Job costing software for bridge contractors
Bridge work is paid by the item: feet of piling, yards of concrete, pounds of rebar. It's spent on cranes, falsework and crews over several seasons. CFOS for QuickBooks costs each item to the job.
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How bridge bills and where the money leaks
Bridge contracts are mostly unit price bid items from a state DOT, a county or a railroad, with lump sums for things like falsework, cofferdams or removal of the existing structure. Piling is paid by the foot, structural concrete by the cubic yard and reinforcing steel by the pound. The inspector measures, and the agency pays on its monthly estimate with retainage kept back.
The leaks are in work that isn't a bid item. Falsework, forming, cofferdams, dewatering and crane time are often buried inside a concrete or lump sum price. When a pile drives longer than plan or the river comes up and floods a cofferdam, the extra time and equipment may have no line to bill it on.
Time adds cost too. Bridges are built in stages around traffic, wait on girder deliveries and stop for winter or high water. A crane on rent for an extra month and a crew moved to another job and brought back both cost money that a monthly estimate doesn't show.
How bridge costs split and what CFOS tracks
A bridge job spends on piling and drilled shafts, forms and falsework, rebar, structural concrete, girders from a precast or steel supplier, bearings and joints, cranes and labor at prevailing wage. You self-perform some of it and sub the rest, such as rebar placing or girder erection. Each piece has its own vendor, its own timing and its own bid item.
CFOS reads your jobs, cost codes and vendors from QuickBooks Online and compares actual cost to the estimate by cost code, updated every hour. Set up codes for substructure, superstructure and deck, or by bid item, and each gets its own budget and actual. You see whether the first deck pour went over before the next one is scheduled.
Equipment daily rates charge your cranes, pile hammers and generators to the job each day they're on a daily. Forming and falsework systems used on several bridges can get a daily rate too, so the first bridge doesn't pay for the whole purchase. Rented cranes come in as bills coded to the job and checked against the PO.
Workflow from the field to the office
The foreman's daily records the crew, the equipment, the pours, the pile lengths and photos. Field time is approved by the PM and sent to QuickBooks Payroll. The certified payroll week is laid out from approved time with wage classes, and deductions stay with your payroll company.
When a pile goes longer than plan, the engineer changes a detail or the GC asks for work outside your items, a T&M ticket rides on the daily. The inspector or GC signs it on site, and it becomes a change order draft for the next pay app. Numbers and revisions are kept, which helps when the agency's change order takes months.
For billing, the schedule of values follows the bid items. CFOS lays out the G702 and G703 with retainage, and stored materials can be included when the contract allows, such as girders delivered and stored before they're set. You can check your quantities against the agency's estimate each month.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every bridge and you approve it. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing, which tells you whether piling and substructure billed early are covering the deck and approach work still to come. A master WIP puts every job on one page.
The CEO Report grades your gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against the published average for bridge and the CFOS target for your size. On jobs that last more than a year, that's how you see whether the work as a whole is earning what you bid. The 13 week cash forecast marks the lowest week from your QuickBooks and pay apps, so a girder payment or a winter shutdown doesn't catch you short.
AR aging keeps retainage and late estimates in front of you. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about any job, such as what the deck forming cost against the bid. It reads your numbers and can't change them.
Bridge cost codes, matched to QuickBooks
Each group below is one set of cost codes in CFOS. Bills, time and equipment post to them. QuickBooks keeps the books underneath, so your bookkeeper sees the same numbers.
| Cost code group | What goes on it |
|---|---|
| Mobilization and bonds | Bond premium, insurance, equipment moves and the field office. |
| Traffic control and staging | Lane closures, barrier, temporary crossings and each phase change. |
| Removal of existing structure | Demolition of the old deck and substructure, containment and disposal. |
| Cofferdams and dewatering | Sheet piling, pumps, seals and the crew time to keep the work dry. |
| Piling and drilled shafts | Pile material, hammer and crane time, splices and test piles, by the foot. |
| Substructure concrete | Footings, columns, caps and abutments, with forms and placing labor. |
| Falsework and forming | Deck forms, overhang brackets, shoring and falsework, with a daily rate when reused. |
| Reinforcing steel | Rebar by the pound, epoxy coated or plain, and placing labor or the placing sub. |
| Girders and bearings | Precast or steel girders, bearings, delivery and the crane to set them. |
| Deck and approach work | Deck pour, finishing, curing, joints, rails and approach slabs. |
How bridge contractors do, by revenue
Each row shows the all-trade average, this trade's average and the CFOS target where one is published. These are the numbers your own job costing gets graded against. Net profit is before taxes in every row.
| Revenue | Overhead | Gross margin | Net profit, before taxes |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1M to $5M | 15.1% all-trade average 15% Bridge 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 22% Bridge 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 7% Bridge 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 14% Bridge 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 23% Bridge 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 9% Bridge 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 13% Bridge 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 24% Bridge 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 11% Bridge 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 12% Bridge | 25.7% all-trade average 25% Bridge | 13.7% all-trade average 13% Bridge |
Gross margin and overhead come from figures CFMA, Jones Maresca and other sources publish by trade and size. Net profit is computed, not surveyed: net profit = gross margin minus overhead. Nothing comes out for taxes, interest or other income and expense, so it is a before tax figure, on the same basis as CFMA's net income before taxes.
CFMA's 2025 medians are 7.1 percent before interest and taxes and 6.7 percent net income before taxes. Gross margin minus overhead leaves out interest and other income and expense, so a figure here can come in a little above or below a reported net income on the same business.
Above the $10M to $25M band the gross margin and overhead rows are a modeled extension of the same curves. They have not been reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker, so read those bands as a model and not as a survey result.
Problems bridge contractors write to us about
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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.
What bridge contractors ask
Can my cost codes follow the DOT bid items on a bridge?
Yes. Cost codes have three levels, so you can group bid items under substructure, superstructure and approaches. The estimate imports as the job budget by cost code. Actual cost from bills, time and equipment is compared to each item.
How do I keep falsework and crane time from hiding in the concrete price?
Give falsework, forming and cranes their own cost codes even when the bid paid for them inside a concrete item. Equipment daily rates charge cranes and reusable forms to the job each day they're on a daily. You then see what the support work cost apart from the concrete.
Can I bill girders stored before they're set?
Where the contract allows stored materials, the pay app includes them, with retainage tracked. The girder bill is coded to the job and checked against the PO. The WIP schedule shows what's billed against what's done.
What happens when piles drive longer than the plan length?
The foreman records pile lengths on the daily, and the extra goes on a T&M ticket the inspector or GC signs on site. It becomes a change order draft for the next pay app. If the item pays by the foot, the measured length goes on the pay app line.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for my bridge company?
No. QuickBooks Online keeps the books, and CFOS works on top of it. It reads and writes jobs, cost codes, vendors, bills and invoices, so there's no migration and your bookkeeper keeps working where they work now.
- Job costing software that runs on QuickBooks
- One price. Every module. Priced by your revenue.
- Use all of it, or just the part you need
- Job costing software that runs on QuickBooks
- One price. Every module. Priced by your revenue.
- Use all of it, or just the part you need
- Bridge benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.