HOW YOU GET ON THE BID LIST.
Getting on a bid list has two halves, and contractors usually work only the first. Somebody at the GC has to want you there. That's estimating, project management and the work you did on the last job. Then somebody in risk has to approve you, and that person never sees your work. They read four documents: a current work in progress schedule, a bonding letter from your surety, financial statements, and a certificate of insurance with the right limits and the right additional insureds. Prequalification packages take 2 to 4 weeks to process at most commercial GCs. Submit a complete package 30 days before the bid date and it's already processed when the invitation goes out. Submit the week of the bid and it won't be.
This feels arbitrary because different people make the two halves of the decision. The estimator who liked your last pour doesn't decide whether your balance sheet can support a $900,000 scope. The risk department doesn't judge your work. It asks one question: will you still be here at closeout. Every answer to that question comes from a document. So the sub with a monthly WIP and a current statement gets approved, and the sub who promises to get his accountant on it waits.
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WHAT IT MEANS.
A general contractor's bid list is the set of subcontractors that GC will send an invitation to bid. The relationship gets you the meeting, and a risk review of four documents decides whether you get on the list.
You also get on a bid list through people inside the GC, and when you ask counts for more than how polished the ask is. A GC with three subs in your trade who is content with two of them isn't looking for a fourth. The opening comes when one of those subs falls off the list. So the package has to be ready when the phone rings. If you keep it current on a quarterly cycle, the ask costs you only a phone call.
The most important document here is the one most subcontractors don't have. A work in progress schedule tells the GC how much work you already have, how much of it is billed correctly, and how much capacity is left. That answers the capacity question on one page. A sub without one is asking a risk department to take capacity on faith, and risk departments don't do that. Your surety also wants the WIP for the bonding letter, so one document serves both.
WHY THE PACKAGE GETS DECLINED.
The package gets built the week it's asked for
The GC asks on Tuesday for a bid that closes in ten days, and the scramble starts. You call the accountant and find last year's statement, and the WIP doesn't exist. A risk department can tell when internally produced statements were put together in a hurry. Processing takes 2 to 4 weeks by itself, so a package that takes a week to assemble has already missed the bid it was for.
There's no WIP schedule, so nothing proves capacity
Without a work in progress schedule the risk department can't tell what you already have committed, whether it's billed correctly, or whether a new scope fits. Answering that is their whole job. If they can't compute the answer, they won't approve you. Nothing else in the package substitutes for the WIP, and no relationship overrides it.
The insurance certificate is wrong in a way nobody checks
Limits below what the subcontract requires, a missing additional insured endorsement, a waiver of subrogation that was never added, or a certificate that expired last month will stop a submission however strong the other three documents are. It's the cheapest of the four to get right, and it's the one most often left to whoever answers the phone at the agency.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
The WIP schedule answers how much work you already have and whether it's billed correctly. That's the capacity question. The bonding letter answers what your surety will back. That's the size question. The financial statements answer whether the balance sheet can absorb a bad month. That's the survival question. The certificate of insurance answers whether the GC's own risk transfer works. A wrong answer there stops a submission whatever the other three say.
Prequalification packages take 2 to 4 weeks to process at most commercial GC risk departments. Submit 30 days before the bid date and your package is processed when the invitation goes out. Submit the week of the bid and you're hoping it clears in time. Getting this right costs you a calendar reminder, so nothing else in this process pays back as much.
THE PACKAGE STAYS IN A FOLDER.
The work in progress schedule gets produced every month as part of the close, in the format a surety and a GC risk department both accept. So it's current on the day the request comes in. It's also the report that tells you whether your own jobs are billed correctly, so it's useful to you long before a prequal asks for it.
Larger scopes and larger GCs ask for CPA reviewed or audited statements. Your CPA produces those, and we don't. We get the books to where a reviewed statement is a short engagement for the CPA. Clean monthly closes with reconciled bank accounts do that.
A bonding letter is only fast if the surety already has current figures. That means the WIP and the statements have been going to them on a regular schedule all year. We keep sending them, so the letter takes a phone call. A surety who has to reunderwrite you before writing a letter won't do it inside a bid window.
Statements, WIP, insurance certificates, the completion history and the bonding letter are all kept in one place and updated every quarter, with expiry dates on the calendar. Then the ask is a phone call and an email, and you can approach a GC the week you hear about an opening.
THE OUTPUTS, NAMED.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. We don't bill by the hour, and we don't do payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is in the table.
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.
