A work in progress schedule lists every open job with what it's worth, what it will cost, how much of that cost you've spent, and how much you've billed. From those it computes percent complete, revenue earned, and whether each job is overbilled or underbilled. That last pair is the reason a surety asks for one at every renewal: a profit and loss statement can't tell anybody whether the profit on it was earned or collected ahead of work still to be performed. This template is the lender format, 100 job lines, five entries per job and 11 columns calculated.
The schedule tab carries no marks from us, because your bank and your bonding agent read that page and it should look like your document. The branded page is the instructions, which nobody outside your office ever sees.
GET THE WORKBOOK
100 JOBS. EMAILED AS AN ATTACHMENT.
Two tabs. A How To Use page with the whole method on it, and the schedule itself, which is the one your bank sees. Only the first 11 job lines show when it opens; the rest are collapsed behind one plus sign and every total still spans all 100.
One row per open job, 100 lines, with the unused ones collapsed behind a single plus sign and every total spanning all of them
Five entries per job: contract price including change orders, estimated total cost, cost to date, billed to date, and the description
Eleven columns calculated from those, including percent complete, earned revenue, and over and underbillings
A future WIP cash flow block that states what the backlog will release: revenue left to earn, cost to complete, gross profit left, and the net billing position
A branded How To Use tab, and a schedule tab with no marks on it, because your bank reads that one
Worth saying plainly, because this template came with the problem in it. Column C, estimated total cost, carried a formula that set it at 82.44 percent of the contract price on every line. Every job therefore reported the same 17.56 percent gross margin, whatever it was bid at and however it was running. It's now an entry, and it reads zero until you put your own number in.
That shortcut is in a lot of contractors' schedules and it makes the whole report decorative. A lender reads estimated profit as your estimate of what the job will make. If it's a fixed percentage, you've given him a page of arithmetic with no information in it, and percent complete is wrong on every line too, because percent complete is cost to date over estimated total cost.
Estimated total cost is this month's estimate of what the job costs to finish, from your job cost report.
It moves. A cost estimate that hasn't changed since the bid is why profit fade appears all at once at closeout rather than a little at a time.
Contract price includes every executed change order, and no pending ones.
Billed to date includes retainage held, and it has to agree with your receivables and your last pay application.
WHAT AN UNDERWRITER READS FIRST
OVERBILLED, OR UNDERBILLED.
Two columns, and between them they decide how the whole schedule reads. Everything else on the page is supporting evidence.
BILLINGS IN EXCESS OF EARNED REVENUE · OVERBILLING
You've invoiced more than the work you've completed. It funds you today, and it's a liability: the work behind that money still has to be performed, at whatever it ends up costing. A schedule that's heavily overbilled across every job is one a surety reads as borrowed capacity rather than earned strength.
EARNED REVENUE IN EXCESS OF BILLINGS · UNDERBILLING
Work performed and not yet invoiced. That's your own cash financing somebody else's project, and it's the cheapest money in your business to go and get, because you've already earned it and nobody has to agree to anything. Most contractors carry more of it than they expect, and it is usually a billing discipline problem rather than a dispute.
The schedule also closes with what the backlog will release: revenue left to earn, cost to complete, gross profit left to earn, and the net billing position. That block is the closest thing a contractor has to a forward view of cash out of work already sold, and it pairs with a 13 week forecast rather than replacing one.
BEFORE YOU SEND IT
FIVE CHECKS THAT TAKE A MINUTE.
Every open job is on it. A schedule missing a job is the first thing an underwriter catches, because he reconciles total contract value against your revenue.
Estimated cost is this month's number on every line, not the bid.
Billed to date agrees with your AR aging and your last pay application.
The report date matches the balance sheet you're sending with it.
Percent complete on each job looks like what the field would tell you if you walked out and asked.
That last one is the one that finds real problems. When the schedule and the superintendent disagree, the cost estimate is usually wrong rather than the field, and across 48 trades that's the most common single cause of a WIP schedule nobody trusts.
$10.7M+
Client AR Recovered Since 2023
48
Active Trade Specializations
60 DAYS
Average Onboarding Time
COMMON QUESTIONS
WIP SCHEDULES, ANSWERED.
A single page listing every open job with what it's worth, what it will cost, how much of that cost has been incurred, and how much has been billed. From those four numbers it computes percent complete, revenue earned to date, and whether each job is overbilled or underbilled. It's the only report that tells a contractor whether the profit on his statement has been earned or borrowed from work he hasn't performed yet.
Because a profit and loss statement alone can't tell them whether a contractor is collecting ahead of his work. A company can look profitable and be carrying millions in overbillings, which is money already spent against work still to be performed. The WIP schedule is the report that reveals it, and it's why a surety asks for one at every renewal and a bank asks with any line of credit review.
Five things per job: the description, the total contract price including every executed change order, your current estimated total cost to finish it, the cost incurred to date, and the amount billed to date. The other 11 columns calculate. Don't type over a calculated column, because it stops tying out and the reader who checks the arithmetic is the one you can't afford to lose.
100. Only the first 11 lines show when it opens and the rest are collapsed behind one plus sign in the left margin, so the sheet stays readable whether you run four jobs or ninety. Nothing collapsed is excluded from the totals: every formula spans all 100 lines.
Overbilling is billings in excess of earned revenue: you've invoiced more than the work you've completed. It funds you today and it's a liability, because the work behind it still has to be performed. Underbilling is earned revenue in excess of billings: work performed and not yet invoiced, which is your own cash financing somebody else's project. Underbilling is the cheapest money in your business to go and collect, and most contractors have more of it than they think.
No, and this is the most common defect in a contractor's WIP schedule. Setting estimated cost at a fixed percentage of contract value makes every job report the same gross margin regardless of what it was bid at or how it's running, which makes the whole schedule decorative. A lender reads estimated profit as your own estimate. It has to be your number, updated monthly from your job cost report.
Monthly, with the close. The workbook is built for that: books closed and bank reconciliations done by the 10th, then the WIP schedule updated against the closed month so the two agree. A schedule produced only when the bank asks for one is a schedule nobody has been managing from.
An email address that works, because the workbook is emailed to it as an attachment. Josh sees the request and may follow up once. There's no mailing list on this site, so you aren't subscribing to anything. If you would rather not give an address, the method is written out on this page in full and you can build the same schedule yourself in an afternoon.
Former commercial project manager and master electrician: 150+ projects worth $2.1B combined, from $50,000 to $300M. Now fractional CFO to commercial subcontractors.
