Job costing software for land clearing contractors
Land clearing is priced by the acre or the hour and paid for in machine days, wear parts and disposal. CFOS for QuickBooks costs mulchers, grinders, trucks and crews to the job. You see what an acre cost you to clear.
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How land clearing bills and where the money leaks
Land clearing is sold a few ways. Commercial and subdivision work is usually a lump sum or a price per acre, billed on a schedule of values with retainage when you work for a GC or a site contractor. Forestry mulching and small lots are often billed by the hour or the day straight to an owner, and right of way work can be priced by the acre along a route.
The price per acre comes from a walk of the site, and the timber on the site decides the cost. Heavier trees, more stumps or wetter soil than you saw mean more machine hours on the same acres. Wear parts like mulcher teeth, saw chains and tracks go faster in hard wood and rocky soil, and they're easy to buy on a card and forget to charge to the job.
Disposal is the other leak. Logs, chips and stumps have to be hauled, chipped, burned or spread, and tipping fees, burn bans and haul distance all change what that costs. Clearing past the flagged limits or damaging trees marked to save can bring fines and repairs that come out of your margin.
How land clearing costs split and what CFOS tracks
A clearing job spends on felling and cutting, mulchers, excavators with thumbs, dozers, grinders, trucks and trailers, operators and laborers, fuel, wear parts, burning and disposal. Equipment is the biggest cost by far, so it has to be charged to the job by the day. Timber sale money and log credits need a line of their own too.
CFOS reads your jobs, cost codes and vendors from QuickBooks Online and compares actual cost to your estimate by cost code, updated every hour. Cutting, mulching, grubbing and disposal each get their own budget. A job can look fine overall while grubbing stumps loses money, and the cost code view shows it.
Equipment daily rates are built from what each machine costs you to own, and the rate is charged to the job for each day it's on a daily. Teeth, chains and other wear parts can be coded to the job they were used on. Timber checks recorded in QuickBooks Online on the job show next to the costs they offset.
Workflow from the field to the office
The foreman's daily lists the crew, the machines, the area cleared and photos before and after. Photos of the flagged limits and the trees you left in place are your record if anyone questions what was cleared. Field time is approved and sent to QuickBooks Payroll, and the machines are charged to the job at their daily rate.
When the GC or owner asks you to clear past the original limits, grub an area that was supposed to stay, or haul off debris the bid left on site, 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. Hourly mulching jobs for an owner bill with an invoice in QuickBooks Online.
Fuel, tipping fees, wear parts and hired trucking bills are emailed to the bills inbox, read, coded to the job and checked against the PO. On commercial work the PM builds the pay app from the schedule of values with unit price lines for acres. The PM enters the acres cleared each period. CFOS lays out the G702 and G703 with retainage.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every job and you approve it. On clearing that number has to include grubbing, grinding and hauling the debris that's still in piles after the cutting is done. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing, so acres billed as cleared don't hide the disposal still to come.
No survey reports land clearing as its own trade, so in setup you pick the nearest comparable trade, sitework. The CEO Report grades your gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against its figures. A clearing company spends far more of each dollar on machines and wear parts than a typical site contractor. Your own job costing over a season is the real answer.
The 13 week cash forecast reads your QuickBooks and pay apps and marks the lowest week, which helps when a new mulcher head or a set of tracks is due before the GC pays. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about your own jobs, such as what wear parts cost per acre on the last three jobs. It reads your numbers and can't change them.
Land clearing 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 |
|---|---|
| Layout and tree protection | Flagging the limits, tree protection fence and survey for the clearing area. |
| Felling and cutting | Saw crews, fellers and excavators cutting timber, by area. |
| Forestry mulching | Mulcher time at its daily rate and operator hours. |
| Grubbing and stumps | Stump removal, grubbing and pulling stumps for grading. |
| Grinding and chipping | Tub grinder or chipper time, and spreading or loading chips. |
| Burning | Burn permits, air curtain burner time, fire watch and burn ban standby. |
| Hauling and disposal | Log and debris hauling, hired trucks and tipping fees. |
| Timber and log credits | Money from timber sales and log loads, recorded on the job. |
| Fuel and wear parts | Fuel, mulcher teeth, saw chains, tracks and other parts used on the job. |
| Mobilization and erosion control | Lowboy moves, silt fence and stabilization after the clearing. |
How land clearing contractors do, by revenue
No survey separates land clearing, so each row shows the all-trade average, the figures of sitework, 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 15% Land clearing, derived from sitework 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 18% Land clearing, derived from sitework 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 3% Land clearing, derived from sitework 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 14% Land clearing, derived from sitework 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 20% Land clearing, derived from sitework 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 6% Land clearing, derived from sitework 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 13% Land clearing, derived from sitework 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 22% Land clearing, derived from sitework 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 9% Land clearing, derived from sitework 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 12% Land clearing, derived from sitework | 25.7% all-trade average 24% Land clearing, derived from sitework | 13.7% all-trade average 12% Land clearing, derived from sitework |
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 land clearing 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 land clearing contractors ask
How do I bill clearing by the acre on a pay app?
Set up the schedule of values with unit price lines for acres and enter the acres cleared each period. CFOS lays out the G702 and G703 and tracks retainage. Lump sum lines for grubbing or disposal can be on the same pay app.
How do I see what mulcher teeth and wear parts cost on a job?
Code wear part bills to the job they were used on, on a fuel and wear parts line. The bills come to the bills inbox and are checked against the PO. Over a season you can compare wear parts per acre from job to job.
Can timber sale money count toward the job?
Record timber and log checks in QuickBooks Online on the job, on their own line. CFOS reads the job from QuickBooks Online, so the money shows next to the costs it offsets. You can see whether the timber value you counted on came through.
What about days lost to a burn ban?
The daily records the crew and machines for that day, and the cost goes on the burning code. If the plan has to change to hauling or grinding, a T&M ticket signed by the GC becomes a change order draft. Either way, you see what the ban cost.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for a land clearing 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
- Land clearing benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.