Too many small contractors dismiss job costing as something “only big companies do.” But here’s the truth:

If you don’t know how much each job is really costing you, you don’t know if you’re making money.

Job costing means tracking every dollar of labor, materials, subs, and overhead tied to a specific job — so you can compare your estimated profit to the actual results.

I helped a fence installer who was baffled by his inconsistent profit. Some months were solid, others barely broke even. When we started tracking job costs by project, we found that his vinyl jobs were consistently more profitable than wood — even though he’d always preferred selling wood. That single insight changed how he quoted work.

Real World Mistake & Lesson: He thought he had a pricing problem, but what he had was a visibility problem. Once he started measuring job-level performance, he adjusted pricing and began steering his sales toward high-margin work.

The lesson? What gets measured gets managed — and improved.

 Pick up your free copy of my new book, “The 7 Minute Conversation-How to Hear the Story Your Small Business Financial Statements Are Telling You-CONTRACTOR EDITION”.  Go to www.7MinuteConversationBook.com

Ready to find out where your cash and profits are really going? Book your free 15-minute Profit and Cash Flow Call with me. No pressure. Just real clarity. I’ll help you see where your money’s hiding — and what to do about it. Schedule at www.CashFlowCallWithLarry.com