PAVING: THE ESCALATION CLAUSE DOT GIVES YOU AND PRIVATE WORK DOESN'T

Public contracts tie pay adjustment to a monthly published liquid-asphalt index. WSDOT triggers at a 5 percent move from the base price. Ohio adjusts against its monthly asphalt cement price. The adjustment works in both directions. For private work, put the same terms in your own bids: a dated AC price basis and an index-tied adjustment clause.

Yes, as its own division. Crack seal, striping and sealcoating use different crews, margins and sales cycles, and they recur when paving is out of season. Blended books won't show whether maintenance pays for the iron or the iron uses up the maintenance money.

Three tiers, and which one you are in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. On Core we build your plan every month and your team does the work: 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. On Strategic we build the plan, track it and adjust it every month: our team does the bookkeeping and the bank reconciliations, and the job costing and WIP software is set up and managed for you, on your own online software or ours. On Platinum we manage the money side for you every week: our team handles your bills and receivables the way an in-house controller would, and you approve every payment. We don't do payroll.

Sixty days. We migrate your books back to the start of your last taxable year and build your job costing structure from scratch, and on Strategic and Platinum we set up the job costing and WIP software too. You're fully up and working in two months. The onboarding fee is one time, the same for every tier, and set by your revenue band.