You'll know whether that job made money about six months too late.

Prefer to read? Everything in the video is written out below.

What we usually find in the first week

• 01
  No WIP report — so the financials are fiction.Under- and over-billings are the single largest adjustment on most contractor balance sheets. Without them, revenue is recognized wrong and profit is a guess. This is the first thing we build, and it usually changes the picture immediately.
• 02
  Overbilling that feels like profit.Cash from the next job funding the last one. It looks fine right up until the backlog thins, and then it doesn't.
• 03
  Job costing that doesn't tie to the general ledger.Two sets of numbers that disagree, so nobody fully trusts either. We reconcile the job-cost ledger to the GL so one version is true.
• 04
  Fixed-fee work quietly absorbing overruns.On fixed-price contracts every dollar of overrun comes straight out of you. If cost-to-complete isn't tracked per job, you find out at closeout.
• 05
  Equipment and labor burden not allocated.Jobs look profitable because real costs are sitting in overhead where no estimator ever sees them — so the next bid repeats the mistake.
• 06
  Bonding capacity limited by financials nobody manages.Working capital and equity drive what you can bid. Managed deliberately, that ceiling moves.