Finished in March, Retention Releases Next Winter
Two to six weeks of your work falls inside an eighteen to twenty four month build, and the retention doesn't move until the whole project closes out.
Retention is a slice of your contract held against a completion date you can't influence. Clearing is the first scope on the ground, so the stretch between your last day and the project's last day is the widest on the job, and it repeats on every project you take. A routine contract term turns into a permanent block of your cash parked inside other people's buildings.
The size of it
A meaningful piece of every contract stays a receivable for a year or more, funded out of your own cash while the machines that earned it are already worn down on the next tract. Most owners in this trade can't state their total retention balance, so it's missing from the forecast and missing from the conversation with the bank.
Retention releases at substantial completion or project closeout, which has nothing to do with the day you finished. Your first day on site is day one of the entire project, ahead of mass grading, utilities, and the slab. So two to six weeks of physical work gets held across an eighteen to twenty four month build. No trade on that job waits longer relative to the time it spent on the ground. You cleared the tract in March and the money comes in when the building opens.
Three moves, in order
Step 05: Software and bookkeeping alignment
Live job costs inside thirty seconds, with the bookkeeping cadence that keeps them current.
What else costs land clearing contractors money
The same mechanism in other trades
What land clearing owners ask
When do I get retention released if I only cleared the site?
Two to six weeks of your work falls inside an eighteen to twenty four month build, and the retention doesn't move until the whole project closes out.
What does it cost?
A meaningful piece of every contract stays a receivable for a year or more, funded out of your own cash while the machines that earned it are already worn down on the next tract. Most owners in this trade can't state their total retention balance, so it's missing from the forecast and missing from the conversation with the bank.
What do I do first?
Build a retention schedule listing every job, the amount held, the date you finished, and the project's expected closeout, and update it monthly.
What are land clearing contractors supposed to be making?
No survey separates land clearing, so there is no figure of its own. The nearest comparable trade in the reference is Sitework, which runs 18% gross margin, 15% overhead and 3% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M, with a CFOS target of 10% net. Those are derived figures, not land clearing's own. Read them 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 current. It comes from chapter 5 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.
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 land clearing contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.