A SECOND YARD, AND WHAT IT COSTS FIRST.
Opening a second yard or office adds fixed cost right away and revenue later. So the overhead rate in your bids is wrong from the day you sign the lease until somebody recalculates it. The cash side is harder than the overhead side. You pay a deposit, a buildout, duplicated small tools, a manager on payroll before there's work to manage, a second insurance schedule and stock on the shelves. All of that is spent before the location bills anything. Then the first job it wins still has to go through a full billing and collection cycle. The second location also needs its own cost codes. If it shares cost codes with the first one, you can't see it in any report you own. Answer one question before you sign. Does the location win work you can't serve today, or does it move work you already have into a more expensive place to operate from?
You look at this as a growth question, and it's a working capital question. Your read on the market the new yard opens up is usually sound. The part nobody prices is the eight or nine months when the location is fully staffed, fully leased and partly used. The cash from your first yard pays for all of it. A second location fails when the business is out of patience and out of cash at the same time, in month six.
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WHAT IT MEANS.
A second location is a second yard, shop or office. Financially, it's fixed overhead that starts the day you sign the lease, before the location has won any revenue.
There are good reasons to open one, and travel time is the best. Say your crews spend an hour each way to reach a market, or your material gets trucked past a competitor's yard to get to yours. A second location gives you those production hours back and lowers your cost per job. You can measure that return before you commit.
Some reasons don't hold up. A lease became available. A key person wanted to manage their own operation. One large customer asked you to be local. Each of those is a fixed cost you commit to because of something that can change. Customers move, and the lease doesn't.
WHAT THE SECOND ADDRESS DOES TO THE NUMBERS.
The overhead rate is wrong from the day the lease is signed
The overhead in your bid comes from your cost base, and a second location raises that base right away. Every bid you submit at the old rate after you sign the lease is priced without the lease, the manager, the second insurance schedule or the utilities. You still win the work and you still pay the cost. It comes out of margin, on jobs that never covered it.
The cash goes out months before the first invoice comes in
The deposit, the buildout, duplicated tools and small equipment, initial stock, and a manager hired before there's work to manage all get paid with no billing behind them. Then the first job from that location has to be performed, billed and collected. That's another cycle on top. You can add up the annual cost and still miss the order the cash goes out in. The order is what empties the account.
Nothing is coded to it, so nobody can tell whether it earns
If jobs from both locations share the same cost codes and the same overhead pool, no report in your business can separate them. Twelve months and a lot of money later, you decide whether to keep the second yard open based on how it feels. Location coding is a setup task that takes an afternoon. Do it before the first job.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
Say the lease is $3,500 a month. That's $42,000 a year. Add a yard manager at $75,000, who costs about $96,000 fully burdened. Add $8,000 of additional insurance and $6,000 of utilities and security. Add $12,000 a year for the duplicated small tools and equipment the second yard needs to work on its own. That's $164,000 of new fixed cost a year. You pay all of it from month one, whatever the location bills.
Say the deposit and first month are $7,000, the buildout is $35,000, tools and equipment are $60,000 and initial stock is $25,000. Add three months of the manager's burdened pay before the location has billable work, which is $24,000. That's $151,000 out the door before you send the first invoice. Then the first job bills 30 days after it starts and pays 60 days after that. Your original yard pays for all of it for most of a year.
Divide the added annual overhead by your own gross margin as a decimal. The answer is the added revenue the location has to produce to cover itself. Do that with the $164,000 above and your own margin. The revenue number is almost always larger than you expected. We don't publish a margin figure for that division, because gross margin depends on your trade and your revenue band. Use yours, from your own last twelve months.
WHAT GETS DECIDED BEFORE THE LEASE.
The full added fixed cost goes into the overhead rate. The new rate goes into the bids that go out the week after you sign the lease. It's the cheapest fix in the whole decision, because it takes an afternoon. It also means the jobs you win during the ramp-up are priced for the new cost. Most of the loss on a second location comes from jobs that weren't.
The deposit, buildout, equipment, stock and payroll go into the 13 week cash forecast in the weeks they'll be paid. The first collection from the new location goes in the week the cash will really be received. The forecast then gives you the low point. That number decides whether your business can support this at all. Most owners have never seen it before they commit.
Every job, every piece of equipment and every overhead item gets tagged to a location from the first day. Then the second yard has its own revenue, its own direct cost and its own share of overhead every month. You get a report for those twelve months, where you would have had an argument. You can also see the travel time saving you opened it for, which is usually where the real return is.
Write down what the location has to produce by month six and month twelve while everybody is still optimistic. Write down what happens if it doesn't. With a review date, the commitment is an investment. With no review, it's a fixed cost you keep paying for years, because closing it would mean admitting it was wrong. If the test is written down before you open, you can still make that decision later.
THE OUTPUTS, NAMED.
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. We don't bill by the hour, and we don't do payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is 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.
We build your plan every month. Your team does the work.
You get the CFO work: job costing built to match the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, WIP every month, and a monthly meeting that ends with decisions.
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.
We build the plan, track it and adjust it every month.
We only work with trade subcontractors. We know what to look for, and we fix problems while they're still small. 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 pay for it.
Our team does the bookkeeping and the reconciliations. We don't do payroll.
Strategic, plus a controller who handles payables and receivables the way an in-house controller would. You approve every payment.
We manage the money side for you, every week.
Everything in Strategic, plus our team does the controller work. We handle your bills and receivables the way an in-house controller would: we 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.
Our team does the payables and receivables. We don't do payroll, pay applications or collections.
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