CARPENTRY · INTERIORS AND FINISHES · FIXED BY STEP 05

Money earned in month two comes back in month eighteen

Retention from framing you did two winters ago is still out there because that job hasn't closed. Carpentry starts early and ends on the last day, so both ends wait on one closeout.

WHY IT IS A CARPENTRY PROBLEM

Most trades touch a job once and leave, so their retention ages from one window on the schedule. Yours ages from two windows, and the older half is the half you spent the most payroll on, because framing is labor heavy and it happened before most of the other trades were even on site. You're financing your earliest and most labor-loaded work for the entire life of the building.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

Retention on a carpentry sub works like a second line of credit you extended to the GC without approving it, and most books never separate it from ordinary AR. The owner reads a healthy receivable balance on Monday and can't fund payroll from it on Friday.

NO PUBLISHED BENCHMARK FOR THIS TRADE

No published benchmark reference breaks this trade out on its own. CFMA reports at NAICS level, and at that level this trade rolls into a broader bucket with several others. That's why this page carries mechanisms and no margin figures. It reports inside NAICS 238130 / 238350, so there's no carpentry margin figure to put in this box. The 48 trades that do publish average 7% net profit at $1M–$5M before taxes, which is the nearest reference point worth anything here.

Rough framing is a first third activity. Trim, doors, casework install, and punch are the last things that happen before the owner walks the building. Retention of five to ten percent gets withheld on every draw starting with your first framing pay app, and none of it releases until the whole project closes out, so dollars earned in month two come back in month eighteen. Commercial millwork shops describe getting paid in 60 to 90 days on a good day, with retainage sitting on top of that and held effectively open ended.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Move retention into its own receivable account, then split it into rough and finish so you can see which end of the schedule your money is stuck at.

STEP 02

Build a one page retention schedule by job and by GC with the expected closeout date next to each balance, and update it the same day you send the pay app.

STEP 03

Take retention out of your 13 week cash forecast entirely and forecast it on the closeout date, then chase the closeout date, since that's the only lever that moves it.

THE FIX

Step 05: Software and bookkeeping alignment

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

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

Carpentry by revenue band

Every one of the 7 bands carries the CFOS target beside the published figure.

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 carpentry contractors money

CARPENTRY · CFOS-06

The cabinet clock doesn't start until someone signs

You won the job in March and the shop still hasn't cut a stick, because nobody has stamped the shop drawings. The fabrication clock starts at approval, and the architect owns that date.

CARPENTRY · CFOS-04

You bought January lumber and you hold the June move

You priced the frame off January lumber and bought it in June, and the subcontract had no escalation language in it. The whole price move comes out of your job.

CARPENTRY · CFOS-01

You make four trips and the subcontract pays for one

The subcontract prices carpentry as one mobilisation and you make four: frame, blocking and backing, trim, and the corrections after the walkthrough. Only one of them got bid.

CARPENTRY · CFOS-08

Heat comes on in October and the miters open

The trim was tight at walkthrough. Then the building got its first heating season, the miters opened, and the callback came three to nine months after the check cleared.

SAME MECHANISM, OTHER TRADES

The same mechanism in other trades

CIVIL

Your retainage is waiting on 70 percent grass

You finished grading in month three and utilities in month six, and the last 5 to 10 percent of your contract sits behind a seed bed that has to hit 70 percent cover.

CONCRETE

Done in June, Retention Releases When the Building Opens

Footings, foundations, and slab-on-grade are the first real dollar volume on the site, so you bill most of your contract early and then wait on a building you left a year and a half ago.

DEMOLITION

Demo Goes First And Gets Its Retention Back Last

You work five weeks and wait twenty months for the money. Your retention rides the prime's substantial completion on a building you left before the foundation went in.

QUESTIONS

What carpentry owners ask

When does framing retention get released on a long commercial job?

Retention from framing you did two winters ago is still out there because that job hasn't closed. Carpentry starts early and ends on the last day, so both ends wait on one closeout.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Move retention into its own receivable account, then split it into rough and finish so you can see which end of the schedule your money is stuck at.

Are there published benchmarks for carpentry?

No, and this site won't print one. No published benchmark reference breaks this trade out on its own. CFMA reports at NAICS level, and at that level this trade rolls into a broader bucket with several others. That's why this page carries mechanisms and no margin figures. In the surveys it rolls into NAICS 238130 / 238350, so the closest honest reference is the 48-trade table, where net profit at $1M–$5M averages 7% before taxes. Read that as the neighbourhood, and read your own job costing as the answer.

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 true. It comes from chapter 5 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

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

Josh Luebker ran commercial construction projects before he ran the numbers behind them, on data centres, military bases, hospitals, and high-rises. He wrote CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System, which is an eight-step framework for commercial subcontractors, and it publishes on October 1, 2026. He is a master electrician who moved into the office and kept the field vocabulary.

Sulphur Prairie Operations LLC maintains the benchmark reference behind these figures. Every edition is reconciled against the newest CFMA survey release before it publishes here. Where a figure changes between editions, the older edition keeps its year in the title so a citation to it stays correct.