CONTROLQORE FOR LANDSCAPING CONTRACTORS.
Generic accounting software can't price a crew day, separate travel and yard time from production hours, or tell you what the planting phase cost against what you bid it at. ControlQore can.
ControlQore for landscaping contractors uses cost codes by install phase: mobilization, fine grading and topsoil, hardscape, planting, sod and seeding, mulch and bed finish, punch list, and warranty replacement. It tracks cost per crew day against the rate set in the bid for that phase. Travel between the yard and the site, loading and refueling post to their own codes, so total crew time gets priced. Extras a superintendent asks for are logged and priced before the crew does the work. The WIP schedule is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete.
Install work in this trade has 30 to 45 percent gross margins. Landscaping contractors at $1M to $5M still net 7 percent before taxes, near the middle of the 48 trades in the SPM 48-trade dataset, against a CFOS target of 10.5 percent before taxes. When gross margin that strong ends at a net that far under target, look at measurement before pricing. The crew day is where the money goes unseen. Travel time, loading and refueling are paid hours with no billable revenue behind them. Most pricing in this trade is built around time at the property, and total crew time in the field is more. Josh calls it the windshield tax. A crew-day P&L turns it into a number you can bid.
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 a landscape construction subcontractor can read cost per crew day by install phase while the crew is still on the site.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG.
Total Labor by Job, No Cost Per Crew Day
QuickBooks job tracking reports total labor cost for the job. It can't report what a crew day cost on the hardscape phase against what the bid allowed for that phase. That's the number a landscape construction sub prices the next job from. A crew is producing, traveling, loading or refueling, and all four post to the same labor total. When the total is all you have, the crew day rate in the next bid is last year's rate plus a feeling about how the season went.
The Windshield Tax Coded as Production
Drive time, loading and refueling are paid crew hours with no billable revenue attached. Pricing in this trade is usually built around service time at the property. The trade's own operations math puts a spread-out day at six or more person-hours of paid time with nothing billable behind it. Coded into production labor, that time makes the productive rate read worse than it is. The travel cost reads as nothing at all, so you can't price either number into the next bid.
Extras Absorbed Because the Crew Was Already There
Informal additions gradually become the expectation. A superintendent asks for a bed extended, a few trees moved, or a section regraded while the crew is on the site, and the foreman does it because the relationship is worth more to him than the argument. None of it reaches a change order. By the next job it's in the base scope, unpriced, and the estimator has no record that it was ever an extra.
Plant Material Warranty With Nowhere to Post
Plant material comes with warranty exposure that lasts past the job. Replacements during the establishment period get bought weeks or months after the crew left. With no open cost code on a closed job, they post to a general expense line and end up in overhead. The job reads profitable and the overhead rate rises. Nobody finds the material and the supplier that keep failing, because nothing counts replacement cost by job.
WHAT WE BUILD.
SPM builds ControlQore cost codes for landscape construction clients by install phase: mobilization, fine grading and topsoil, hardscape, planting, sod and seeding, mulch and bed finish, punch list, and warranty replacement. Labor, material and equipment post to the phase that used them. Cost per crew day is calculated from those codes weekly and compared to the rate set in the bid for that phase. Variance over 10 percent triggers a review while the crew is still on the job.
The windshield tax gets a cost code. Drive time between the yard and the site, loading and unloading, and fuel stops post separately from production hours. So a crew day reads as two numbers: what the work cost, and what getting to the work cost. Over a season, total crew time pricing gets built from that second number. That's the difference between a bid that covers the crew day and a bid that covers the hours at the property.
ControlQore has a change order code on every job, and SPM coaches your field crews on how to use it. The request gets logged the day the superintendent makes it, priced from the phase rate the job already proved, and approved or declined in writing. Nothing gets built on a verbal. Sitework contractors do the same thing with their directive logs. It keeps a season of small favors from becoming next year's base scope.
Replacement cost stays coded to the original job after closeout. That keeps the job's margin honest for the full establishment period. It also gives you the record to settle a supplier conversation: which material, from which supplier, on which job, at what replacement cost. Once you have that number, it goes in the next bid as a priced allowance and stays out of overhead.
The WIP schedule for landscape construction clients is produced monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete by job. Underbilled positions, meaning work performed but not yet billed, show right away and trigger a corrected pay app. That's worth watching in a trade whose commercial customers pay on net 30 to net 60 terms. Overbilled positions flag jobs where billing is ahead of production, which is easy to do on work that gets weather-delayed in the middle. You see both before either one becomes a problem.
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.
