Job costing software for low voltage and AV contractors
Low voltage and AV jobs are priced by the drop and the room, then billed on a schedule of values. Programming and return trips cost more than they look. CFOS costs cabling, gear and programming apart, job by job.
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How low voltage and AV bills and where the money leaks
New construction cabling and AV bill progress on a schedule of values, one pay app a month, with retainage held on each line. Most estimates are built per drop for cabling and per room or per system for AV, so a conference room, a classroom or a paging zone is its own line. Tenant improvement work is faster and often bills in a few draws, and moves, adds and changes after turnover bill as T&M.
The losses come from the building, not the bid. Ceilings get closed before your cable is pulled, so the crew comes back with a lift and cuts in. Owner-furnished displays and mounts come in the wrong size or late, and every return trip to finish one room is a mobilization the per drop price didn't include.
Drops get added on site all the time. The owner's IT person walks the floor and asks for a few more in the copy room, and your crew pulls them because the ceiling is open today. Without a signed ticket those drops are your cost, and over a whole building they add up to margin you never see.
How low voltage and AV costs split and what CFOS tracks
Low voltage cost splits into cabling labor, cable and connectivity material, AV equipment, programming, and testing and documentation. Cabling labor is the big number, and it moves with the building: open ceilings and clear pathways make a drop quick, and hard lid ceilings and occupied floors make it slow. AV equipment is a big purchase made once with lead times, and it needs its own code so it doesn't blur the labor result.
CFOS imports your estimate as the job budget by cost code and compares it to actual cost from QuickBooks Online, updated every hour. Seven cost types and three levels of cost code let you budget rough-in, cable pulls, terminations and certification as separate labor lines under each system. At closeout you can see what a drop cost you against what you priced it at.
Programming is the code owners forget to watch. A DSP or control system bid at a set number of hours can take far more when the owner keeps changing how the rooms should work, and programming time entered on its own cost code shows that overrun while the job is open. Bills emailed to your bills inbox are read, coded to the job and checked against the PO, so a pallet of cable or a rack of gear goes on the job it was bought for.
Workflow from the field to the office
The lead tech files a daily with the crew, the equipment and photos of what was pulled, terminated and mounted. Photos of open ceilings and finished racks are your record when a GC says the work wasn't ready before the ceiling closed. When a room wasn't ready for you, the daily shows the day it happened.
When the owner or GC asks for added drops, a moved display or another speaker, the tech writes a T&M ticket on the daily and the GC signs it on site. It becomes a change order draft for the next pay app. That's how the extra drops from a walk-through get billed instead of written off.
Field time is approved and goes to QuickBooks Payroll with the job and cost code, so pulling, terminating and programming hours stay apart. The PM builds the pay app from the schedule of values with stored materials for AV gear bought ahead, and retainage on each line. RFIs, submittals and punch items are tracked, so the last few wall plates and a missing label don't get lost between trips.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every open job, and it gets approved. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing, which tells you when you've paid for AV gear the GC hasn't paid you for yet. The master WIP puts every job on one page.
Your CEO Report grades gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against the published average and the CFOS target for low voltage and AV at your size. The 13 week cash forecast reads your QuickBooks and your pay apps and marks the lowest week. A big equipment order and a slow pay app in the same month are both visible there before payroll week.
Service work after turnover is worth its own jobs or cost codes, so T&M calls don't blend into the install margin. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about your own jobs, like which ones are over on programming hours. The answer is read only and limited to what your sign in allows.
Low voltage and AV 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 |
|---|---|
| Pathways and rough-in | J-hooks, sleeves, back boxes and firestopping at penetrations. |
| Horizontal cabling | Pulling copper drops from the rack to each outlet, labor by drop. |
| Backbone fiber and copper | Riser cable and fiber between telecom rooms, with its termination. |
| Terminations and connectivity | Jacks, patch panels, faceplates and termination labor. |
| Racks and telecom rooms | Racks, cable management, ladder rack and power strips. |
| Testing, labeling and documentation | Certification testing, labels, test results and as-built drawings. |
| AV equipment | Displays, projectors, speakers, DSPs and control hardware, including stored material. |
| AV install and mounting | Mounts, display and speaker installs, and the lift time to reach them. |
| Programming and commissioning | Control and DSP programming, system checkout and owner training. |
| Moves, adds and changes | Added drops and moved devices, coded apart and tied to the signed ticket. |
How low voltage and AV 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% Low voltage and AV 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 24% Low voltage and AV 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 8% Low voltage and AV 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 15% Low voltage and AV 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 25% Low voltage and AV 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 10% Low voltage and AV 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 14% Low voltage and AV 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 26% Low voltage and AV 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 12% Low voltage and AV 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 13% Low voltage and AV | 25.7% all-trade average 27% Low voltage and AV | 13.7% all-trade average 14% Low voltage and AV |
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 low voltage and AV 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 low voltage and AV contractors ask
Can I see what each drop costs against my per drop price?
Yes. Set pulling, terminating and testing as cost codes and bring the drop count in from your estimate with the budget. Approved time posts to those codes, so at closeout you can divide cost by drops and compare it to what you bid.
How do I keep AV programming from going over without anyone noticing?
Give programming its own cost code and have the programmer enter time against it. Budget against actual updates every hour from QuickBooks Online and approved time. You'll see the overrun on the job while there's still time to ask for a change order.
What about drops the owner adds on a walk-through?
The tech writes them on the daily as a T&M ticket and the GC signs it on site. It turns into a change order draft for the next pay app. If it isn't signed, the daily shows that before closeout.
Can I bill AV equipment before it's installed?
Where the contract allows it, AV gear goes on the schedule of values as stored material, with retainage by line. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing each month. That tells you how much of the gear you're still funding.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for a low voltage and AV 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
- Low voltage and AV benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.