SITEWORK: CUT/FILL QUANTITY VARIANCE
Mass-balance assumptions meet real topography, import/export quantities move, and the money moves with them. Sitework's version differs from grading's: the package contract often lumps quantities where a grading unit-price contract would expose them, so variance stays unseen longer.
This page covers one problem. The full picture for this trade, including the other places margin leaks, is on the sitework operating system page.
WHERE THE MONEY GOES.
Covered in full in the quick answer above. The sourced numbers and what controls it are below.
THE NUMBER TO MEASURE IT AGAINST.
Sitework contractors have about 3% net profit at $1M to $5M, rising to roughly 6% at $5M to $10M. The CFOS net profit target is 10% before taxes at $1M to $5M, the trade's average plus 3.5 points, never below 10%. A problem like this one lives in the distance between those two figures rather than in a loss on any single job.
Gross margin over the same bands is 18% to 20%,against CFOS targets of 24% and 23%.
THE SYSTEM THAT FIXES THIS.
Cost codes built against the estimate, so a job can be read while it is open.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
