CURTAIN WALL / GLAZING: THE SUBMITTAL-TO-FABRICATION CRITICAL PATH

Custom curtain wall: 16 to 24 weeks from approved shop drawings to first delivery. Standard storefront: 10 to 14 weeks of fabrication. Specialty glass (fritted, large-format, impact-rated): 10 to 16 weeks. Nothing enters fabrication until submittals approve and field measurements confirm, so submittal speed is schedule speed.

Curtain wall and glazing contractors at $1M to $5M net about 8 percent on the SPM 48-trade benchmark dataset, the strongest floor among the envelope trades, rising to 10 percent by $25M to $50M. The CFOS target at $1M to $5M is 11.5 percent. The margin is there; the cash timing is the trade's real problem. Every net profit figure here is stated before taxes, the same basis CFMA reports on, so the two are directly comparable.

Because the spend curve runs months ahead of the billing curve. Engineering, shop drawings, a $30,000 to $80,000 mock-up, and fabricator deposits all pay out before the first unit ships, and custom curtain wall takes 16 to 24 weeks from drawing approval to delivery. Unless the schedule of values bills those phases, the glazier finances preconstruction alone.

Three tiers, and which one you are in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. Core is where you stop guessing: job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a monthly meeting that ends in decisions, while your bookkeeper keeps doing the books. Executive is where you stop touching the books, because we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Strategic is where every job shows its margin while it is still running, because the job costing and WIP platform is set up and managed for you. No payroll. No scope gaps.

Sixty days. We migrate your books back to the start of your last taxable year, set up ControlQore, and build your job costing structure from scratch. Fully operational in two months.