NO JOB COSTING, NO WIP, NO VISIBILITY. THEN $2.6M IN PROFIT SHARING.
The revenue was real and the people were getting paid. Nobody could say on any given day whether the business was building wealth or just staying busy.
A $25M marine general contractor with no job costing, no WIP reporting, and no cash flow visibility built its US financial system from zero and finished the operating year distributing $2.6M in profit sharing while still posting over $1M in net profit. The chart of accounts had to reflect how marine work is estimated and executed, with mobilization, equipment by asset, dive labor separate from general labor, permit costs as direct job expense, and vessel operating costs allocated to projects. That specificity isn't cosmetic on this trade, because a single barge mobilization can be $200,000 or more of up front cost on a $2M project. Every cost code was built to match a line item in the bid, so actual costs post where the estimate predicted them or the variance is immediately visible. A rolling 13 week cash flow forecast updated weekly held the bank account above $1.2M all year, because a weather delay that pushes billing by two to four weeks became a planned event instead of an emergency. Ownership could see what the business could support before making commitments, which is the only way profit sharing at that scale gets paid with confidence.
The part most owners underestimate is mobilization cost recovery. On a complex marine project with several mobilization events, tracking those costs as they hit is the difference between a 15 percent margin and a 6 percent margin on the same contract.
This post is the year told as a story rather than as a proof file. Read The Marine Contractor Profit Infrastructure Case Study for the complete treatment, worked figures included.
MARINE GENERAL CONTRACTING IS AS COMPLEX AS IT GETS.
Marine general contracting is one of the most financially complex trades in construction. Mobilization costs are extreme: barges, dive crews, marine equipment, specialized permits, and tidal and weather constraints that add unpredictability to every schedule. Contracts are often structured around milestone completions tied to conditions no one fully controls, and the payment chain is no more forgiving than work on shore, just harder to manage from a floating platform.
A $25M marine general contractor came to us with a specific problem. Their US financial operations had no real structure. The business was producing revenue and it was paying its people, but there was no job costing system, no WIP reporting, no cash flow visibility, and no way for ownership to know on any given day whether the business was building wealth or just staying busy.
We built the financial system from zero. Here's what the business looked like a year later.
BUILDING FINANCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE ON A $25M OPERATION.
Starting a financial system from scratch on a $25M marine GC isn't a bookkeeping project. It's a financial architecture project. The chart of accounts has to reflect how marine work gets estimated and executed: mobilization costs, equipment costs by asset, dive labor separate from general labor, permit and regulatory costs as direct job expenses, and vessel operating costs allocated to specific projects.
Most accounting systems for contractors this size default to a generic structure that lumps these costs into broad categories. That works fine for a residential remodeler. It doesn't work for a company where a single barge mobilization can represent $200,000 or more in upfront cost on a $2M project, and where that cost needs to be tracked against the contract's payment structure to understand margin while the job is still running.
The job costing structure we built mirrored the estimating model, so every cost code in the books matched a line item in the bid. When actual costs came in, they posted where the estimate predicted they would, or the variance was immediately visible. That's what real job costing does: it turns surprises into data points you can act on before the job closes.
THE BANK ACCOUNT NEVER DROPPED BELOW $1.2M.
Once the financial system was operational and cash flow forecasting was in place, the bank account stabilized in a way ownership had never experienced before.
Marine GCs live with significant cash flow volatility by nature. A weather delay can push a billing cycle by two to four weeks. A permit issue can hold up the final payment on a multi-million dollar contract. Without forecasting, these events hit the bank account as emergencies. With a rolling 13 week cash flow forecast updated weekly, they register as planned shortfalls with a fix already decided before cash gets tight.
The result was a bank account that never dropped below $1.2M during the operating year. The forecasting told ownership when a shortfall was coming and they managed around it proactively instead of reactively.
WHERE MARINE GCS LEAVE MONEY ON THE TABLE: MOBILIZATION RECOVERY.
The place where marine GCs most consistently leave money on the table is mobilization cost recovery. Marine mobilization is expensive and highly visible in the estimate, because everyone knows the barge costs money to move.
But the full cost of mobilization, including demobilization, standby time, equipment repositioning between phases, and regulatory compliance costs specific to marine work, often doesn't make it into the contract in a form that's fully recoverable.
When mobilization costs are tracked at the job level as they're incurred, rather than estimated at project start and then forgotten, you can see whether you're recovering them through the billing structure or absorbing them into margin. On a complex marine project with multiple mobilization events, that tracking can be the difference between a 15% margin and a 6% margin on the same contract.
Same contract, same crews, same barge. A 15 percent margin or a 6 percent one, depending on what you tracked.
$2.6M IN PROFIT SHARING AND OVER $1M IN NET PROFIT.
At the end of the operating year, the marine GC distributed $2.6M in profit sharing to key personnel and still posted over $1M in net profit to the business.
That combination, meaningful profit sharing and meaningful retained profit, is what a financially healthy $25M contractor looks like. It's not one or the other. It's both, because the financial system makes it possible to see what the business can support before commitments are made.
Marine contracting attracts skilled people who have options, and competitive compensation keeps them. But profit sharing at that scale only happens when ownership knows with confidence what the business produced, rather than what the P&L reads on an accrual basis after year end adjustments. The system produced that confidence and the profit sharing followed.
THE SHORT LIST.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
