Job costing for contractors doing $1M to $10M a year
You bid it, you manage it and you chase the money. CFOS tells you which jobs made money while you can still fix the next one. It works on the QuickBooks your bookkeeper already uses.
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You're the estimator, the PM and the collections department
At $1M to $10M a year, most contractors have one person who bids the work, walks the jobs, signs the change orders and calls the GC about the check. That's you. Your day goes to the field and the phone, so the books get looked at when somebody needs them.
Here's how it usually goes. Your bookkeeper keeps QuickBooks Online clean enough for the tax return. Three months after a job ends you find out it lost money, and by then you've bid two more jobs the same way.
CFOS works on top of QuickBooks Online and reads your jobs, cost codes, vendors, bills and invoices. QuickBooks keeps the books. CFOS adds job cost against your estimate, the change order log, pay apps and a cash forecast, so you see the answer while the job is still open.
You, the person at the front desk and an outside bookkeeper
Most shops this size have three people touching the money. You are the owner. Your spouse or office manager opens the mail, codes the bills and sends the invoices, and an outside bookkeeper reconciles the bank once a month.
Each of them gets their own sign in. The office manager sees AP and AR, and the bookkeeper sees the bank and the books. You see the jobs and the CEO Report, and anyone else sees only the jobs and numbers you pick.
Tax time, the surety request and payroll week
Tax time is when most owners learn which jobs paid. The CPA gives you a profit and loss and you're guessing which job made it and which one ate it. With job cost by cost code against the estimate, updated every hour, you don't wait for the return to find out.
The surety asks for a WIP when you want a bigger bonding line. If you've never built one, that's a weekend of spreadsheets with your bookkeeper. CFOS builds the WIP schedule from live job cost, with over and under billing, after you enter cost to complete on each job.
Payroll week is when the bank balance gets scary. The 13 week cash forecast reads your own QuickBooks and your pay apps, and it marks the lowest week. You see a short week coming a month before it hits payroll day.
At $1M to $5M, you still make every decision
A company this size usually has a few crews and a dozen or so open jobs. You can still keep most of it in your head, which is why a bad job stays hidden so long. The first thing to switch on is job cost against the budget, so every bill and every hour is posted to a job and a cost code.
Second is the change order log. Extra work done on a handshake and never billed is the biggest leak in this band. When the foreman fills out a daily with a T&M ticket and the GC signs it on site, it becomes a change order draft that goes on your next pay app.
At $5M to $10M, the buyer barely changes
You're still the person signing off, you still know every GC by sight and you still take the call when a check is late. What changes is volume. There are more jobs, more bills, more pay apps and more places for something to slip.
So the same tools get more use. You add a project manager or two and give them their own jobs to maintain, and you move collections to a list the office works every week. Your seat doesn't change much, but the weekly look at the CEO Report is worth more as the company grows.
What small contractors earn, so you know the target
The table below shows the published averages for the $1M to $5M and $5M to $10M bands, taken across the 48 trades that publish figures. Net profit is before taxes. Your CEO Report in CFOS grades your own numbers against the average and the CFOS target for your trade and size.
| Revenue | Overhead | Gross margin | Net profit, before taxes |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1M to $5M | 15.1% average 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% average 25% CFOS target | 7% average 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% average 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% average 26% CFOS target | 9.4% average 12.9% CFOS target |
Gross margin and overhead come from figures CFMA, Jones Maresca and other sources publish by trade and size. Net profit is computed, not surveyed: net profit = gross margin minus overhead. Nothing comes out for taxes, interest or other income and expense, so it is a before tax figure, on the same basis as CFMA's net income before taxes.
CFMA's 2025 medians are 7.1 percent before interest and taxes and 6.7 percent net income before taxes. Gross margin minus overhead leaves out interest and other income and expense, so a figure here can come in a little above or below a reported net income on the same business.
Above the $10M to $25M band the gross margin and overhead rows are a modeled extension of the same curves. They have not been reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker, so read those bands as a model and not as a survey result.
What it costs at your size
A $3M company pays $300 a month. A $5M company pays $600 a month, and a $10M company pays $1,350 a month. Every module is included at every price, and anything we add later is included too.
The price follows your last 12 months of revenue, so the bill goes up only when you grow. It's month to month, and QuickBooks Online is billed separately by Intuit. The first 30 days cost nothing.
| Your revenue, last 12 months | Per month |
|---|---|
| Up to $3M | $300 |
| Up to $4M | $450 |
| Up to $5M | $600 |
| Up to $6M | $750 |
| Up to $7M | $900 |
| Up to $8M | $1,050 |
| Up to $9M | $1,200 |
| Up to $10M | $1,350 |
| Up to $11M | $1,500 |
| Up to $12M | $1,650 |
| Up to $13M | $1,800 |
| Up to $14M | $1,950 |
| $15M and over | Quoted for your company |
Every module is included at every price, and every module we add later is too. Month to month. Your price is held while you are a customer, and the bill follows your revenue. QuickBooks Online is billed by Intuit and is separate.
Around $10M, the controller comes in
Somewhere near $10M you stop wanting to do the books at night and you hire a controller or a senior bookkeeper. When that happens, the work moves to the growing contractor page, where WIP, cost to complete and the monthly close become the main job. You keep the same software and the same data, and the price only follows your revenue.
At $1M to $10M you're the one doing it all. CFOS gives you the answer on each job without making you learn accounting. You look at it for a few minutes a week and get back to the work.
Get on the list for the day it opens
30 days free, a 90-day money-back guarantee, and cancel anytime.
We email you when CFOS for QuickBooks opens, plus a few updates before then. Your address stays with Run On CFOS. One click unsubscribes.
30 days free, a 90-day money-back guarantee, and cancel anytime. It opens January 2027. We email you the day it opens.
What people ask
Is CFOS right for a $3M contractor with one bookkeeper?
Yes, that's about the middle of the size range it's built for. A $3M company pays $300 a month, and the bookkeeper keeps working in QuickBooks Online as before. CFOS reads the same jobs and cost codes and adds job cost against your estimate.
What does a $5M contractor pay, and does it go up as I grow?
A $5M company pays $600 a month, and a company up to $10M pays $1,350 a month. The bill follows your last 12 months of revenue. The price is held while you're a customer.
Will I find out which jobs made money before tax time?
That's the point of it. Job cost by cost code updates every hour against the budget, so you can look at a job in the middle of it. Your CEO Report also grades the whole company against the published average and the CFOS target for your trade.
Can I get a WIP for my surety if I've never built one?
Yes. You or your PM enter cost to complete at month end, and CFOS builds the WIP schedule with over and under billing from live job cost. It ties to QuickBooks because it reads from it.
Do I need to move my books out of QuickBooks?
No. CFOS works on top of QuickBooks Online and your books never leave it. It doesn't work with QuickBooks Desktop.
- One price. Every module. Priced by your revenue.
- For the owner who wants to know if the job made money
- Job costing and WIP for contractors doing $10M to $50M
- Use all of it, or just the part you need
- Job costing software that runs on QuickBooks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.