CONTROLQORE FOR FIBER CONTRACTORS.
Generic accounting software can't read cost per foot and per splice by build type, track make-ready as its own pass-through against the utility's estimate, or tell you which completed units are sitting unbilled behind a closeout package. ControlQore can.
ControlQore for fiber contractors uses cost codes built to the MSA unit structure, meaning aerial placement per foot, underground placement per foot by method, splicing per splice, drops per unit, restoration, and make-ready as its own pass-through code. Actual cost per foot and per splice is compared weekly to the unit price the work was bid at. Make-ready carries its own variance report, because the pole owner sets that price and the schedule behind it. Units are billed documentation-complete, and the WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete.
Unit-price work looks simple until you try to read it. The MSA pays per foot and per splice, the carrier pays once the closeout audit clears, and the crew got paid Friday. Cost codes cut to the same units the MSA pays on turn the week's hours into a cost per foot you can hold against the price you agreed to, by route and by build type. That's the number that tells you whether the aerial route is carrying the underground route, and whether both of them are carrying a factoring company.
THE NUMBERS GENERIC SOFTWARE MISSES.
WHAT IT IS.
ControlQore is a job costing and WIP platform for contractors at $1M to $12M that tracks cost by job and cost code, so a fiber contractor can read actual cost per foot placed and per splice against the unit price in the MSA while the crew is still working that route.
Fiber nets 6 percent at $1M to $5M against a CFOS target of 10 percent, stated before taxes. Most of that distance is timing rather than pricing. The units are priced in the MSA, make-ready is priced by the utility, and labor is priced by the splicer market, so the money that goes missing in this trade goes missing between the day the work is complete and the day the audit clears.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG.
No Cost Per Foot or Per Splice Against the MSA
Carrier and ISP master service agreements pay per unit: per foot placed, per splice, per home connected. Generic accounting gives you one total for the job, so you can't tell whether the aerial route earned money at the price you signed or whether splicing ate it. Fiber gross margin at $1M to $5M averages 22 percent against a CFOS target of 24 percent, so the distance between a route that works and one that doesn't is about two points, and two points don't appear in a job total until the route is finished.
Make-Ready Priced and Scheduled by Someone Else
Make-ready is the pole owner's work: moving existing attachments, replacing poles, and clearing space before fiber can attach. The utility prices it, the utility schedules it, and the fiber builder pays it up front. One outside plant construction director reported roughly a 300 percent increase in pole make-ready cost over five years. A pass-through growing like that with no cost code of its own and no variance report isn't a line item any more. It's a margin event you find out about at closeout, on somebody else's invoice.
Production Outrunning the Paperwork
Carrier work and BEAD work both gate payment on as-builts, GIS deliverables, and audit-ready closeout packages, and those formats differ from commercial construction. When crews outrun the documentation, the footage is placed and the money isn't in the bank. Completed work that can't be billed is inventory, and in this trade the inventory is buried under a road. That's the mechanic behind the factoring conversation: crews and boring subs get paid weekly while the carrier waits on an audit.
BEAD Compliance Carried Ahead of the Revenue
The $42.45 billion BEAD program reached its deployment inflection in 2026, with construction flowing and peak activity projected through 2030, though industry estimates put realistic payouts nearer $20 billion after the program was rewritten mid-stream. The work is real and the compliance load comes first: Davis-Bacon certified payroll, insurance packages with 24 to 48 hour COI correction windows, GIS-format as-builts, and engineering timelines that punish a late start. Bid without pricing the compliance load and the mobilization float and you're funding the program out of your own working capital.
WHAT WE BUILD.
SPM builds ControlQore cost codes to match how the MSA pays: aerial placement per foot, underground placement per foot by method, splicing per splice, drops per unit, restoration, and make-ready as its own pass-through. Labor, equipment, and material post to the unit they were spent on. When a bucket crew and a directional drill both work the same job, their cost stays separable, because aerial and underground economics have almost nothing in common and blending them produces a number that describes neither.
Actual burdened cost per foot placed and per splice is compared weekly to the unit price in the MSA. Any unit code running more than 10 percent over the bid price for two consecutive weeks gets flagged, and the detail tells you whether the cause is crew size, production per day, or a route quoted off thin engineering. Fixing the crew-per-mile math in week two is worth more than knowing in month four that the route lost money.
Make-ready gets its own cost code, its own budget line from the utility's estimate, and its own monthly variance report. When the pole owner's invoice comes in over that estimate, the overage is visible against the specific job instead of absorbed into placement cost, which is what keeps it billable or claimable where the contract allows either. It's the least controllable and most inflationary line in aerial construction, so it's the one line that never gets blended into anything else.
The invoice goes out when the closeout package is audit-ready: as-built, photos, test results, and the GIS deliverable in the carrier's format. ControlQore carries units placed against units billed, so completed production with no package behind it reads as a working list rather than a surprise at month end. Every unit billed without its package is a receivable waiting to be disputed, which is why daily as-built discipline is the collection strategy in this trade.
The WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete, so underbilled routes are visible while there's still time to bill them and overbilled routes are visible before the billing outruns the work. The 13 week cash forecast prices the carrier's payment calendar into the plan rather than hoping it improves, which is how a funding decision gets made before the week starts instead of on the first factoring call that comes in. Both reports read off the same job cost data the weekly unit variance comes from, so the monthly package and the weekly number never disagree.
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.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
