CONCRETE · CONCRETE AND MASONRY · FIXED BY STEP 07

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.

WHY IT IS A CONCRETE PROBLEM

Trades that finish near the end of the build wait weeks for retention, because their substantial completion and the project's are close together. You finish first and wait the full length of the building, which means the concrete contractor is the one financing everybody else's schedule. Multiply that across four or five concurrent jobs and the retention receivable becomes the largest asset you own, with nothing in your reporting flagging it as such.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

Retention on a concrete package routinely exceeds the profit on that package, so the job that looked done in June is still an unfunded loan in 2027. Most contractors carry it inside ordinary AR, unaged and untracked, which means nobody is chasing the single biggest number on the balance sheet.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

14%

CFOS target 13% for concrete.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

21%

CFOS target 23% for concrete.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

CFOS target 10% for concrete.

A structural concrete package can be 60 to 70 percent billed by month 4 to 6 of an 18 to 24 month project, then it goes almost silent. Retention of 5 to 10 percent releases at substantial completion of the whole project, not of your scope, and then another 30 to 90 days pass while the GC receives funds and passes them down. Money you earned in month two comes back in month twenty-four. On a $100,000 job at 10 percent retention that's $10,000 sitting out there, which on most concrete packages is more than the job's entire profit.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Split retention out of accounts receivable into its own account and age it by project substantial completion date, not by invoice date.

STEP 02

Build a one-page retention log listing every closed job, the withheld amount, the GC contact, and the release trigger, then work it in the monthly meeting like a punch list.

STEP 03

Price the carry at bid: know what holding 10 percent for twenty months costs you at your line of credit rate, and put that number into the price you give the GC.

THE FIX

Step 07: Monthly cadence

Weekly bookkeeping, cost to complete, and one CEO report, on the same days every month.

CFOS-07 · CHAPTER 7

The monthly close that takes a contractor 5 hours

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

BENCHMARKS

Concrete by revenue band

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

ACROSS EVERY TRADE

Profitable on the P&L, out of cash

Your P&L says you made money and your bank account says you didn't. Both are telling the truth.

SAME TRADE

What else costs concrete contractors money

CONCRETE · CFOS-06

Eight Tons of Rebar Tagged to a Drawing That Changed

The EOR approved the placing drawings, the fab shop cut and bent to the bar list, and then somebody moved a footing. Now you own bundles tagged to grid lines that no longer exist.

CONCRETE · CFOS-06

The 28-Day Break Decides a Pour You Already Billed

You poured in March on an approved mix, the cylinders broke low in April, and two floors are already sitting on the slab in question.

CONCRETE · CFOS-02

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 carried none of it.

CONCRETE · CFOS-04

Your Ready-Mix Quote Expired Eleven Months Before the Pour

Concrete has about a 90-minute working life from batch to placement, so your supply market is a haul radius with two or three plants. They quoted a market that's gone.

CONCRETE · CFOS-01

Six Trips Back for Pads and Sidewalks, One Unit Price

You were first on the site and you're still coming back for stairs, pads, curbs, and exterior flatwork, all priced inside a per-yard number that assumed you never left.

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.

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.

ELECTRICAL

Retainage on gear is a loan you didn't agree to

Gear billed as stored material gets retainage at the same rate as labor, even though you funded 100 percent of it in cash before billing a dollar.

QUESTIONS

What concrete owners ask

Retention still held two years after we finished the slab?

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.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Split retention out of accounts receivable into its own account and age it by project substantial completion date, not by invoice date.

What are concrete contractors supposed to be making?

Concrete runs 21% gross margin, 14% overhead and 7% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade sits right on it. The CFOS target is 10%.

Which part of the system fixes it?

The step is number 07, monthly cadence. Weekly bookkeeping, cost to complete, and one CEO report, on the same days every month. It comes from chapter 7 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.