Job costing software for telecom contractors
Telecom work comes in one site at a time, each on its own PO, and pays only after the closeout package is accepted. CFOS for QuickBooks costs crews, travel and lifts to each site so you can see which ones made money.
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How telecom bills and where the money leaks
Wireless and tower work is billed per site against a purchase order from the carrier or the vendor managing the market. A scope like an antenna and radio swap, a new carrier install or a tower modification has a set price, and extras go on a PO revision. Inside plant work, like a DAS system or a central office job, is often billed per site or by milestone the same way.
The leak is billing that waits on paperwork. Nothing invoices until the closeout package is accepted: photos, sweep and PIM test results, as-builts and the material reconciliation. A crew can finish a site in a few days and wait weeks to bill it, and when a test fails, the crew goes back at your cost before the package can be resubmitted.
Then there's work done before the paper. Crews often mobilize on a verbal go-ahead while the PO is still being written, and scope added on the tower doesn't always make it into the revision. Every site with work done and no matching PO is money you may never see.
How telecom costs split and what CFOS tracks
Telecom cost is mostly crews, travel and equipment. Tower crews work in teams, often far from home, so hotels, per diem and fuel are a real share of each site's cost. Cranes, lifts and test gear are the next biggest pieces, and the carrier often furnishes the antennas and radios, so your own material is mostly mounts, hardware and consumables.
CFOS imports your estimate as the job budget by cost code and compares it to actual cost from QuickBooks Online, updated every hour. Each site can be its own job, so you can see which sites made money instead of one total for the market. Equipment daily rates charge trucks, trailers and owned lifts to the site on the days they're on a daily.
Bills emailed to your bills inbox are read, coded to the job and checked against the PO. Hotel bills, crane rentals and fuel for a crew moving between sites get coded to the site they belong to. Travel then becomes part of each site's cost, and overhead stays clean.
Workflow from the field to the office
The crew lead files a daily with the crew, the equipment and photos for each site. Those photos are the same ones the closeout package needs, so the office can start the package the day the work is done. The daily also gives you a dated record of weather days and tower access delays.
When the scope changes on the tower, like an added mount, a different cable or a rigging plan that needs a crane, the crew lead writes a T&M ticket on the daily and the customer's site rep signs it the same day. It becomes a change order draft, which gives the office what it needs to ask for the PO revision. Extra work with a signature is much easier to get on a PO than extra work someone remembers later.
Field time is approved and goes to QuickBooks Payroll with the site and cost code, including travel time between sites. The PM tracks each site from start to closeout, and the invoice goes out from QuickBooks or is logged for the customer's own portal. Punch items and retests are tracked, so a failed sweep test gets a retest on the schedule and stays on the list until it passes.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every open site, and it gets approved. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing, and on telecom the underbilled column is your list of finished sites waiting on closeout. The master WIP puts every site and market on one page.
Your CEO Report grades gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against the published average and the CFOS target for telecom at your size. The 13 week cash forecast reads your QuickBooks and your open invoices and marks the lowest week. When crews are spending on hotels and fuel faster than closeouts get approved, that's the week you'll see coming.
AR aging with a collections list keeps accepted sites from waiting on payment longer than the terms allow. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about your own jobs, like which sites are finished and not yet invoiced. The answer is read only and limited to what your sign in allows.
Telecom 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 |
|---|---|
| Site mobilization and travel | Hotels, per diem, fuel and travel time for the crew going to each site. |
| Tower climbing labor | Climber and tower crew hours on antenna, radio and line work. |
| Mounts and hardware | Mounts, brackets and hardware you supply, kept apart from carrier-furnished equipment. |
| Lines and jumpers | Coax, hybrid cable and fiber jumpers, install and weatherproofing. |
| Cranes and lifts | Crane days, rigging, man lifts and their operators. |
| Tower modifications | Structural reinforcement and mount upgrades built to the engineered drawings. |
| Power and cabinets | Power plant work, batteries, cabinets and site bonding. |
| Testing and commissioning | Sweep and PIM testing, fiber testing and retests after a failed result. |
| Closeout documentation | Photo packages, as-builts, test reports and material reconciliation. |
| Change orders and T&M | Added scope on a site, tied to the signed ticket and the PO revision. |
How telecom 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% Telecom 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 22% Telecom 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 7% Telecom 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 14% Telecom 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 23% Telecom 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 9% Telecom 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 13% Telecom 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 24% Telecom 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 11% Telecom 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 12% Telecom | 25.7% all-trade average 25% Telecom | 13.7% all-trade average 13% Telecom |
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 telecom 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 telecom contractors ask
Can each tower site be its own job?
Yes. Set each site up as a job in QuickBooks Online under the customer, and CFOS reads it with its cost codes. Crews, travel, equipment and bills go on the site they belong to, so you see the margin by site and not just by market.
How do I see sites that are finished but not invoiced?
The WIP schedule shows over and under billing by job each month. A finished site with no invoice shows as underbilled. That list tells the office which closeout packages to finish first.
How are hotels and per diem costed?
Code them to the site the crew was working on, from the bill or the expense in QuickBooks Online. Travel time is entered by the crew and approved like any other time. The site's job cost then includes what it took to get the crew there.
What about scope added on the tower before the PO revision?
The crew lead writes it on the daily as a T&M ticket and the customer's rep signs it the same day. It becomes a change order draft with the photos attached. The office uses it to ask for the PO revision.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for a telecom 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
- Telecom benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.