Job costing software for environmental remediation contractors
Remediation is billed on a rate sheet or by the ton and directed day by day by a consultant. CFOS for QuickBooks costs crews, disposal, lab work and PPE to the job. Every billable hour gets on the bill.
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How environmental remediation bills and where the money leaks
Remediation work is often time and materials against a rate sheet with a not-to-exceed amount, or unit price for soil excavated and disposed by the ton. The environmental consultant directs the work and decides how far the excavation goes based on sampling results. The client can be a property owner, a GC, an insurer or a state cleanup fund, and each one reviews invoices differently.
The leaks are in the billing. A T&M job only pays for hours, equipment and materials that are on a signed daily sheet, and any hour left off is lost. Decon time, PPE changes, air monitoring and waiting on lab results are real costs that crews often leave off the sheet. When the not-to-exceed is reached, work past it may not be paid until someone approves more.
Disposal is the other one. Soil and debris are sorted by profile into non-hazardous and hazardous waste, and the rate per ton and the haul distance change with each. Waste that's reclassified after testing changes the cost of every load that follows.
How environmental remediation costs split and what CFOS tracks
A remediation job spends on trained labor, equipment, PPE and decon supplies, waste transport and disposal, lab analysis, air monitoring and subs for drilling or abatement. Many of those costs come in on vendor bills weeks after the work. Per diem and travel add up on jobs far from the shop.
CFOS reads your jobs, cost codes and vendors from QuickBooks Online and compares actual cost to your estimate by cost code, updated every hour. Disposal invoices, lab bills and rental bills emailed to your bills inbox are read, coded to the job and checked against the PO. You can then compare the tons you paid to dispose of with the tons you billed.
Equipment daily rates charge your excavators, skid steers, air scrubbers and trucks to the job each day they're on a daily. On a T&M job, those same days are what you bill. Seeing the cost and the billable days on the same job keeps the two in agreement.
Workflow from the field to the office
The foreman's daily records the crew, the equipment, loads shipped and photos of the work area. Field time is approved by the PM and sent to QuickBooks Payroll. Hours spent in decon and PPE changes go on the daily like any other work, so they make it to the bill.
When the consultant extends the excavation or adds work, the foreman puts a T&M ticket on the daily, and the consultant or GC signs it on site. It becomes a change order draft for the next pay app, which helps when a not-to-exceed amount needs to go up. The change orders page covers how numbers and revisions are kept.
On unit price or lump sum work, the schedule of values lists tons, cubic yards or phases, and CFOS lays out the G702 and G703 with retainage. COIs from your hauling and drilling subs are read when they come in and flagged when one is missing or about to expire. That keeps the paperwork current on sites where the client checks it.
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 is the number to watch when disposal invoices post weeks after the soil left the site. A job can look profitable until the landfill bills come in.
The CEO Report grades your gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against the published average for environmental remediation and the CFOS target for your size. It shows whether your rate sheet covers your real cost of labor, PPE and equipment. The 13 week cash forecast marks the lowest week from your QuickBooks and pay apps, which helps when a state fund or an insurer takes months to pay.
AR aging and a collections list keep slow-paying clients in front of you. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about any job, such as how many disposal tons were billed against tons paid. It reads your numbers and can't change them.
Environmental remediation 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 |
|---|---|
| Work plans and permits | Health and safety plans, work plans, permits and notifications before mobilization. |
| Mobilization and site setup | Equipment moves, decon pads, exclusion zone fencing and temporary facilities. |
| Excavation and loading | Excavators, loaders and operators removing impacted soil, with equipment daily rates. |
| Waste transport | Trucks and roll-offs by the load, tied to the manifests. |
| Waste disposal | Disposal by the ton, kept apart for non-hazardous and hazardous waste. |
| Sampling and lab analysis | Waste profiling, confirmation samples and lab turnaround charges. |
| Air monitoring | Monitoring equipment and technician time on the job. |
| PPE and decon | Suits, respirator cartridges, gloves, decon supplies and decon labor. |
| Backfill and restoration | Clean fill, compaction, topsoil, and paving or seeding to close the area. |
| Per diem and travel | Lodging, meals and travel time for crews away from home. |
How environmental remediation 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 16% Environmental remediation 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 23% Environmental remediation 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 7% Environmental remediation 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 15% Environmental remediation 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 24% Environmental remediation 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 9% Environmental remediation 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 14% Environmental remediation 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 26% Environmental remediation 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 12% Environmental remediation 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 13% Environmental remediation | 25.7% all-trade average 27% Environmental remediation | 13.7% all-trade average 14% Environmental remediation |
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 environmental remediation 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 environmental remediation contractors ask
How do I make sure every T&M hour gets billed?
Crew time goes on the foreman's daily and is approved by the PM. The equipment on that daily is charged at its daily rate. Extra work goes on a T&M ticket that the consultant or GC signs on site, and it becomes a change order draft, so the hours on the bill match the hours on the daily.
Can I compare disposal tons billed to tons paid for?
Yes. Disposal invoices go to your bills inbox, where they're coded to the job and checked against the PO. Your pay app lists the tons you billed. Putting non-hazardous and hazardous disposal on separate cost codes lets you see each one.
How do I track a not-to-exceed amount?
Set up the not-to-exceed as the job budget by cost code. Cost compared to budget updates every hour, so the PM can see the job nearing its limit. Extra work goes on a signed T&M ticket and a change order draft before the limit is passed.
Can lab and air monitoring costs go on the job?
Yes. Lab invoices and monitoring rental bills are coded to the job like any other bill. Give each its own cost code, and you see what testing cost against what you priced. That helps on the next bid with a long sampling program.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for my remediation 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
- Environmental remediation benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.