WHY CIVIL CONTRACTORS LOSE MARGIN WITHOUT KNOWING IT.
Civil margin is lost to three specific things: the mobilization gap, the retainage stack, and iron that bills nothing. Civil subcontractors at $1M to $5M run 21 percent gross and 5.5 percent net, against CFOS targets at $1M to $5M of 23.5 percent gross and 10.5 percent net. All three are measurable, and all three are invisible without job costing that reads against the estimate.
Civil subcontractors at $1M to $5M net 5.5 percent; the CFOS target at $1M to $5M is 10.5 percent. The distance between the trade average and the CFOS target comes out of operations in this trade, never out of pricing. It lives in the three mechanisms below, each of which moves margin without appearing as a failure on any single job. Civil work front-loads cash out. Fuel, bond premiums, moves, and payroll run 60 to 90 days before pay app 1 clears. On a $2M job that's $150K to $200K spent before the first dollar returns. Fix: mobilization on its own schedule-of-values line, billed on pay app 1.
THE MATH BEHIND THE MISSING CASH.
The Mobilization Gap
Civil work front-loads cash out. Fuel, bond premiums, moves, and payroll run 60 to 90 days before pay app 1 clears. On a $2M job that's $150K to $200K spent before the first dollar returns. Fix: mobilization on its own schedule-of-values line, billed on pay app 1.
The Retainage Stack
5 to 10 percent held on every job. At a 5.5 percent net margin, a 10 percent hold locks the entire job profit until release, and three concurrent jobs lock six figures while payroll runs weekly. Fix: retainage tracked as its own receivable class, releases calendared, working capital sized to fund it.
Iron That Bills Nothing
Ownership cost runs parked or working. Roughly $200 per day for a CAT 330 sitting still, with industry idle rates near 30 percent. Bids built without an ownership rate give that money away. A $7.1M civil contractor recovered $779K in three months once equipment cost stopped being buried. (cfos-job-profitability-system) ---
WHAT CHANGES IN THE FIRST 60 DAYS.
| Metric | $1M to $5M | $5M to $10M | $10M to $25M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross margin, industry average | 21% | 23% | 25% |
| Gross margin, CFOS target | 23.5% | 25.5% | 27.5% |
| Net profit, industry average | 7% | 10% | 13% |
| Net profit, CFOS target | 10.5% | 13.5% | 16.5% |
| Overhead, industry average | 14% | 13% | 12% |
| Overhead, CFOS target | 13% | 12% | 11% |
Industry figures are Civil contractors' AVERAGE for each revenue band, not a floor. The CFOS net profit target is set at 10 percent before taxes or 3.5 points better than your trade's average at your revenue, whichever is higher, and the gross margin target is set at whatever gross margin produces that net profit once your overhead is paid, and never below your trade's own average. Gross minus overhead equals net on every column, so the rows tie out.
Gross margin and overhead come from figures CFMA, Jones Maresca and other sources publish by trade and size. Net profit is derived from them as gross margin minus overhead, so the three rows tie. That makes it an operating profit figure: what is left before interest, other income and expense, and the tax planning choices owners make, such as bonuses, depreciation methods and retirement contributions.
Surveys report net income before taxes after those items, so a reported net can run below the figure here. At the typical contractor the difference is small: CFMA's 2025 medians are 7.1 percent before interest and taxes and 6.7 percent net income before taxes. It grows with size. Against the separate measured net profit dataset, the calculated net runs 0.8 points higher at $1M to $5M, 2.2 points at $5M to $10M and 3.5 points at $10M to $25M, because the gross margin and overhead rows change faster with size than reported net profit does. The bands above the $10M to $25M band are published at runoncfos.com as a modeled extension of the same curves. They have not been reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker, and the calculated net there runs well above survey medians, so read them as a model and not as a survey result.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee | One-time onboarding |
|---|---|---|
| Up to $1M | $1,900 to $2,900 | $1,000 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $3,900 | $1,500 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $5,700 | $3,000 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $7,100 | $4,500 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $8,500 | $6,000 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $11,000 | $7,500 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $13,500 | $9,000 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually | Quoted individually |
The onboarding fee covers migrating your books back to the start of your last taxable year and getting you fully operational in 60 days. It's billed once, with your first invoice. It's the same for all three tiers. Your first month is prorated, and your monthly engagement starts on the first of the first full month.
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items. The onboarding fee is right here in the table.
You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions and never in a report.
Your bookkeeper still does the books.
You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Your office stops answering coding questions and stops chasing a reconciliation on the last day of the month.
We do the books. No payroll.
Every job shows its margin while it's still running.
Everything in Executive, plus the job costing and WIP platform set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed for you every month. You never have to learn it.
We do the books, the job costing, and the software. No payroll.
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