Case Study: $34,000 in Retainage
A real builder, real numbers. Press Ctrl+P / Cmd+P and choose "Save as PDF" to keep a copy.
She had $34,000 in retainage and did not know it.
The problem
Rachel ran a busy specialty-trade shop under 8 different general contractors. The work was good and the jobs kept coming. The books were the problem. Each GC held retainage, a slice of every invoice kept back until the job wrapped. Nobody was tracking it. The held money just sat on other people's balance sheets, aging out and slipping from memory.
Change orders made it worse. On a jobsite, a GC would approve extra work with a quick text or a yes in passing. Rachel did the work. Then the invoice went out for the base contract only, because the change never made it onto paper. Real cash she had already earned was quietly walking out the door.
“I thought I was just bad at saving. Turns out I had already earned the money. I just never went and got it.”
What we did
- Built a retainage tracker: every job, the GC, the amount held, the retainage percent, and the release due date.
- Built a change-order log so every approval, even a text, got written up and billed.
- Set a weekly review to chase held money and send progress invoices before balances aged out.
- Cleaned up billing so earned work and billed work finally matched.
The results
These are one client's outcomes, not a promise of results. Every shop is different. What carries over is the method: track what you are owed, write up every change, and review it weekly.
Spot the same leak in your own shop
If you work under GCs and nobody is tracking retainage, you very likely have money sitting out there too. Book a 30-minute call at salisburybookkeeping.com/contact. We will walk your jobs with you and point to the cash first.