BRIDGE · CIVIL AND EARTHWORK · FIXED BY STEP 05

Girders in the Yard Can Be Billed Before They Ship

State specs let you get paid for girders stored at the fabrication plant. Most small bridge subs never file the forms and float the whole package for months.

WHY IT'S A BRIDGE PROBLEM

This provision exists because bridge girders get built months early, for one contract, and can't be resold to anybody. That's why the state will pay for them in storage, and it's also why the dollar amount is big enough to move your bank balance. Trades whose material is stock inventory never get this option, so no one in the field ever taught you to ask for it.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

A $600K girder package financed four months at 10% money is roughly $20K of avoidable interest, on top of the covenant and payroll pressure the deposit creates. Miss the estimate cutoff by two days and you wait a full month for the next one.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

15%

CFOS target 14% for bridge.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

22%

CFOS target 24.5% for bridge.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

CFOS target 10.5% for bridge.

Material on hand payment is written into the spec. TxDOT's manual says it directly: precast concrete and steel girders may be paid while stored at the fabrication plant when they're sampled, tested, approved, or certified and ready for incorporation, and any item unique in nature and fabricated specifically for the contract may qualify. The catch is that the state's calendar and the state's paperwork set the pace. The requirements are a minimum invoice of $1,000, material properly tagged and marked to the contract, and Forms 1914 and 1915 submitted two days before the estimate cutoff and monthly after that until the balance zeroes out. Perishables are excluded, and a commercial plant serving several customers generally doesn't qualify.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Find the material on hand provision in the contract you're running now, note the estimate cutoff date, and set a recurring reminder two days ahead of it.

STEP 02

Get the fabricator to tag and mark the girders to the contract and send the test and certification package as production finishes each line.

STEP 03

Put stored material into the monthly cash forecast as a receivable with a date on it, so the girder deposit reads as money coming back on a known date.

THE FIX

Step 05: Software and bookkeeping alignment

Live job costs inside thirty seconds, with the bookkeeping cadence that keeps them current.

CFOS-05 · CHAPTER 5

Live job costs in 30 seconds, not 6 weeks

What this step changes, what it depends on, and how to tell it's installed.

BENCHMARKS

Bridge by revenue band

All 7 bands are published. The CFOS target is beside the figure up to $10M to $25M, and the 4 bands above that are labelled modeled.

ACROSS EVERY TRADE

Your job costs are six weeks old

By the time the report is right, the job is closed and the only thing left to do is feel bad about it.

SAME TRADE

What else costs bridge contractors money

BRIDGE · CFOS-06

Your Girder Date Comes From the Casting Bed Calendar

You didn't buy beams, you bought a spot in a casting bed. The plant releases that spot when your shop drawings come back approved, and the calendar behind it belongs to somebody else.

BRIDGE · CFOS-04

Steel Adjustment Is a Box You Check at Letting

On a lot of DOT bridge lettings, steel price protection is elected item by item at bid time. Skip the election and you own the entire move yourself.

BRIDGE · CFOS-01

One Bridge Takes Five Move-Ins and Pays One Mobilization

A single structure takes four to six separate trips in and out. The contract pays mobilization once, usually capped, usually paid down against early progress.

BRIDGE · CFOS-02

You Bid Erection by the Beam and Pay by the Day

Girder erection gets bid per beam or per structure. The crane, mats, rigging, and crew accrue by the day, and the day keeps running while the pick waits on someone else.

SAME MECHANISM, OTHER TRADES

The same mechanism in other trades

CONCRETE

Ten Jobs Used Those Forms, One Job Paid for Them

Your yard is full of panels and shoring, every job report says you made money, and the bank account disagrees. The form buy hit job one and jobs two through ten absorbed none of it.

DEMOLITION

The Scale Wants Cash Today, The GC Pays In Sixty Days

Almost everything a demolition job costs goes out in the first two weeks, and the first pay application hasn't even been submitted yet.

FLOORING

You bankroll the mill six months before you get paid

The mill wants a check before it ships, the GC won't pay for stored material, and your cash is stuck in a warehouse for four months waiting on a space that isn't ready.

QUESTIONS

What bridge owners ask

Can I get paid for bridge girders stored at the fabrication plant?

State specs let you get paid for girders stored at the fabrication plant. Most small bridge subs never file the forms and float the whole package for months.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Find the material on hand provision in the contract you're running now, note the estimate cutoff date, and set a recurring reminder two days ahead of it.

What are bridge contractors supposed to be making?

Bridge runs 22% gross margin, 15% overhead and 7% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade is right on it. The CFOS target is 10.5%.

Which part of the system fixes it?

The step is number 05, software and bookkeeping alignment. Live job costs inside thirty seconds, with the bookkeeping cadence that keeps them current. It comes from chapter 5 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.

OR HAVE IT HANDLED

Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for bridge contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.

What a fractional CFO does for bridge contractors

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

MASTER ELECTRICIAN · 150+ PROJECTS · $2.1B+ MANAGED

Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.