Job costing software for fiber contractors
Fiber work is paid by the unit: feet bored, feet lashed, splices and handholes. The pay waits on redlines and test results. CFOS for QuickBooks costs each crew and drill against the units you bid, job by job.
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How fiber bills and where the money leaks
Most fiber construction is unit price. You bill feet of bore, feet of aerial strand and lash, feet of fiber placed, each handhole and vault, each splice case and each fusion splice, and drops by the each. The rates come from the unit price list on the prime contract or the master agreement, and each work order or permit area bills against it.
The money goes missing between installed and invoiced. Footage gets placed this week, but the redlines, as-builts and OTDR or power meter results lag behind, and nothing gets paid until the closeout package is accepted. A crew can be weeks ahead of billing on a busy build, and every one of those weeks comes out of your bank account in payroll, fuel and drill payments.
Then there's the work the unit price doesn't cover. Rock in a bore, a frac-out, a damaged gas or water line, a pole that needs make-ready before you can lash, and restoration after the bore pits all cost real labor and equipment. If those aren't written up the day they happen, they get absorbed into the footage rate you bid for clean dirt.
How fiber costs split and what CFOS tracks
Fiber cost is mostly crews and iron. A directional drill, a vac excavator, a bucket truck and a splice trailer cost money every day they're on a job, producing or not. On a lot of builds the owner or the prime furnishes the fiber, conduit and splice cases, so your cost per foot is almost all labor and equipment, and that's the number to watch.
CFOS imports your estimate as the job budget by cost code and compares it to actual cost from QuickBooks Online, updated every hour. Equipment daily rates charge each drill, vac and bucket truck to the job on the days it's on a daily. With codes for boring, aerial, placing and splicing, you can see cost per foot on each activity instead of one blended total for the build.
Material you buy yourself, like conduit, handholes, locate wire and restoration stone, comes in on vendor bills. Bills emailed to your bills inbox are read, coded to the job and checked against the PO. Owner-furnished fiber never comes in on a bill, so it stays off your job cost and the margin you see is on what you paid for.
Workflow from the field to the office
The foreman's daily records the crew, the equipment, photos and the units installed that day: feet bored, feet placed, splices made. Those photos and counts become the backup for the redlines. When the closeout package is due, the office isn't calling the foreman to ask what got done on a street three weeks ago.
When the crew finds rock, an unmarked line or a pole that needs make-ready, the foreman writes a T&M ticket on that daily and the prime or the owner's rep signs it the same day. It becomes a change order draft for the next pay app, with the photos attached. Extra work that's signed the same day is a lot easier to get paid for than a claim at closeout.
Field time is approved and goes to QuickBooks Payroll with the job and cost code, so labor is posted to the activity it was spent on. Per diem and hotels for out of town crews can be coded to the job too, so a build two states away shows what it cost. For billing, you enter the accepted quantities against the unit price lines and CFOS builds the G702 and G703 with retainage, or you log the invoice for the prime's own system.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every open build, and it gets approved. The WIP schedule then shows over and under billing by job, and on fiber that number tells you how much installed footage is still waiting on closeout paperwork. A master WIP puts every build on one page.
Your CEO Report grades gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against the published average and the CFOS target for fiber at your size. The 13 week cash forecast reads your QuickBooks and your pay apps and marks the lowest week. When three crews are building faster than the paperwork, that's the week you'll see coming.
AR and AP aging with a collections list keep a slow-paying prime in front of you. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about your own jobs, like which builds are furthest behind on billing. The answer is read only and limited to what your sign in allows.
Fiber 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 |
|---|---|
| Permits, locates and traffic control | Right of way permits, locate tickets, traffic control plans and flaggers. |
| Directional boring | Drill, operator and crew time, drill fluid, tooling and rock bits, costed per foot bored. |
| Trench, plow and micro-trench | Open trenching, plowing and micro-trenching where the plans call for it. |
| Aerial strand and lash | Strand, lashing, bucket truck time and pole attachments. |
| Make-ready | Pole work and transfers of other attachments when it's in your scope. |
| Conduit, handholes and vaults | Conduit, pull tape, handholes, vaults and locate wire you buy yourself. |
| Fiber placement | Pulling, blowing or jetting fiber through conduit, by foot placed. |
| Splicing and testing | Fusion splicing, splice cases, OTDR and power meter testing, and retests. |
| Drops and installs | Service drops and installs at the customer, by the each. |
| Restoration | Bore pit and pothole restoration, sod, seed, and concrete or asphalt patch. |
How fiber 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% Fiber 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 22% Fiber 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 7% Fiber 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 14% Fiber 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 23% Fiber 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 9% Fiber 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 13% Fiber 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 24% Fiber 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 11% Fiber 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 12% Fiber | 25.7% all-trade average 25% Fiber | 13.7% all-trade average 13% Fiber |
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 fiber 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 fiber contractors ask
Can I see cost per foot bored against what I bid?
Yes, if boring has its own cost code. The foreman's daily puts the drill, the crew and the footage on that code, and approved time and equipment daily rates fill in the actual cost. You compare it to the estimate by cost code and see which conditions cost more than the rate you bid.
What if the owner furnishes the fiber and conduit?
Material you don't buy never comes in on a bill, so it stays off your job cost. Your budget covers the labor, equipment and material you do pay for. That keeps the margin on each build about your own work.
How do I keep installed footage from waiting on paperwork?
The daily records the units installed with photos, which gives the office the backup for redlines and the closeout package. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing by job each month. A build that's far underbilled is usually one where the closeout paperwork is late.
How are rock, frac-outs and make-ready handled?
Write them up on the daily as a T&M ticket and get the prime or the owner's rep to sign it the same day. It becomes a change order draft for the next pay app. You keep the ticket, the photos and every revision together.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for a fiber contractor?
No. CFOS works on top of QuickBooks Online and reads from and writes to it. QuickBooks keeps your books, and you still pay Intuit for it separately.
- 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
- Fiber benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.