REMEDIATION · CIVIL AND EARTHWORK · FIXED BY STEP 07

The landfill gets paid in 15 days, you get paid in 90

You wrote checks to the landfill, the hauler, and the lab inside three weeks, and the pay app covering all of it is still sitting with the consultant.

WHY IT IS A REMEDIATION PROBLEM

A trade that bills labor across months also spends across those same months, so the money going out and the money coming in stay close together. Remediation spends its whole material budget in one dig window and then waits on a technical reviewer before the invoice even becomes an invoice. That distance between the spend and the deposit is what puts a job with good margin on the line of credit.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

On a 3,000 ton job at $75 a ton plus haul, well over $300,000 leaves the account inside a month against a receivable that pays 60 to 90 days after the last truck.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

16%

CFOS target 15% for remediation.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

23%

CFOS target 25% for remediation.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

CFOS target 10% for remediation.

The entire disposal spend on a removal action hits inside a two to four week window, because that's how long the dig lasts. Disposal facilities want payment at the gate or on short terms for a new account, haulers invoice per load as the loads run, and the lab bills per sample per round. Then the pay app goes to the owner's consultant for technical review, gets certified, and gets paid on the owner's terms or on the GC's pay when paid terms. Your largest outflow is compressed and front loaded, and the inflow is neither.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Build a weekly cash calendar for the dig window with tipping, hauler, and lab invoices on the outflow side and the pay app on the inflow side, so you see the low point before you hit it.

STEP 02

Open terms with the disposal facility and the hauler before you mobilize, because sorting out a new account at the scale house is a cash decision made two weeks too late.

STEP 03

Bill tonnage weekly against approved manifests and get the consultant's certification moving in the same week, so the review clock starts before the dig is over.

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

Remediation 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 remediation contractors money

REMEDIATION · CFOS-06

Your disposal outlet is booked before the dig starts

You mobilized, the excavation is open, and the only permitted facility that will take the material is 400 miles away and booked three weeks out.

REMEDIATION · CFOS-02

An open hole is rented equipment with no production

The cut is finished, the sidewalls are trimmed, and your crew and your machines sit there while a lab decides whether you're allowed to backfill.

REMEDIATION · CFOS-04

One TCLP result can multiply your biggest cost line

You priced the dirt as non-hazardous off borings somebody else drilled, and the TCLP came back failing for lead.

REMEDIATION · CFOS-01

Closure letters come quarters after your crew leaves

The soil left in the spring, the crew has been on three other jobs since, and your final draw is sitting behind a state agency's review.

REMEDIATION · CFOS-01

Task caps on fund work turn good hours into bad debt

The fund approved a set number of hours and tons, the site turned out to have more, and you kept going because the excavation was already open.

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 carried 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 sits in a warehouse for four months waiting on a space that isn't ready.

QUESTIONS

What remediation owners ask

Paying tipping fees months before the pay application funds?

You wrote checks to the landfill, the hauler, and the lab inside three weeks, and the pay app covering all of it is still sitting with the consultant.

What does it cost?

On a 3,000 ton job at $75 a ton plus haul, well over $300,000 leaves the account inside a month against a receivable that pays 60 to 90 days after the last truck.

What do I do first?

Build a weekly cash calendar for the dig window with tipping, hauler, and lab invoices on the outflow side and the pay app on the inflow side, so you see the low point before you hit it.

What are remediation contractors supposed to be making?

Remediation runs 23% gross margin, 16% 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.