Job costing software for shoring and shielding contractors
Shoring and shielding bills rental by the period and installs on a schedule of values, and the costliest work often comes last when the sheets come out. CFOS for QuickBooks costs your steel, trucks and crews to the job.
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How shoring and shielding bills and where the money leaks
Shoring work comes in two kinds. Trench boxes, slide rail, hydraulic shores and road plates are rented by the day, week or month, with delivery, pickup and engineering billed on top. Engineered shoring like soldier pile and lagging, sheet piling and tiebacks is installed under a lump sum or a price per square foot of wall, billed on a schedule of values with retainage.
On the rental side, the leak is equipment that stays on a job past the period that got billed. A box left in a trench for an extra month earns nothing if no one bills it, and a missing spreader or bent panel is your cost if no one photographed it going out. Delivery and pickup trips to small jobs add up when they aren't charged.
On installs, the leaks are below grade. Obstructions, rock or water slow the drill or the hammer, and tiebacks and bracing grow when the excavation goes deeper. Extraction comes at the end, after most of the money has been billed, and piles that can't be pulled have to be cut off and left.
How shoring costs split and what CFOS tracks
A shoring job spends on engineering and design, your own boxes, rail and sheets, shoring rented from other suppliers, trucking, drill rigs and hammers, crane time, piles and lagging, tiebacks and walers, monitoring, and extraction. Your own steel is the biggest cost. It costs money every day it's on a job, whether the trench is open 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, rental, trucking and extraction each get their own budget. Re-rented shoring and steel purchases come in as bills and are coded to the job.
Equipment daily rates are built from what each box, rail set, drill and hammer costs you to own. That rate is charged to the job for each day the equipment is on a daily. A job that kept your steel twice as long as planned shows the cost on the job instead of in the yard.
Workflow from the field to the office
The crew's daily lists the crew, the equipment and photos. Photos of every box and rail set at delivery and at pickup are your record for damage and missing parts. On installs, the daily records the piles driven or drilled, the lagging set and anything that slowed the rig.
When the GC asks to keep shoring longer, extend a wall or add bracing because the dig went deeper, 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. Field time is approved and sent to QuickBooks Payroll.
Re-rent invoices, steel bills and trucking bills are emailed to the bills inbox, read, coded to the job and checked against the PO. For installs, the PM builds the pay app from the schedule of values with install, rental and extraction lines, and CFOS lays out the G702 and G703 with retainage. Rental lines can recur every period so they get billed on time.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every job and you approve it. On shoring that number has to include extraction, cutting off piles that stay and hauling steel home. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing, so an install billed early doesn't look finished before the sheets are out.
No survey reports shoring and shielding 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 company that owns a yard full of steel spends differently from a dirt contractor. Your own job costing is the real answer.
The 13 week cash forecast marks the lowest week from your QuickBooks and pay apps, which helps when a sheet pile buy is due before the first install pay app. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about your own jobs, such as what damage and lost parts cost across last year's rentals. It reads your numbers and can't change them.
Shoring and shielding 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 |
|---|---|
| Engineering and design | Shoring design, stamped drawings and tabulated data for the depth. |
| Trench boxes and slide rail | Your boxes, rail sets and spreaders at their daily rate on the job. |
| Re-rented shoring | Boxes, shores and plates rented from another supplier, checked against the PO. |
| Delivery and pickup | Trucking to and from the job, including extra trips for swaps. |
| Soldier piles and lagging | Piles, lagging, drilling and the drill rig at its daily rate. |
| Sheet piling | Sheets bought or rented, the hammer, crane time and the driving crew. |
| Tiebacks and bracing | Tiebacks, walers, struts and testing. |
| Monitoring | Deflection readings and inspections of installed shoring. |
| Extraction and removal | Pulling sheets and piles, cutting off steel that stays, and hauling home. |
| Damage and lost parts | Bent panels, missing pins and spreaders, and repairs, backed by delivery and pickup photos. |
How shoring and shielding contractors do, by revenue
No survey separates shoring and shielding, 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% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 21% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 7% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 13% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 23% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 10% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 12% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 24% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 12% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 11% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation | 25.7% all-trade average 26% Shoring and shielding, derived from excavation | 13.7% all-trade average 15% Shoring and shielding, 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 shoring and shielding 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 shoring and shielding contractors ask
Can I bill rentals by the period and installs on a schedule of values?
Yes. Rentals can be their own jobs billed with invoices, or recurring lines on a schedule of values. Installs use lump sum or unit price lines, and CFOS lays out the G702 and G703 with retainage. Both kinds of work show on the same WIP schedule.
How do I charge for damaged or missing parts?
Photograph the equipment on the daily at delivery and again at pickup. The repair or replacement goes on the damage code for that job. The photos are your record when you bill the customer for it.
How do I count the cost of pulling sheets at the end?
Give extraction its own cost code and budget from the start. The PM keeps it in cost to complete every month until the steel is out. The WIP schedule then counts it before the job looks done.
How is shoring I re-rent from another supplier coded?
The supplier's invoice comes to the bills inbox, is read, coded to the job's re-rent line and checked against the PO. You see re-rent cost next to what you billed for it. That tells you when buying more of your own steel makes sense.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for a shoring company?
No. QuickBooks Online keeps your 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
- Shoring and shielding benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.