Job costing software for civil contractors
Public civil work is bid item by bid item and paid on the engineer's monthly estimate. CFOS for QuickBooks costs every bid item to the job. You see which items lose money while the job is still open.
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How civil bills and where the money leaks
Civil contractors on public work bid the owner's schedule of items, often dozens of lines with an item number, a unit and a plan quantity. A city, county or state DOT pays on the quantities its engineer or inspector measures each month, and the pay estimate often comes from their office instead of yours. You bill what they agree you placed, and that can differ from what your crew says it placed.
The leaks hide in the quantities. When a bid item comes in under the plan quantity, the overhead and mobilization you spread across it never get paid. When an item overruns, the contract may let the owner reprice it, and your crew already did the work at the old cost. Items you priced low to balance the bid lose money on every unit the inspector adds.
Time is the other cost. Liquidated damages, traffic control by the day and an engineer who takes weeks to answer a field question all add cost with no bid item for it. Retainage, bond premium and a final estimate that waits on acceptance can stretch a job's cash well past the last day of work.
How civil costs split and what CFOS tracks
A civil job spends on labor at prevailing wage, owned and rented equipment, materials like aggregate, pipe and structures, trucking, traffic control and subs for items you don't self-perform. The owner pays by bid item, but your costs come in by vendor, crew and machine. Tying the two together is the whole point of job costing on public work.
CFOS reads your jobs, cost codes and vendors from QuickBooks Online and compares actual cost to your estimate by cost code, updated every hour. Set up cost codes by bid item number, and each item gets its own budget and its own actual. You see the unit cost on an item against the bid before the final quantity is settled.
Equipment daily rates charge owned machines to the job each day they're on a daily, and rented equipment comes in as a bill coded to the job. Bills emailed to your bills inbox are read, coded to the job and checked against the PO. Material bought from the supplier can then be compared to what the inspector measured.
Workflow from the field to the office
The foreman's daily records the crew, the equipment, the quantities placed by item and photos. Field time is approved by the PM and goes to QuickBooks Payroll. On public work, the certified payroll week is laid out from approved time with wage classes, and deductions stay with your payroll company.
When the engineer issues a field change, the plans don't match what's buried, or the inspector asks for extra work, a T&M ticket rides on the daily. The inspector or GC signs it on site, and it becomes a change order draft. Numbers and revisions are kept, which helps when the agency writes the formal change order months later.
For billing, the schedule of values follows the bid item list with unit price lines. Each period you enter the quantities, CFOS lays out the G702 and G703 with retainage, and you compare your numbers with the engineer's estimate before you sign it. The pay apps page covers the steps.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every job and you approve it. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing, which on civil work often comes from quantities, because an item can be fully installed and only partly paid until the inspector measures it. A master WIP adds every job together for your surety and your bank.
The CEO Report grades your gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against the published average for civil and the CFOS target for your size. That's the plain check on whether your bid item prices cover your costs over a full year. The 13 week cash forecast marks the lowest week, using your QuickBooks and pay apps, so a slow agency payment doesn't catch you short on payroll.
AR aging and a collections list keep retainage and late estimates in front of you. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about any job, such as which bid items are over budget. It reads your numbers and can't change them.
Civil 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, mobilization, demobilization and the field office if the contract calls for one. |
| Traffic control | Flaggers, signs, barrels, arrow boards and lane closures, by the day or by the item as bid. |
| Clearing and removals | Clearing, pavement and curb removal, old pipe removal and disposal. |
| Roadway excavation and embankment | Cut, fill, undercut and borrow, with equipment daily rates charged by the day. |
| Aggregate base and subgrade | Base stone by the ton, subgrade stabilization and proof rolling. |
| Drainage pipe and structures | Culverts, storm pipe, inlets and headwalls by size and bid item. |
| Concrete items | Curb and gutter, sidewalk, ADA ramps and driveway aprons. |
| Pavement and patching | Asphalt or concrete pavement items, whether self-performed or subbed. |
| Erosion control and seeding | Silt fence, inlet protection, seeding, sod and final stabilization. |
| Field changes and extra work | Work on a signed T&M ticket or field change, kept apart until the agency writes the change order. |
How civil 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 14% Civil 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 21% Civil 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 7% Civil 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 13% Civil 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 23% Civil 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 10% Civil 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 12% Civil 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 25% Civil 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 13% Civil 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 11% Civil | 25.7% all-trade average 26% Civil | 13.7% all-trade average 15% Civil |
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 civil 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 civil contractors ask
Can I set up cost codes to match the owner's bid items?
Yes. Cost codes have three levels, so you can use the bid item number as the code and group items by section, like roadway, drainage and concrete. The estimate imports as the job budget by cost code. Actual cost from bills, time and equipment then posts to each item.
How do I compare my quantities to the engineer's monthly estimate?
The foreman's daily records quantities placed by item, and your pay app lists the quantities you're billing. When the agency's estimate comes in, you compare it line by line against your own. A short quantity is then a question for the inspector that month, instead of at final.
Does CFOS handle certified payroll on public jobs?
It lays out the certified payroll week from approved time, with wage classes. Deductions stay with your payroll company. You review the week before it goes to the agency.
What happens when a bid item overruns or underruns the plan quantity?
The PM's cost to complete each month uses the quantity you now expect, so the WIP schedule follows the job as it's being built. You see the unit cost on the item against your bid. If the overrun needs a change order, the signed T&M ticket and the change order draft keep the record.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for my civil 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
- Civil benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.