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 keeps two books in one system. On the maintenance side every contract unit is its own cost object. A full-maintenance unit billing $500 to $1,200 a month is measured against the visits, callbacks, parts and mechanic hours that unit used. On the project side, modernization and new installation get cost codes by phase: equipment procurement, hoistway work, install labor, and testing and inspection. Equipment deposits and stored material are billed on the schedule of values. The WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete, on the project side only.
What changes is that you can read the book one unit at a time. A portfolio P&L tells you the maintenance side made money, and it usually does. That's part of why this trade has one of the strongest net profit floors of all 48 in the SPM dataset, at 9 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. It tracks cost by job and cost code. 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 in progress.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG.
The Portfolio Priced Flat Across Unit Ages
Full-maintenance contracts are $500 to $1,200 per traction elevator per month and $400 to $900 hydraulic at published market rates. They work like an insurance policy. You take on the responsibility and set the visit schedule. That's a bet on callback rate, and callback rate goes up with unit age, door abuse and construction debris. A book priced flat across a mixed-age portfolio pays for its worst cars with its best. Without cost captured per unit, you have 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 your own schedule. Modernization and new installation work on general contractor terms. That means long equipment leads, deposits paid before anything is billable, pay applications, and retainage held to final acceptance. Put both in one statement and a strong recurring book covers project overruns for months. You see a business that works and can't tell which half is supporting 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. That wait is the most expensive thing in the trade, because licensed mechanics are scarce and union-rate in much of the market. With no cost code for it, the standby hours go into a labor variance that reads like the crew was slow. Delay you didn't document is delay you can't recover, 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 decide who can service what. Equipment newer than roughly 15 years often keeps independent providers out entirely. Every proprietary install cuts the number of units you can service. Without equipment type and age tracked as job attributes, the maintenance book can't answer the question this trade depends on. Which part of the installed base earns its keep, and which part is covered at oil-and-grease economics?
WHAT WE BUILD.
SPM builds ControlQore so that every elevator under contract is its own cost object. Contract revenue, scheduled visits, callbacks, parts and mechanic hours post to that unit. Monthly reporting produces contract P&L per unit, the number the whole trade depends on. A unit below the rate it was priced at shows on the report in the month it happens, not at the end of a three-year agreement.
Once you have twelve months of per-unit cost, you reprice the portfolio from actuals. Callback rate, visit cost and parts exposure get read by unit age and equipment type. 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. Oil-and-grease contracts are 20 to 40 percent below full maintenance, so the coverage decision is a pricing decision.
Projects get their own cost codes 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, so the maintenance book doesn't pay for them. SPM reviews the schedule of values before you sign, so the deposit and stored-equipment lines are in it. A long-lead controller ordered against a milestone that pays at completion is a cash hole the recurring book has to fill.
ControlQore has a cost code for standby and readiness delay. The crew logs it against the job with the date and the condition. Idle mechanic hours become 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-based upgrades come on the state's schedule. They go in their own cost codes, so you price recurring compliance work as work and don't absorb it as service.
The WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete on installs and modernizations. Maintenance contracts stay out of it. A recurring agreement isn't a percentage-complete contract, and putting it there makes the schedule wrong. Underbilled positions, work performed and not yet billed, trigger a corrected pay application. Overbilled positions flag jobs where billing is ahead of production. On a long-lead modernization that's easy to do and expensive to find late.
THE OUTPUTS, LISTED.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SOFTWARE INVOICE.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. ControlQore comes with Strategic and Platinum, 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.
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.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
