CONTROLQORE FOR FIRE ALARM CONTRACTORS.
Generic accounting software can't cost a job by addressable device and circuit, hold panel programming apart from rough-in, or tell you what a failed acceptance test cost and whose incomplete work caused it. ControlQore can.
ControlQore for fire alarm contractors uses cost codes by device type and system function to track cost per addressable device and per circuit. The codes are panel and power, initiating circuit rough-in, notification circuit rough-in, device installation by type, annunciators and modules, programming and sequence of operations, pre-test, and the witnessed acceptance test. The base device and circuit count is logged in ControlQore at contract. Adds caused by RFIs, relocated notification appliances and plan-review code comments get priced as change orders when they're issued. Install, monitoring and NFPA 72 inspection are three divisions with separate P&Ls. The WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete.
Fire alarm contractors at $1M to $5M net 8 percent before taxes on the SPM 48-trade dataset. The CFOS target at that revenue is 11.5 percent before taxes. The bid usually isn't what separates the two. Fire alarm billing waits on one event you can't schedule. One hundred percent of devices get tested and witnessed on the marshal's calendar, with an NFPA 72 record of completion and every integrated trade ready at the same appointment. If you code your device counts, programming hours and retests by cause, you can price the next job from what the last one cost. If you can't, you're bidding from memory and hoping the first test passes.
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. A fire alarm subcontractor can read installed cost per addressable device and per circuit against the device count the estimate was built on.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG.
A Device-Priced Job With No Cost Per Device
Addressable fire alarm systems are priced by device and by circuit, then costed as a single job total. Say a building has initiating devices across several initiating circuits, notification appliances across several more, and a panel that took days to program. You can't read that out of one labor figure. The estimator priced the work per device and gets nothing per device back. The only feedback the next bid gets is whether the last job felt tight. That's not a rate, and it doesn't improve anything.
Device Counts That Drift With No Base Log
Addressable systems change constantly after the contract is signed. Device adds from RFIs, relocated notification appliances and revisions from plan-review code comments all change the count. Each change is billable only if somebody can prove what the base count was. Without a logged count at contract, the adds go into install labor and come back at closeout as an overrun nobody can explain. The work was done, the money was earned, and the change order was never written.
The Acceptance Test Is the Paycheck and It Is Not Coded
Fire alarm billing waits on AHJ acceptance. That means one hundred percent device testing witnessed by the inspector, an NFPA 72 record of completion, and every integrated trade ready at once: sprinkler flow and tamper, elevator recall, HVAC shutdown and door hardware. Retainage is held until the marshal signs. When pre-test, test and retest hours all post to install labor, a failed first test costs you twice. You pay for the crew hours, and you have no record of whose incomplete work forced the retest.
NICET Levels Inside One Blended Labor Rate
The NICET ladder decides who can design a system, who can submit it for permit, who can program the panel, and who can conduct the witnessed test. Certified people are scarce. When every hour posts at one blended rate, the job cost can't tell a helper pulling wire from a certified designer resolving code comments. Certification cost and the scarcity premium end up in overhead, and not in the burdened rate the bid was built on. Public work adds prevailing-wage classifications on top of that.
Monitoring and Inspection Blended Into Install Revenue
Monitoring accounts and NFPA 72 inspection contracts are the compounding side of a fire alarm business. The adjacent security market prices recurring books at roughly 28x to 60x monthly recurring revenue. Install pays on construction terms after acceptance. Report both through one P&L, and the recurring book reads like a rounding error next to contract revenue. So it gets priced and managed like one, and nobody states what it's worth.
WHAT WE BUILD.
SPM builds ControlQore cost codes for fire alarm clients by device type and system function: panel and power, initiating circuit rough-in, notification circuit rough-in, initiating device installation, notification appliance installation, remote annunciators and modules, programming and sequence of operations, pre-test, witnessed acceptance test, and record of completion documentation. Labor and material post to the function that used them. Cost per addressable device and cost per circuit are calculated weekly against the estimate, by device type.
At contract execution SPM records the base device count and circuit count in ControlQore as the quantity the price was built on. Every add after that is priced against it: devices added through RFIs, relocated appliances, and revisions from plan-review code comments. The log turns count changes into change orders while the reviewer's comments are still current. They don't become an unexplained labor overrun at closeout. The estimator also gets a closing count to compare against the bid count on the next job of the same type.
Pre-test gets its own cost code. Walking every device in house before the marshal sees it is cheaper than a retest on the marshal's calendar. Retest hours are coded by cause. If the elevator contractor or the door hardware held up the test, that's documented as the reason, and it stays out of fire alarm labor. Integration dependencies are tracked by trade in ControlQore. The acceptance appointment becomes a schedule item with owners attached.
Certification cost and the scarcity premium are recovered in burdened labor rates by NICET level, and kept out of overhead. ControlQore holds a rate by level, so design, programming and witnessed testing cost what they cost, on the job and in the bid. When a job goes over budget, the variance report says whether it used certified hours or helper hours. Those are two different problems with two different answers, and one blended rate can't tell them apart.
SPM sets up install, monitoring and NFPA 72 inspection as three divisions in ControlQore. Each has its own P&L and its own overhead recovery. Install is costed by device and circuit, and bills after acceptance. Monitoring is costed per account and inspection per system, against the recurring rate each one bills. The recurring book becomes an asset you can report, with a margin you can state. That number separates an install-only shop from a recurring-mix one.
The WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete by job. Fire alarm jobs often stay near complete on cost, with the final milestone unbilled while acceptance is pending. The WIP reports that as the underbilled position it is, so it doesn't read as a bad month. Overbilled positions flag jobs where billing is ahead of installed devices. Both are in the same schedule a bonding agent or a banker asks for.
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.
