes. HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing and other trade contractors are compared with businesses in their own trade, not with general contractors. We confirm your industry on the first call so the comparison is the right one.
Do you work with new construction or remodeling?
Both. Residential builders, remodelers and light commercial contractors each have their own comparison set, and job costing works the same way for all of them.
Do I need QuickBooks?
No. We build your books from your bank, card and cash records. If you already use QuickBooks Online, we work from it. Job budgets from your estimating or project software can be the starting point for estimate against actual.
Do you file our 1099s?
We keep a running total of what each subcontractor is paid and flag the ones over the reporting threshold for the payment year, along with missing W-9s, so your tax preparer has what they need. Filing the forms is quoted with tax work.
Is the Benchmark Snapshot really free?
Yes. It is a complimentary 30-minute call and a results meeting, for established businesses with $500,000 or more in annual revenue. You send last year’s profit and loss statement, and nothing else.
Is this an audit?
No. It is management-use analysis. It is not an audit, review or compilation under AICPA standards, and not tax or legal advice.
See where last year’s margin went.
Send one profit and loss statement. A CPA shows you the gap in dollars, against contractors who do your kind of work.
Management-use analysis. Not an audit, review, or compilation under SSARS/AICPA standards, and not tax or legal advice.