CONTROLQORE FOR SECURITY SYSTEM CONTRACTORS.
Generic accounting software can tell you the monitoring book billed. It can't tell you which accounts inside it earned anything, what a device cost to install against the bid, or what last quarter's attrition did to the value of the book. ControlQore can.
ControlQore for security system contractors runs two cost structures at once. Install work is costed by device type and system function, meaning panel and power, cable and pathway, camera installation, reader and access control hardware, door hardware interface, head-end and programming, and commissioning, which produces installed cost per device against the bid. Recurring work is costed per contract, with wholesale monitoring cost, platform fees per account, and service truck rolls posted against that account's monthly rate, which produces a per-contract P&L. Install and RMR run as separate divisions with separate overhead recovery, and RMR mix and attrition report monthly.
Security system contractors at $1M to $5M net 6.5 percent on the SPM 48-trade dataset, and the CFOS target at that revenue is 10 percent before taxes. The recurring book is why that distance is worth closing. Monitoring books transact at roughly 28x to 60x monthly recurring revenue, recurring-mix integrators clear 6x to 9x EBITDA against 4x to 5x for project-only shops, and the published contrast is blunt: a $2M-EBITDA project shop clears $8M to $10M at sale, while the same EBITDA at a 40 percent RMR mix clears $14M to $18M. RMR is now 38.5 percent of industry revenue, up from 33 percent two years earlier. An owner who can't state RMR mix, per-contract margin, and attrition is letting somebody else's spreadsheet price the company.
THE NUMBERS GENERIC SOFTWARE MISSES.
WHAT IT IS.
ControlQore is a job costing and WIP platform for contractors that tracks cost by job, cost code, and contract, so a security integrator can read installed cost per device on the project side and profit per monitoring account on the recurring side.
WHERE IT GOES WRONG.
The Book Bills, and Nobody Can Say Which Accounts Earn
The industry's own trade press states the failure in owner language: RMR contracts are billing, but nobody can tell you which ones are profitable. Wholesale monitoring cost, platform fees charged per account, and service truck rolls against flat-rate obligations erode individual contracts silently, and aging systems on flat-rate service are where the erosion starts. The book grows while margin per account falls, and a single monitoring revenue line on the P&L can't show either half of that. Per-contract profitability is the only lens that sees it.
Install and Monitoring Blended Into One P&L
Integrators typically run 60 to 75 percent one-time install revenue against 25 to 40 percent recurring service contracts. Installs pay big and slow on construction terms, with pay applications, retainage, and the industry's 56-day wait. Monitoring pays small and fast on subscription terms. One P&L across both hides which business funds the other, misprices both every month, and buries the RMR mix that decides what the company is worth at exit.
Attrition Reported Annually or Never
Attrition is the dominant lever on what an RMR book is worth, and each point of monthly attrition below the category baseline can add 2x to 3x of multiple. It's also a straightforward operating leak: every canceled account erases contracted future revenue that cost real install labor to create, on commercial customers whose lifetime often runs 7 to 12 years. Most integrators look at churn at renewal season or not at all. The buyers who will one day price the business look at it monthly.
No Installed Cost Per Device on the Project Side
The install division lives in the same pay-application and retainage world as every other subcontractor, and it usually gets costed the same way, as one labor total per job. Cameras, readers, panels, access control hardware, and pathway consume different labor at different rates, and low-voltage labor licensing varies by state on top of that. Without cost per device by type, the estimator can't tell whether the last project missed on cabling, on head-end programming, or on commissioning, so the next bid repeats it.
Overhead Recovered on One Revenue Type
Licensing regimes, UL and certification requirements, monitoring platforms, central-station costs, 24/7 service obligations, and fleet put real weight in a security integrator's overhead. That weight has to ride on both revenue types deliberately. When recovery is built into install pricing only, the monitoring book ends up carrying the building, and per-account margin reads worse than the accounts themselves are. The correction is a recovery rate calculated per division.
WHAT WE BUILD.
SPM sets ControlQore up so every monitoring account is its own costed object. Wholesale monitoring cost, platform fees per account, and service truck rolls post to the contract that caused them, against that contract's monthly rate. The per-contract P&L gets reviewed quarterly, and the accounts at the bottom of it get a decision: reprice, restructure the service obligation, or let it go. Contract term, escalator, and assignability are recorded alongside the margin, because buyers price all three.
Install and recurring run as two divisions in ControlQore, with separate P&Ls and separate overhead recovery, because the valuation market prices them separately. Install carries pay applications, retainage, and the 56-day wait. Recurring carries subscription billing that pays small and fast. The divisional split is what makes RMR mix a figure the owner can state on demand rather than one a buyer calculates for them later, and it's the same split that keeps install pricing from subsidizing thin monitoring accounts.
RMR mix and monthly attrition go on the CEO report every month, beside gross margin and cash. Attrition is reported as accounts lost and RMR lost, with a reason coded to each cancellation, which is what turns churn into something operations can answer. Because monitoring books transact at roughly 28x to 60x monthly recurring revenue, a point of attrition is a valuation event rather than a service statistic, and it gets discussed at that level in the monthly meeting.
SPM builds install cost codes by device type and system function: panel and power, cable and pathway, camera installation, reader and access control hardware, door hardware interface, head-end and programming, and commissioning. Labor and material post to the device that consumed them, so installed cost per device is compared weekly to the bid. Completed jobs return an actual cost per device by type, and that's what calibrates the next estimate instead of memory.
The install division gets a WIP schedule monthly from cost-to-cost percentage complete by job. Underbilled positions, meaning devices installed and not yet billed, trigger a corrected pay application. Overbilled positions flag jobs where billing has outrun installed devices. The recurring division stays out of WIP entirely, because subscription revenue has no percentage complete, and keeping it out is part of why the schedule holds up in a bonding or banking conversation.
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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