WHY CONCRETE CONTRACTORS ALWAYS FEEL CASH POOR.
Concrete contractors get paid slow and spend fast. Labor goes out weekly. Pours get billed after the pour completes. Retainage holds 10 percent until final acceptance. Material suppliers want 30 day terms while the GC pays in 45 to 60. That distance, between when you spend and when you collect, is structural, and it gets worse as you grow.
Concrete subcontracting has a tighter cash profile than most trades, and four structural factors drive it. They compound on each other on every active job, which is why a busy month can feel worse than a slow one. None of this is a discipline problem or a collections problem. It's arithmetic: the money goes out in weeks and comes back in months, and somebody has to fund the difference. Either it gets funded on purpose with a line of credit sized to the true float, or it gets funded by accident out of your own working capital.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Cash flow in concrete work is the distance between when you spend and when you collect, and in this trade that distance is structural rather than a management failure.
THE FOUR STRUCTURAL FACTORS.
Weekly labor with monthly billing
Concrete labor goes out every Friday. The billing event for that work happens once a month when the pay app is submitted. On a $400K concrete contract with 40 percent labor content, you're paying $160K in labor before you collect the first dollar. That distance is the definition of a working capital requirement, and most concrete contractors are running it without a line of credit sized to cover it.
Material supplier terms against GC payment
Ready mix suppliers typically run net 30 terms. The GC pays in 45 to 60 days. You're negative on concrete material cost for 15 to 30 days on every pour. Rebar suppliers often want faster payment or deposits on large orders, so the money you float between paying suppliers and collecting from the GC goes out every single cycle.
Pour completion billing structure
Most concrete SOVs are built around pour completions: foundations, slabs, and elevated decks. You mobilize, form, place rebar, and then pour. By the time the billing event triggers you've been on the job 3 to 4 weeks with 100 percent of the material cost and 80 percent of the labor cost already spent. The billing structure front loads the cash burn in a way the contract value never shows you.
Retainage on every pour
The GC holds 10 percent retainage through substantial completion. On a $2M concrete contract over 18 months that's $200K sitting in retainage for the duration. It's money you earned, and it doesn't reach the bank until final acceptance, which on large commercial projects can run 6 to 12 months after your last pour. Retainage is a mandatory loan to your GC at zero percent interest.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
The cash hole on a single $400K pour can run $60K to $80K before the first check comes in. A $400K contract at 40 percent labor content puts $160K of labor out the door ahead of collection, and a $2M contract over 18 months parks $200K in retainage for the whole job. Both numbers are set by the billing structure rather than by how well the crew performs.
A $4.9M concrete contractor was netting 3.3 percent before taxes, which is $161K on nearly $5M of revenue. CFMA's 2024 Construction Financial Benchmarker puts construction as a whole at 21.8 percent gross profit margin, 11.8 percent SG&A and 6.3 percent net income before taxes across all respondents, with the best-in-class top quartile at 11.9 percent before taxes. That contractor was running below the whole-industry average and nowhere near the top quartile, and those are averages rather than concrete targets. SPM holds a 10 percent net profit floor before taxes, which sits above the industry average and below the top quartile, because under 10 the business stops paying for the payroll and the personal guarantees the owner carries. The concrete figures for your own revenue band sit on /construction-subcontractor-financial-benchmarks-by-trade.
THREE THINGS THAT CHANGE.
Before the contract gets executed, negotiate a mobilization line at 5 to 10 percent of contract value billable at job start, plus a separate rebar and formwork material line billable at delivery. That compresses the time between spending and billing from 4 weeks to under 1 week on the first billing event. The leverage for this exists before the contract is signed, not after the SOV is locked.
Every active concrete job has a pour schedule, and that schedule is also a cash schedule: when material orders go out, when labor bills, when the pay app triggers, and when the money comes in. A 13 week forecast built from the true pour schedule shows the cash hole 8 to 10 weeks before it opens. That's enough time to draw the LOC in advance, negotiate a supplier extension, or accelerate a billing event.
Model the real float: labor float, meaning weeks of labor before the first collection, material float, meaning supplier terms minus the GC payment cycle, and the retainage balance across all active jobs. That total is the minimum LOC capacity the business needs to operate without stress. Most concrete contractors carry an LOC sized for a smaller company, or one that was set years ago when the jobs were smaller.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing, no payroll, and no add-ons.
Pricing
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee |
|---|---|
| Up to $1M | $1,900 to $2,900 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $3,900 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $5,700 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $7,100 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $8,500 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $11,000 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $13,500 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually |
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.
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 rather than a report.
Your bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Nobody in your office is answering coding questions or chasing a reconciliation at month end.
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 job costing.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
