Keep your profit
The owner's question is whether you're keeping what you earned. Profit leaks at the bid. It also leaks in change orders, unplanned cost and the last stretch of a job.
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.
Am I keeping what I earned?
A job can look good all the way through and still lose money at the end. The estimate was thin, a change never got billed, the cost to complete was a hope, and the overhead that came with the job wasn't in the price. Profit doesn't disappear in one place, it leaks in six.
The modules below each cover one leak. They work together. A good estimate counts for little if the budget never reaches the job, and a good job counts for little if the change orders aren't billed.
Estimating handoff and the bid pipeline
The estimate is the first promise about profit. CFOS imports your estimate by cost code and it becomes the job budget, so the number you bid is the number you measure against. Without that handoff, the budget gets rebuilt from memory and the lesson in the estimate is lost.
The bid pipeline keeps the value, the bid date, the chance of winning and the lost bids. Lost bids count as much as won ones, because they show where you priced too high or too thin. A won bid becomes a job with its contract value.
Change orders and PM cost to complete
Change orders are the most common unpaid work. A T&M ticket on the daily gets signed by the GC on site and becomes a change order draft, with numbering and revisions kept, so extra work turns into a billable item. If you bill the extra, you keep the profit on it.
Cost to complete is where fade appears. Each month the PM enters what's left to spend on a job, and you approve it. When the number goes up, you see the fade while the job still has weeks left, not after the last pay app.
Overhead rate and how you compare
Overhead is the cost of being in business, and every job has to pay its share. The CFOS overhead calculator turns your annual overhead into a rate, so your bids cover it. A bid below your overhead rate is a job that loses money even when everything goes right.
The table below shows published averages across the 48 trades that publish figures, for small contractors, and net profit is before taxes. Our CFOS target for net profit is 10 percent before taxes or the industry average plus 3.5 points, whichever is higher. Your CEO Report grades you against the published 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 owners tell us about keep your profit
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
What is a CFOS target?
It's the number we think a contractor should aim for. Net profit target is 10 percent before taxes or the industry average plus 3.5 points, whichever is higher. The overhead target is the average minus 1 point.
Where do the published averages come from?
They're published industry averages across the 48 trades that publish figures. The full table is on the benchmark report page. Net profit there is before taxes.
Is net profit before taxes or after?
Before taxes, everywhere on this site. That keeps the figures comparable from one trade and size to the next. It's also the same basis as the published averages.
Can I see this for my own company?
Yes. The CEO Report grades your own figures against the published average and the CFOS target for your trade and size. You see where you are above or below each one.
- Get paid for every extra
- Keep your estimating software. Your bid becomes the budget.
- Job costing software that runs on QuickBooks
- One price. Every module. Priced by your revenue.
- Use all of it, or just the part you need
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.