CONTROLQORE FOR ELEVATOR CONTRACTORS.
Generic accounting software can't report profit on one elevator for one month, rank callback cost by unit age, or read modernization cost by phase while the crew is still in the hoistway. ControlQore can.
ControlQore for elevator contractors runs two books inside one system. On the maintenance side every contract unit is its own cost object, so a full-maintenance unit billing $500 to $1,200 a month is measured against the visits, callbacks, parts, and mechanic hours that unit consumed. On the project side, modernization and new installation carry cost codes by phase, meaning equipment procurement, hoistway work, install labor, and testing and inspection, with equipment deposits and stored material billed on the schedule of values. The WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete on the project side only.
The difference isn't the report list. It's whether the book can be read one unit at a time. A portfolio P&L tells you the maintenance side made money, and the maintenance side usually does, which is part of why this trade carries the strongest net profit floor of all 48 in the SPM dataset at 8.5 percent before taxes for contractors doing $1M to $5M. Per-unit contract P&L tells you which cars are paying for the rest. Full-maintenance pricing is an actuarial bet, and you can't reprice at renewal what you never measured.
THE NUMBERS GENERIC SOFTWARE MISSES.
WHAT IT IS.
ControlQore is a job costing and WIP platform for contractors that tracks cost by job and cost code, so an elevator contractor can read contract profit per unit per month on the maintenance book and cost per phase on a modernization while the work is still running.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG.
The Portfolio Priced Flat Across Unit Ages
Full-maintenance contracts run $500 to $1,200 per traction elevator per month and $400 to $900 hydraulic at published market rates, and they're structured like an insurance policy: the contractor assumes responsibility and sets the visit cadence. That's a bet on callback rate, and callback rate moves with unit age, door abuse, and construction debris. A book priced flat across a mixed-age portfolio is subsidizing its worst cars with its best, and without cost captured per unit there's nothing to reprice against at renewal.
The Maintenance Book and the Project Wing in One P&L
Maintenance bills small and recurring, twelve times a year, on the contractor's own schedule. Modernization and new installation ride the general contractor world instead, with long equipment leads, deposits out the door before anything is billable, pay applications, and retainage held to final acceptance. Blended into one statement, a strong recurring book covers project overruns for months. The owner sees a business that works and can't tell which half is carrying the other.
Idle Crews on a Hoistway That Was Not Ready
On installs and modernizations the elevator crew waits when the shaft, the pit, or the power isn't ready, and that wait is the single most expensive thing in the trade because licensed mechanics are scarce and union-rate in much of the market. With no cost code to absorb it, the standby hours disappear into a labor variance that reads like the crew was slow. Undocumented delay is also unrecoverable delay, because a claim made at closeout has no dated record behind it.
No Read on Which Equipment You Can Profitably Serve
OEM proprietary controllers, diagnostic software, and tools sold for as much as $10,000 define who can service what, and equipment newer than roughly 15 years often locks independent providers out entirely. Every proprietary install shrinks the serviceable universe. Without equipment type and age carried as job attributes, the maintenance book can't answer the strategy question this trade lives on: which part of the installed base earns its keep, and which part is being covered at oil-and-grease economics.
WHAT WE BUILD.
SPM builds ControlQore so that every elevator under contract is its own cost object rather than a line inside a route. Contract revenue, scheduled visits, callbacks, parts, and mechanic hours post to that unit. Monthly reporting produces contract P&L per unit, which is the number the whole trade turns on. A unit running below the rate it was priced at is visible in the month it happens rather than at the end of a three-year agreement.
Once twelve months of per-unit cost exists, the portfolio can be repriced from actuals and not from the last renewal letter. Callback rate, visit cost, and parts exposure get read by unit age and equipment type, and the units that lose money get repriced, moved to a coverage level that fits, or released. Full maintenance and oil and grease are two different bets, and oil-and-grease contracts run 20 to 40 percent below full maintenance, so the coverage decision is a pricing decision.
Projects get their own cost code structure in ControlQore: equipment procurement, hoistway work, install labor, testing and inspection, and punch. Equipment deposits and stored material are billed on the schedule of values rather than funded out of the maintenance book. SPM reviews the schedule of values before signing so the deposit and stored-equipment lines exist, because a long-lead controller ordered against a milestone that pays at completion is a cash hole the recurring book has to fill.
ControlQore carries a cost code for standby and readiness delay, and the crew logs it against the job with the date and the condition. That turns idle mechanic hours into a documented claim while the general contractor still has a reason to talk about it. State inspection work gets the same treatment: test witnessing, violation corrections, and code-driven upgrades come on the state's schedule, and they belong in their own cost codes so recurring compliance demand is priced as work rather than absorbed as service.
The WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete on installs and modernizations. Maintenance contracts stay out of it, because a recurring agreement isn't a percentage-complete contract and putting it there makes the schedule lie. Underbilled positions, meaning work performed and not yet billed, trigger a corrected pay application. Overbilled positions flag jobs where billing has outrun production, which on a long-lead modernization is easy to do and expensive to discover late.
THE OUTPUTS, LISTED.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SOFTWARE INVOICE.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. ControlQore comes with Strategic, and it never appears as its own line item on an SPM invoice. Which tier you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk.
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.
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