Job costing software for dewatering contractors
Dewatering bills an install, a rate for every period the pumps work, and a removal. The pumps work nights and weekends when no crew is there. CFOS for QuickBooks costs pump days, fuel and treatment to the job.
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How dewatering bills and where the money leaks
A dewatering contract usually has three parts. Installing the wellpoints, deep wells or sumps is a lump sum, operating the system bills by the day, week or month per pump or for the whole system, and removal and well abandonment come at the end. Fuel, monitoring and water treatment can be in the period rate or billed on their own lines.
The biggest leak is a system that stays on longer than planned. The excavation or the pipe crew falls behind, the pumps keep working, and if every extra period doesn't go on a pay app, you're dewatering the site at your own cost. Diesel pumps and generators burn fuel every hour of every day, so a missed fuel bill is a big one.
The other leaks come from ground conditions the report didn't show. More water than expected means more wells, bigger pumps and more fuel. Turbid or contaminated groundwater can mean settling tanks, filters, lab tests and permit changes that the bid didn't price, and they need a signed ticket before you add them.
How dewatering costs split and what CFOS tracks
A dewatering job spends on design and discharge permits, well drilling or jetting, header pipe and risers, your own pumps and generators, pumps rented from others, fuel, discharge hose and pipe, treatment, the technician checks at night and on weekends, and removal. Your own pumps are the biggest cost. They cost money every day they're on a job, whether a crew is there or not.
CFOS reads your jobs, cost codes and vendors from QuickBooks Online and compares actual cost to your estimate by cost code, updated every hour. Install, operation, treatment and removal each get their own budget. That's how you see whether a job lost money going in or by staying too long.
Equipment daily rates are built from what each pump and generator costs you to own. The rate is charged to the job for every day the unit is on the daily, so a pump that stayed six weeks longer than planned is a job cost and not overhead. Rented pumps, fuel deliveries and lab bills are coded to the job as they come in.
Workflow from the field to the office
The technician's daily lists the crew, every pump and generator on site, and photos of the system and the discharge. Listing the units every day is what charges them to the job, including the days a tech only checks fuel and flow. Field time is approved and sent to QuickBooks Payroll, with install, monitoring and removal time on their own codes.
When the GC asks to keep the system on past the contract period, add wells or move a sump for another trade, a T&M ticket goes on the daily. The GC signs it on site and it becomes a change order draft for the next pay app. Photos of turbid discharge or a flooded excavation are your record of why.
Fuel tickets, pump rental invoices and lab bills are emailed to the bills inbox, read, coded to the job and checked against the PO. The PM sets up the schedule of values with install and removal lines and operation as recurring lines, then builds the pay app each period. CFOS lays out the G702 and G703 with retainage, and pay app due dates send reminders so a period isn't skipped.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every job and you approve it. On dewatering that number has to include fuel and pump days for the time still left, plus pulling the wells and abandoning them. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing, so a job that billed install early doesn't look better than the work in place.
No survey reports dewatering as its own trade, so in setup you pick the nearest comparable trade, excavation. The CEO Report grades your gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against its figures. A dewatering company owns pumps that work around the clock, which an excavation contractor doesn't. Your own job costing over a year of jobs is the real answer.
The 13 week cash forecast reads your QuickBooks and pay apps and marks the lowest week, which helps when fuel bills come weekly and the GC pays monthly. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about your own jobs, such as what fuel cost per week on the last three wellpoint systems. It reads your numbers and can't change them.
Dewatering 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 |
|---|---|
| Design and permits | Dewatering design, discharge permits and permit changes. |
| Well installation | Drilling or jetting wellpoints and deep wells, header pipe, risers and filter sand. |
| Owned pumps and generators | Your pumps and generators at their daily rate for every day they're on the job. |
| Rented pumps | Pumps, generators and tanks rented from others, checked against the PO. |
| Fuel | Diesel deliveries and fuel tickets for pumps and generators. |
| Monitoring and checks | Technician time for night, weekend and daily checks, plus water level readings. |
| Discharge and treatment | Discharge hose and pipe, settling tanks, filters and lab tests. |
| Repairs and replacements | Pump repairs, swapped units and parts used on the job. |
| Removal and abandonment | Pulling wellpoints and pumps, well abandonment and hauling equipment home. |
| Extras and change orders | Extended periods, added wells and treatment tied to a signed T&M ticket. |
How dewatering contractors do, by revenue
No survey separates dewatering, so each row shows the all-trade average, the figures of excavation, the nearest comparable trade, labelled as derived, and the CFOS target where one is published. Use them to find the neighbourhood, then let your own job costing be the answer. 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% Dewatering, derived from excavation 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 21% Dewatering, derived from excavation 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 7% Dewatering, derived from excavation 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 13% Dewatering, derived from excavation 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 23% Dewatering, derived from excavation 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 10% Dewatering, derived from excavation 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 12% Dewatering, derived from excavation 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 24% Dewatering, derived from excavation 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 12% Dewatering, derived from excavation 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 11% Dewatering, derived from excavation | 25.7% all-trade average 26% Dewatering, derived from excavation | 13.7% all-trade average 15% Dewatering, derived from excavation |
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 dewatering 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 dewatering contractors ask
How do I charge my own pumps to a job when no crew is there?
Each pump and generator gets a daily rate built from what it costs you to own. The technician's daily lists every unit on site, and the rate is charged to the job for each day. The pumps cost the job the same on a Sunday as on a Tuesday.
How do I bill the system after the planned period ends?
Set operation up as recurring lines on the schedule of values and bill each period on the pay app. When the GC asks to keep the system on, a signed T&M ticket on the daily becomes a change order draft. Pay app due dates send reminders so no period gets skipped.
Where does fuel go?
Fuel tickets and delivery bills come to the bills inbox and are coded to the job's fuel line. You see fuel against budget every hour. If fuel is billed to the GC separately, the cost on that line backs up the charge.
What about water treatment the bid didn't include?
Photograph the discharge on the daily and write a T&M ticket for the tanks, filters and testing. The GC signs it on site and it becomes a change order draft. The treatment cost posts to its own code either way, so you see what it cost.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for a dewatering company?
No. CFOS works on top of QuickBooks Online, which keeps your books. It reads and writes jobs, cost codes, vendors, bills and invoices, so there's no migration.
- 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
- Dewatering benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.