DOZENS OF SITES, ONE POOLED NUMBER.
A SWPPP and erosion control book is dozens of small sites. Each has its own inspection schedule, material use and crew travel, and each is too small to get its own report. Lump them together and you get one company number that describes none of them. One verified $5.2M erosion control contractor netted $24,000 before taxes while costs were lumped together. The next year it netted $1,105,000 before taxes, once every site had its own number, on $1.6M less revenue than its peak year. Rain event work is the second problem. A 0.25 inch storm requires a 24 hour inspection at every permitted site at once, and routine rates don't pay for the extra crews. The third is the permit itself. EPA stormwater penalties reach $56,460 per day per violation, and state boards add their own on top.
The market wasn't the problem. The profitable work was already in the company. The sites nobody could point to were using up its profit. That makes this trade the clearest case for per site costing in construction. No single site is big enough to track, so lumping them together feels reasonable until the year it costs you the whole margin. The records this contractor sells are also the records this contractor is judged on. The record keeping is the product, and you can't treat it as overhead.
WHAT IT MEANS.
SWPPP financial management is managing an erosion control business with a profit and loss for each site, and not one company total. The book is dozens of small recurring sites, and the company average describes none of them.
The book also splits into three revenue types that work differently. Installation follows the building season, inspection contracts recur monthly, and maintenance recurs on its own schedule. A divisional profit and loss tells you whether growth should pay for more crews or more contracts. Without it, the winter looks like a performance failure when it's a scheduling one.
Compliance is the limit on all of it. You can't legally disturb earth until the Notice of Intent is approved and the plan is in place. The plan gets updated as the job goes, and filing it once isn't enough. The permit holder pays the fine, so after a violation the dispute is about whose records failed. A contractor with complete inspection logs, corrective action records and photo trails is the client's defense. A contractor without them is the co-defendant.
WHY THE AVERAGE OBSCURES THE SPREAD.
Costs are pooled because no site is big enough to track
Every site gets billed and costed into one view. You know what the company made in total and nothing about where. A site with long crew travel and heavy maintenance looks the same in the books as a site ten minutes away that needs almost nothing. Averaged together, dozens of sites make the company look roughly break even, while a handful of sites pay for the rest.
Every site is priced as though it costs the same to serve
Pricing is the same across the whole book, so the expensive sites are priced like cheap ones. Nobody repriced or dropped a site, because nobody had the numbers that would have told them to. Drive time, inspection minutes and BMP material use are the three costs that make one site different from another. You can't see any of them when every site is in one ledger.
Rain event work is billed at routine rates
Most permits require an inspection within 24 hours of a 0.25 inch rain event, on top of the routine weekly or biweekly schedule. Rain events aren't scheduled. They happen at every site at once, and the contract requires the inspection. That's surge staffing. If you price the hardest hours in the business at route rates, you give them away.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
One verified $5.2M erosion control contractor went from $24,000 of net profit to $1,105,000 before taxes the following year, on $1.6M less revenue than its peak year. Per site reporting was working every month in about 10 weeks. The revenue it gave up was the revenue that had been using up the profit from everything else. So less revenue made more money.
EPA stormwater penalties reach $56,460 per day per violation at current inflation adjusted rates, and state boards add their own on top. Negligent Clean Water Act violations cost $2,500 to $25,000 per day. Knowing violations are $5,000 to $50,000 per day, plus a stop work order. The inspection log is your only defense. So the records are what you deliver, and they're more than paperwork.
GIVE EVERY SITE A NUMBER.
Crew time, drive time, inspection minutes and BMP material post to the site that used them, and the sites roll up by route. The first report shows the spread between the best site and the worst one. It's usually the first time anybody in the company has seen it. Then repricing or dropping a site is a routine monthly decision, and nobody has to argue about it.
Rain event inspections get their own rate class above routine inspection pricing. The contract states the trigger, the response window and the rate. You sell emergency surge work as emergency surge work. Without the clause, the weather sets your schedule and your client sets your price.
We report the three revenue types separately, because each has its own margin, its own season and its own growth decisions. The recurring lines cover the winter. The divisional view tells you whether the next dollar should pay for a crew or a contract.
Inspection logs, corrective action records and photo trails get produced on a schedule and stored where you can pull them on request. The client is buying that record as much as the silt fence. It's also your own defense when the permit holder starts asking whose records failed.
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.
