WHEN ONE GC IS HALF YOUR REVENUE, THAT GC OWNS YOUR CASH.
GC concentration risk is what happens when one general contractor represents 50 percent or more of a subcontractor's annual revenue. When that GC pays slow, the subcontractor's entire cash position degrades. When that GC disputes a pay app, it can shut down the business. When that GC goes under, the subcontractor can too. Most subcontractors don't know their GC concentration because nobody is tracking it monthly. SPM surfaces it in the CEO Report so the owner can see it before it becomes a crisis.
Most owners think of a big GC as their best customer, and for a while it is. The trouble is that one customer at 60 percent of revenue also controls 60 percent of your cash timing, your AR aging, and your negotiating position. You can't walk away from a slow payment or a disputed pay app when that relationship is most of the book. Nobody tracks the percentage, so the exposure builds over three or four good years and only becomes visible the month the GC changes how it pays. Counting it every month is what keeps it from becoming a surprise.
WHAT IT MEANS.
GC concentration risk is the financial exposure that comes from having one general contractor represent a large percentage of a subcontractor's revenue.
Concentration isn't a one time calculation. It moves every month as jobs start and finish, so a sub who was at 35 percent in March can be at 58 percent by August without doing anything differently. Under 30 percent of revenue from a single GC is healthy: full disruption to that relationship is painful but survivable. Between 30 and 50 percent is the watch zone, where any payment slowdown creates a cash event. Above 50 percent, the cash position is tied directly to one company's payment behavior.
Concentration builds differently by trade. An electrical sub gets pulled in when one GC wins the data center program and suddenly feeds 70 percent of the book. Civil subs feeding one developer's subdivisions inherit that developer's lot closing cash cycle. Fiber and telecom subs run their revenue through a carrier master contract. SWPPP and municipal subs anchored to one agency or one master service agreement carry renewal risk instead of payment risk. The trade changes the mechanism, and it doesn't change the arithmetic.
WHERE THE EXPOSURE SHOWS.
One slow month from that GC breaks your cash position
If one GC is 60 percent of your revenue and they run 30 days slow one month, not unusual, just slower than usual, you're short 60 percent of your expected cash for 30 extra days. On $5M in annual revenue that's roughly $250K in unexpected float. Payroll doesn't slow down to match, so the line of credit becomes the plan for a month nobody had budgeted.
A dispute with that GC goes straight to 90 plus days
When a GC disputes a pay app, even a small portion of it, the whole invoice can sit in limbo. A disputed $80K invoice can represent three to four months of net profit for a sub in this revenue range. The work was already done and the cost was already paid out in wages and material, so the dispute is a cash problem with a payroll deadline attached.
The GC knows they have leverage over you
When a subcontractor gets 60 percent of their revenue from one GC, the GC isn't always unaware of that dependency. It affects change order pricing, it affects how hard you push on a slow payment, and it affects whether you can hold your terms on the next contract. You aren't negotiating as a vendor at that point. You're negotiating as an unsecured division of their company.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
A GC at 60 percent of revenue runs 30 days slow on a $5M book. That's roughly $250K in unexpected float for a single month. None of it was budgeted, and payroll still goes out on Friday.
A disputed $80K invoice can represent three to four months of net profit for a subcontractor in this size range. The dispute doesn't have to cover the full amount to hold the full invoice. That's why concentration and AR aging are the same conversation.
A verified fiber client did $2.4M with revenue running almost entirely through major carrier work. Fifteen employees left for a competitor, the carrier contracts couldn't be staffed, and $6M of revenue capability vanished. The concentration didn't cause the departure, and it's the reason one staffing event took the whole book with it.
WHAT CONCENTRATION DISCIPLINE LOOKS LIKE.
Revenue by GC is tracked in ControlQore and surfaced in the monthly CEO Report, so the percentage is a number the owner reads every month instead of something somebody remembers to check. SPM flags any single GC above 50 percent of projected 90 day revenue. The 30 to 50 percent band gets watched, and under 30 percent is generally manageable.
Concentration risk lives in the cash forecast before it lives anywhere else. The 13 week cash forecast models each GC's payment behavior on its own rather than blending everybody into one average, because the average is what hides the exposure. A GC that runs 45 days gets forecast at 45 days.
The discipline target is no single GC above 40 percent of revenue, with the bid pipeline managed toward that ceiling. Diversification is pointing growth somewhere else. Qualify with two new GCs a quarter, price the early work to win it, and let new revenue dilute the percentage while the anchor GC's dollars stay flat or grow.
High concentration requires stronger collections than a diversified book does, because there's less room to absorb one slow payment. Every invoice gets flagged at 30 days and worked from there. AR aging is monitored by GC separately, so a slowdown at the anchor GC is visible in week five and not at quarter end.
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. No hourly billing, no payroll, and no add-ons.
| 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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