WHY CONCRETE CONTRACTORS CAN'T FIND WHERE THE MONEY WENT.
Labor cost per cubic yard is your production standard — what it costs in fully burdened labor to place, finish, and cure one yard of concrete on a given work type. Your estimate embedded a specific cost per yard for each phase. When actual cost per yard exceeds estimated, every yard over budget is a margin loss that compounds for the rest of the job. Most concrete contractors track total labor dollars against a lump budget and never see the per-yard variance until the job closes.
CFOS builds cost per yard into the weekly job review for every active concrete job. A phase running at $42/yard actual against $34/yard estimated has a problem that is visible in week 2 — not at final billing.
A concrete contractor running slab on grade, elevated deck, and wall panels on the same job has three fundamentally different production problems. Slab on grade runs at one labor rate per yard. Elevated deck involves different equipment, more setup, and higher risk — it runs at a different rate. Wall panels are different again. A single labor budget for all three means a $40,000 overrun on elevated deck is hidden inside a $180,000 concrete labor line that looks approximately on budget.
Phase-level cost codes that match the estimate structure — one code per work type — are the minimum requirement for concrete job costing to produce actionable data.
A concrete laborer at $28 per hour base costs $47 to $56 per hour fully burdened when employer payroll taxes, workers compensation, health insurance, and retirement contributions are included. Workers comp alone for concrete work runs 18 to 28 percent of wage in most states. A contractor who estimates labor at $28 base and incurs $52 actual is 85 percent over on every labor hour — before any production variance is factored in.
CFOS corrects the burdened rate first. A $4.9M concrete subcontractor netting $161,000 went to $1,112,000 net profit the following year after CFOS corrected the burdened labor rate and implemented phase-level tracking. Same revenue. Same crews. The number was always there. It was just invisible.
A concrete PM who sees a $38,000 labor overrun at job closeout has exactly one option: document it and move on. A concrete PM who sees a $4,200 labor variance in week 3 of a 14-week job has eight options — crew redeployment, production rate coaching, sequence adjustment, overtime authorization, change order review, back-charge evaluation, revised cost-to-complete, and an early conversation with the GC if conditions changed.
The difference between those two scenarios is not the variance. It is the timing. CFOS produces the per-yard cost by phase every Friday so the options are available before they expire.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Two tiers based on trailing 12-month revenue. No hourly billing. No payroll. No add-ons.
| Revenue | Core Financial | Executive Financial |
|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $1,900/mo | $2,900/mo |
| $1M–$3M | $2,600/mo | $3,600/mo |
| $4M–$6M | $3,800/mo | $5,500/mo |
| $7M–$9M | $5,100/mo | $6,900/mo |
| $10M–$12M | $6,100/mo | $8,500/mo |
| $13M+ | Quoted | Quoted |
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