Job costing software for striping contractors
Striping bills by the linear foot, the symbol and the stall, and one job can take five trips to finish. CFOS for QuickBooks costs paint, thermoplastic, trucks and crew to the job, so you see which jobs and which trips made money.
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How striping bills and where the money leaks
Highway and DOT striping is unit price: linear feet of line by width and material, each arrow and word, each raised marker, and linear feet of marking removed. Parking lot work is often a lump sum or a price per stall, with ADA symbols, curb paint and wheel stops priced as each. Most striping is a sub to a paving contractor or a GC, and the final quantity is measured at the end, so you bill what was measured instead of what you bid.
The leaks come from trips. Paving goes down in lifts, so you put down temporary markings after each one, come back for permanent paint, then come back again for thermoplastic once the asphalt cures. A bid that priced one or two mobilizations pays for none of the others unless they're in the contract.
Weather and traffic are the rest. Paint needs dry pavement and a minimum temperature, so a crew and a striping truck can be sent home after the lane closure is already paid for. Night work for traffic adds premium time, and a layout the GC changes after paint is down means removing it with a grinder and striping it again.
How striping costs split and what CFOS tracks
Striping spends on paint, thermoplastic, glass beads, preformed symbols and markers, the crew, and expensive equipment: a striping truck, a thermo kettle, a grinder or waterblaster for removal. Traffic control is often its own sub, with flaggers, arrow boards and lane closures. Material is cheap next to the truck and the crew, so the margin depends on how much footage each day puts down.
CFOS reads jobs, cost codes and vendors from QuickBooks Online and compares actual cost to the estimate by cost code, updated every hour. The estimate imports as the budget, so long line, symbols, markers, removal and traffic control each have a budget and an actual. Cost codes have three levels, so each phase or each parking lot in a program can be its own level under the job.
Equipment daily rates charge the striping truck, kettle and grinder to the job every day they're on a daily. The rate comes from what the machine costs you to own, so a day the truck spent parked for rain is visible instead of lost in overhead. Bills for paint, beads and thermoplastic are emailed to the bills inbox, coded to the job and checked against the PO.
Workflow from the field to the office
The crew lead writes the daily with the crew, the equipment, the footage and symbols put down, and photos. A photo of wet pavement or a lot full of cars is the record that a trip was lost to someone else. Each trip has its own daily, so the count of mobilizations is there when you ask the GC to pay for the extra ones.
When the GC changes the layout, adds parking spaces or asks for a removal and restripe, the work goes on a T&M ticket that the GC signs on site. It becomes a change order draft for the next pay app, priced from your T&M rate sheet. Change order numbers and revisions are kept, which helps when the measured quantity at the end doesn't match the plan.
Field time is approved and sent to QuickBooks Payroll, with wage classes and overtime for night work set up ahead. The PM builds the pay app from the schedule of values, with unit price lines for each width, symbol and marker, and retainage. Pay app due dates send reminders to the PM, which helps when a paving contractor pays you only after the owner pays them.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every open job, and you approve it. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing, and in striping it often shows temporary markings and early trips spent and not yet billed. The master WIP shows every job on one page, from a single lot restripe to a corridor that goes on for a season.
In setup you pick the nearest comparable trade, paving, and the CEO Report grades your gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against its figures. No survey reports striping on its own, and a striping shop's costs lean toward trucks and crew where a paving shop's lean toward material. Your own job costing is the real answer, and after a season you'll know what a foot of line and a trip cost you.
The 13 week cash forecast marks the lowest week from your QuickBooks Online and pay apps. Striping is seasonal, so the spring when you buy paint and bring crews back is the time to see the low week coming. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about your own jobs, read only, limited to what your sign in allows.
Striping 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 premarking | Survey layout, chalk lines and paint premarks, and redoing layout after plan changes. |
| Long line paint | Waterborne or solvent paint and glass beads by line width, with striping truck time. |
| Thermoplastic and preformed markings | Thermo by the pound, preformed tape, primer and kettle time. |
| Symbols, arrows and words | Stencils, preformed symbols, crosswalks and stop bars priced as each. |
| Raised pavement markers | Markers, adhesive and the labor to install them. |
| Marking removal | Grinder and waterblaster removal, and cleanup for removed lines and layout changes. |
| Temporary markings | Temporary paint and tape between paving lifts, and their removal. |
| Parking lots | Parking spaces, ADA symbols and signs, curb paint and wheel stops. |
| Traffic control | Flaggers, arrow boards, cones and lane closures, self-performed or subcontracted. |
| Mobilizations and return trips | Each trip of truck and crew to the job, tied to the daily that shows why. |
How striping contractors do, by revenue
No survey separates striping, so each row shows the all-trade average, the figures of paving, 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% Striping, derived from paving 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 20% Striping, derived from paving 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 6% Striping, derived from paving 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 13% Striping, derived from paving 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 22% Striping, derived from paving 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 9% Striping, derived from paving 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 12% Striping, derived from paving 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 23% Striping, derived from paving 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 11% Striping, derived from paving 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 11% Striping, derived from paving | 25.7% all-trade average 25% Striping, derived from paving | 13.7% all-trade average 14% Striping, derived from paving |
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 striping 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 striping contractors ask
How do I track a striping job that takes five trips?
Each trip has its own daily with the crew, the equipment and photos, and the cost goes to a mobilization code. If the contract or the GC pays for extra trips, a T&M ticket signed on site becomes a change order draft. If not, you still see what the extra trips cost before you bid that GC again.
Can I bill linear feet, symbols and markers on one pay app?
Yes. The schedule of values takes unit price lines and lump sum lines together. CFOS lays out G702 and G703 pay apps with retainage, and you bill the measured quantity on each line.
How are the striping truck and the kettle charged to jobs?
Each machine has a daily rate built from what it costs you to own. When it's on a daily for a job, that rate is charged to the job for the day. Operator time is added from approved field time.
Who pays to grind off lines when the layout changes?
Put the removal and the new lines on a T&M ticket and have the GC sign it on site. It becomes a change order draft for the next pay app. If the mistake was yours, the cost still goes on the removal code so you can see it.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for a striping contractor?
No. CFOS works on top of QuickBooks Online, which keeps your books. It adds job costing, dailies, pay apps and the monthly reports. Field time goes to QuickBooks Payroll.
- 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
- Striping benchmarks
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