Every GC relationship lives in the owner's head
Put each GC's contacts, history and payment habits on a shared list.
Many owners know every GC's estimator, super, and accounts payable contact, and know who pays on time and who needs a call. That knowledge is worth money, and it's stored in one person's head. When the owner is on a job site, the office doesn't know who to call about a late payment. When the owner leaves, sells, or just takes a week off, the relationship goes with them. It also makes the estimator guess which GCs are worth a bid, since the history isn't written anywhere.
Three moves, in order
What CFOS does about it
CFOS has a bid pipeline with each bid's value, bid date, and result, so the history with a GC is the list of bids and jobs tied to them. Open invoices, pay app due dates, and the collections list show how a GC pays, and the pay app reminders go to the PM. Roles and permissions let you decide who sees what, so the estimator can see the pipeline and the office can see collections without opening the whole company. CFOS isn't a sales CRM, so keep your calls and personal notes where you like and use CFOS for the bids, jobs, and payments.
Who owns this: Owner.
At $7M, a PM, an estimator, and an office manager all deal with GCs. A shared list saves the owner from being the switchboard. It also gives a new hire something to read on day one.
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.
Step 08: Standards and accountability
Five hours a month of owner time, spent projecting the work.
Other problems step 08 solves
Other things that go wrong
What owners ask
Contractor crm GC relationships?
Put each GC's contacts, history and payment habits on a shared list. Many owners know every GC's estimator, super, and accounts payable contact, and know who pays on time and who needs a call. That knowledge is worth money, and it's stored in one person's head. When the owner is on a job site, the office doesn't know who to call about a late payment. When the owner leaves, sells, or just takes a week off, the relationship goes with them. It also makes the estimator guess which GCs are worth a bid, since the history isn't written anywhere.
Which part of the system fixes this?
The step is number 08, standards and accountability. Five hours a month of owner time, spent projecting the work. It's drawn from chapter 8 of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.
Is this normal for my trade?
Across the 48 trades that publish a figure, net profit at $1M to $5M averages 7% before taxes. If you're well under that and this page describes your month, the two are usually the same story. The published average tells you where the pack is, and your own job costing tells you where you are, which is the number that pays payroll.
Where do I start?
Make a list of your top ten GCs with the contact and phone number of the estimator, the PM, and the accounts payable person at each.
Do I need a CRM to do this?
No. A shared spreadsheet works for ten or twenty GCs. What counts is that the list exists, it's current, and more than one person can read it.
What should I record about how a GC pays?
Write down the usual days from invoice to payment, the retainage terms, and who in their accounts payable office to call. Your open invoices and aging report give you the days. The rest is a short comment on each GC's line.
Can I fix this without touching anything else?
You can try, and it doesn't hold. Step 08 depends on step 03, overhead calculation and step 06, project management and step 07, monthly cadence. Install it ahead of those and it produces numbers the field won't trust, which is worse than the problem you started with.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.