THE FINANCIAL BID DECISION.
The go/no-go bid decision is one of the most consequential financial decisions a subcontractor makes, and most make it on whether they have capacity and whether the margin looks right. The financial analysis that should drive the decision goes deeper: can you fund this project, does it fit inside your bonding program, what does the GC's payment history look like, and what does taking this project do to your cash flow over the next 90 days?
The estimate answers one question, which is what the work costs to build. It doesn't answer whether the business can support the job. Those are different questions and they get answered by different documents. Cost comes off the takeoff, and capacity comes off the balance sheet and the 13-week forecast. A sub who only looks at the takeoff wins jobs that turn into cash problems in month two, and the margin was never the reason. Bidding well means doing both checks before the number goes out.
Want Josh to check your own numbers? Financial Health Snapshot, $1,500 one time. Your last 12 months read against your trade's benchmarks, with a 60 minute readout.
WHAT IT MEANS.
The go/no-go bid decision is the financial call about whether your company can fund, bond, and absorb a project, made before the estimate ever goes out the door.
WHERE THE GO OR NO-GO BREAKS DOWN.
You're bidding everything that comes across your desk
Bidding everything feels like maximizing opportunity. In practice it spreads your estimating hours across projects with very different risk profiles, win probabilities, and financial impacts. The best subcontractors bid selectively, pursuing projects where the financial fit is right and turning down the ones where the risk against the reward isn't worth the estimating time.
You won a project that broke your cash flow
The project margin looked right and the scope was in your wheelhouse, so you won it. Then the mobilization cost, the pay-when-paid terms, and the timing against two other project starts turned into a cash flow crisis in month 2. The financial analysis that belonged in front of the bid decision would have caught all three.
You don't have a structured go/no-go process
Most subcontractors evaluate bids one at a time without a consistent framework. The result is inconsistent bidding: pursuing risky projects because the revenue looks attractive and turning down good projects because the timing felt wrong that week. A structured financial go/no-go makes the decision repeatable and improves the quality of the whole bid book over time.
THE ANALYSIS THAT GOES BEFORE THE BID.
Question one is cash flow. What's the maximum working capital this project will require in the first 90 days, and does your current position plus available credit cover it alongside the active jobs?
Question two is bonding. Does this project fit inside your remaining bonding capacity without crowding out a better opportunity next month?
Question three is GC risk. What's this GC's payment history, and what does it cost you to finance the project at his payment pace?
Question four is concentration. Does this project put more than 30 to 40% of your revenue in a single relationship, and is that concentration risk one you're willing to take on?
For significant bids we perform the four-question analysis before the decision gets made. That means modeling the cash flow impact of the new project against your 13-week forecast, confirming bonding capacity headroom, pulling GC payment history out of ControlQore, and flagging concentration risk. You make the bid decision with the financial picture in front of you instead of a gut feel about whether you can handle it.
For clients with an active bidding program we maintain a bid calendar showing the cash flow and bonding impact of having several bids out at once. When three awards could come in the same month, you can see what winning all of them, some of them, or none of them does to cash. Strategic bid decisions need portfolio-level visibility, not one project at a time.
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. The one-time onboarding fee is right here in the table.
Built for subs doing $1M to $12M. Above $12.5M we quote.
| Last 12 months revenue | Core | Strategic | Platinum | One-time onboarding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $1,900 | $3,100 | $3,300 | $2,500 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 | $4,100 | $5,300 | $4,500 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 | $5,900 | $8,300 | $6,000 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 | $7,600 | $11,800 | $7,500 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 | $8,900 | $14,900 | $9,000 |
| Above $12.5M | Quoted | Quoted | Quoted | Quoted |
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, and it moves with your revenue band. Your first month is prorated, and your monthly engagement starts on the first of the first full month.
Just want the setup? Onboarding only is the same onboarding work with no monthly service after it, one time, at the onboarding fee plus $2,000. Start a monthly engagement later and $2,000 counts toward it. It starts at $4,500, and the price for every band is on the pricing page.
The three tier columns are the whole price. Which one fits 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.
- Online software only: QuickBooks, Sage, Viewpoint and similar. No VPN or hosted desktop.
- Not in any tier: payroll, pay applications, collections on receivables.
- Pricing valid through 2027.
CFO work. Your own bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
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.
Core, plus bookkeeping and bank reconciliations, plus job costing and WIP software set up and managed for you. Use your own online accounting software or we supply it, one price.
Every job shows its margin while it is still open.
Everything in Core, plus the bookkeeping and bank reconciliations done for you, and the job costing and WIP software set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed every month. Use your own online software, or move to ours and we cover it.
A bookkeeper we choose does the books and reconciliations. No payroll.
Strategic, plus a controller who handles payables and receivables the way an in-house controller would. You approve every payment.
You approve, and the money side gets handled.
Everything in Strategic, plus a controller we choose who handles your bills and receivables for you the way an in-house controller would. They call vendors, pay the bills and keep the accounting current. We plan the cash flow first, and you approve every payment because it is your money.
A controller we choose does the payables and receivables. No payroll, no pay applications, no collections.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
