Job costing software for tunnel contractors
Tunnel and trenchless work is billed by the foot of bore and by the pit, and paid for by the day in machines and crews. CFOS for QuickBooks costs each bore, pit and machine day to the job.
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How tunnel work bills and where the money leaks
Tunnel and trenchless contractors usually bid per linear foot of bore by diameter, with launch and receiving pits as lump sums or each items. That covers jack and bore under roads and rail, microtunneling, pipe ramming and tunnels mined with liner plate. You're often a sub to the utility contractor or GC, paid on measured footage once the casing or carrier pipe is in place.
Your costs move by the day, not the foot. A machine that makes good footage on day one can hit cobbles, a boulder or water on day two, and the crew and equipment cost the same while footage drops. Obstructions, stuck heads and rescue pits are expensive, and when the soil report didn't show what you hit, getting paid depends on a differing site conditions claim.
Setup is the other cost. Pits, shoring, dewatering, thrust walls, slurry plants and the machine move all happen before the first foot is billed. If the job has several short drives, each setup is paid out of a price you set by the foot.
How tunnel costs split and what CFOS tracks
A tunnel job spends on the boring machine or auger rig, its operators and crew, casing and carrier pipe, pit excavation and shoring, dewatering, slurry or spoil disposal, grout and cranes. The machine is the biggest daily cost, whether it's moving forward or waiting. Pipe and casing come from suppliers on bills, often weeks before the drive starts.
CFOS reads your jobs, cost codes and vendors from QuickBooks Online and compares actual cost to the estimate by cost code, updated every hour. Each machine gets a daily rate built from what it costs you to own, and that rate is charged to the job on every day it's on a daily. A machine parked behind a stuck drive for two weeks is then a cost on that job, not in overhead.
Set up separate codes for each drive and each pit, and you see the cost per foot by drive. A job with three bores can make money on two and lose it all on the third. The cost code view shows which one.
Workflow from the field to the office
The foreman's daily records the crew, the equipment, footage advanced, notes on what came out of the bore, and photos. Field time is approved by the PM and sent to QuickBooks Payroll, and on public work the certified payroll week is laid out from approved time. Deductions stay with your payroll company.
When the drive hits an obstruction or water the soil report didn't show, the foreman puts a T&M ticket on the daily with photos of what came out. The GC signs it on site, and it becomes a change order draft for the next pay app. The dailies, photos and tickets together are the record a differing site conditions claim needs.
Casing, carrier pipe and grout bills come to your bills inbox by email, and CFOS reads them, codes them to the job and checks them against the PO. On billing, the schedule of values lists footage by drive and each pit as its own line. CFOS lays out the G702 and G703 with retainage, and stored pipe can be billed where the contract allows.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every job and you approve it. The WIP schedule shows over and under billing, which is the number to watch when pits and setup are spent and the footage hasn't been billed yet. A master WIP puts every job on one page.
The CEO Report grades your gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against the published average for tunnel work and the CFOS target for your size. It shows whether your price per foot covers the setups and slow days across a full year. The 13 week cash forecast marks the lowest week from your QuickBooks and pay apps, so a stuck drive doesn't surprise you at payroll.
AP aging shows which pipe, crane and rental bills are due soon. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT about any job, such as cost per foot on each drive. It reads your numbers and can't change them.
Tunnel 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 |
|---|---|
| Mobilization and machine moves | Moving the boring machine, auger rig, slurry plant and cranes to each job and each pit. |
| Launch and receiving pits | Pit excavation, shoring, thrust walls and backfill, coded by pit. |
| Dewatering | Wells, pumps and discharge permits for pits and drives below the water table. |
| Boring and tunneling | Machine daily rate, operators and crew, coded by drive. |
| Casing and carrier pipe | Steel casing, carrier pipe, spacers and end seals by size. |
| Slurry and spoil disposal | Slurry separation, spoil haul-off and disposal fees. |
| Grouting | Annular grout, contact grout, and the pump and crew time. |
| Obstructions and rescue | Boulders, rescue pits and recovering a stuck head, tied to a signed T&M ticket. |
| Cranes and support equipment | Cranes, generators, compressors and lights charged by the day. |
| Survey and guidance | Line and grade setup, guidance system checks and as-builts. |
How tunnel 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% Tunnel 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 23% Tunnel 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 7% Tunnel 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 15% Tunnel 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 24% Tunnel 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 9% Tunnel 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 14% Tunnel 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 25% Tunnel 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 11% Tunnel 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 13% Tunnel | 25.7% all-trade average 26% Tunnel | 13.7% all-trade average 13% Tunnel |
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 tunnel 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 tunnel contractors ask
Can I see cost per foot on each bore?
Yes. Set up each drive as its own cost code and import your estimate as the budget. The daily puts crew and machine time on the drive, and the footage goes on the pay app. You compare cost per foot to what you bid on each one.
How are boring machine and auger rig costs charged to the job?
Each machine gets a daily rate built from what it costs you to own. On every day it's on a daily for a job, that rate is charged to the job, whether it moved forward or waited. Operator time comes from approved field time on the same code.
What records help with a differing site conditions claim?
You'll want the foreman's daily with photos of what came out, the T&M ticket the GC signed on site and the change order draft it became. Cost on the obstruction code shows what the delay cost. The office keeps all of it with the job and its revision history.
How do I bill pits and footage on the same pay app?
The schedule of values can list launch and receiving pits as lump sum or each lines, and footage by drive as unit price lines. CFOS lays out the G702 and G703 with retainage each period. Stored casing can be included where the contract allows.
Does CFOS replace QuickBooks Online for my tunneling company?
No. QuickBooks Online keeps the 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
- Tunnel benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.