The #1 Reason Contractors Lose Money: Broken Job Costing

The 82% problem

We run a free assessment for every contractor who calls us. One question we always ask:

Which of your last 10 jobs was the most profitable?

82% of the time, the owner can't answer. Or they guess. And when we check the books, the guess is wrong most of the time.

That's the whole problem. If you can't tell a good job from a bad job, you bid the next one with no clue what to charge.

What broken job costing looks like

• Materials get dumped into one big "COGS" bucket with no job code.
• Labor gets recorded on payroll but never tied back to the job.
• Subs get paid fast but not tracked by phase.
• Equipment burn (fuel, wear, hours) is invisible.
• Overhead is "allocated" on a napkin.

Result: every job looks the same on paper. They aren't.

What good job costing looks like

• A chart of accounts built for construction (NAHB is our default).
• Every cost tagged with a job + phase + cost code.
• Labor auto-flowing from timesheets to the right job.
• Subs tracked by scope, not by vendor.
• Equipment billed out at a real internal rate.
• Overhead applied consistently and visibly.

Now every job tells the truth.

The 90-day fix

This is the same path we walk every client through:

• Days 1–30: Clean up the chart of accounts. Re-tag the last 90 days.
• Days 15–45: Wire the PM software (Buildertrend/Procore/Knowify) into QuickBooks so data flows one way.
• Days 30–60: Build the weekly WIP rhythm. Train the team.
• Days 60–90: Launch the owner dashboard. You see margin per job in real time.

At day 91, ask yourself that same question again. You'll have a real answer.

Curious what your real margins are? Get a free 30-minute Profit Leak check.