Books closed by the tenth business day.
With a WIP schedule that ties to the balance sheet, and profit by job.
We are the outsourced controller for construction contractors doing $3 million to $20 million a year. Every month we close your books and send one package your surety and your bank can read.
Or call (999) 999-9999. The first call takes 20 minutes.
W-1, the work-in-progress (WIP) schedule: one of ten sheets in the sample package. See all ten
W-1Open jobs and backlog
26-044 Lakeside Clinic TI is projected to lose $28,800; the full projected loss is recognized in these statements. The other seven jobs carry $856,200 of estimated gross profit, a 15.7% margin.
| (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | (6) | (7) | (8) | (9) | (10) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Job | Total contract | Est. total cost | Est. gross profit | Cost to date | Cost to complete | Percent complete | Earned revenue | Billed to date | Over (under) billed | Accrued loss |
| 26-031 Cedar Ridge HS mechanical retrofit | 1,973,700 | 1,684,600 | 289,100 | 1,118,407 | 566,193 | 66.4% | 1,310,341 | 1,308,250 | (2,091) | — |
| 26-044 Lakeside Clinic TIloss job | 481,500 | 510,300 | (28,800) | 283,619 | 226,681 | 55.6% | 267,612 | 258,900 | (8,712) | 12,793 |
| 26-038 Hennessy Flats plumbing rough-in | 633,700 | 519,100 | 114,600 | 297,836 | 221,264 | 57.4% | 363,588 | 421,700 | 58,112 | — |
| 26-047 Dakota County data room HVAC | 341,200 | 284,700 | 56,500 | 149,310 | 135,390 | 52.4% | 178,941 | 165,400 | (13,541) | — |
| 25-112 Brookhaven rec center RTU replacement | 970,300 | 819,400 | 150,900 | 588,215 | 231,185 | 71.8% | 696,540 | 722,350 | 25,810 | — |
| 26-052 St. Anne’s domestic water | 412,800 | 341,500 | 71,300 | 137,904 | 203,596 | 40.4% | 166,696 | 236,900 | 70,204 | — |
| 26-035 Tolliver Street process pipingunderbilled over 20% of contract | 921,700 | 781,200 | 140,500 | 486,108 | 295,092 | 62.2% | 573,535 | 331,800 | (241,735) | — |
| 26-049 Vicksburg Lane office fit-out | 193,700 | 160,400 | 33,300 | 121,077 | 39,323 | 75.5% | 146,213 | 150,600 | 4,387 | — |
| Total open jobs | 5,928,600 | 5,101,200 | 827,400 | 3,182,476 | 1,918,724 | 3,703,466 | 3,595,900 | (107,566) | 12,793 |
(3) = (1) − (2). (5) = (2) − (4). (6) = (4) ÷ (2). (7) = (1) × (6). (9) = (8) − (7); a positive figure is billed ahead of the work. (10) is the part of a loss job’s projected loss not yet recognized through percent complete; it is carried as a provision, so the full projected loss is recognized in these statements.
In whole dollars. Source: the WIP workbook as of October 31, 2026. Contract values include approved change orders. Cost to complete from estimate updates by the project managers dated November 6, 2026.
Why contractors call
Your bond agent can’t take your WIP schedule to the underwriter as it stands.
A WIP schedule your agent can hand over as it comes: ten columns for every open job, with the over and under billings matching the balance sheet to the dollar.
The pay application went in on the first, the GC pays in 60 days, and payroll is Friday.
A 13-week forecast shows the week cash runs short while there is still time to bill, collect or draw on the line. The forecast comes at the Close + Cash level and up.
The year made money, but you couldn’t say which jobs made it.
Profit by job, every month. A job losing money is named at the top of the sheet, the amount beside it.
The bank wants a borrowing base and a covenant calculation every month.
Retainage and receivables past 90 days are split out in every package. The covenant calculation comes off the same closed books, and the borrowing base when the bank asks, at the Close + Cash level and up.
Year-end ran into June. The bond line stayed where it was.
Your CPA starts the year-end from books that already tie and a schedule of the jobs completed. Both reach them in the month after the year closes.
Your bookkeeper is retiring, or you’re still doing the books at night.
We take the entry on along with the close. Where a bookkeeper stays, they keep the entry and we close on a written calendar.
Ten sheets, the same ten every month
The package has three readers: you, your surety and your bank. Every sheet opens on a sentence that says what it found. Nobody has to call you to ask what they are looking at.
The cover sheet shown here is from the October 2026 sample package. Each number on it opens that sheet.
G-1Transmittal
October close complete; books closed November 12, 2026. One job is projected to lose money. Forecast cash falls below two weeks of payroll in the week ending December 5.
Prepared for the owner; sent to the surety and the bank only at the owner’s direction, as the company’s own statements.
This is a sample package. Northmoor Mechanical LLC is a sample company, and its figures are illustrative.
Prepared by Backlog Controller, [email protected]. Questions on any sheet: reply to the message this came with.
Northmoor Mechanical is a sample company with illustrative figures. The 13-week forecast on C-1 comes at the Close + Cash and Controller levels. The three levels
It starts with a memo you can act on
Sheet S-1 is a memo from the controller who closed your books. It says in plain words what happened on the jobs and to the cash, then names up to three decisions and the figure behind each.
Below, most of S-1 from the same sample package. Nothing in a package goes to your surety or your bank unless you send it.
S-1Owner summary
To the owner, Northmoor Mechanical. October 2026 close, issued November 13, 2026.
Lakeside Clinic TI is the one job losing money. The sheet-metal buyout on October 22 came in well over budget; the November 6 estimate puts the job at a $28,800 loss at completion, all of it in these statements. Lakeside also owes the $48,560 invoice from June, the only receivable past 90 days.
Cash is $312,418. The forecast bottoms at $97,386 in the week of December 5, under two weeks of payroll, and comes back to $287,642 by the end of January; a one-week draw on the line covers the low. Brookhaven’s $174,620 pay application (34 days past due) and Cedar Ridge’s $139,270 from September are forecast for the week of December 12; a week earlier from either removes the low. Tolliver Street is underbilled by $241,735: its September and October pay applications were held for the brewer’s financing, which closed October 28. The work is billable, and a pay application now, on 30-day terms, lands in mid-December and repays the draw.
Decisions this month
- Contain 26-044 Lakeside Clinic TI, projected to lose $28,800: lock the remaining buyout and approve no added scope without a signed change order.
- Ask the bank to term out about $260,000 of the line before the next statement date: the adjusted current ratio is 1.32 against the 1.50 sureties look for, a working-capital gap of $259,371 that collections alone will not close.
- Cover the week ending December 5, 2026, when the forecast low of $97,386 is below two weeks of payroll ($129,740): draw on the line for that week, and bill the earned work on 26-035 Tolliver Street process piping now ($241,735 underbilled) so its collection repays the draw.
Revenue, gross profit and cash by month
| Months as closed | Forecast | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In thousands of dollars | Nov 2025 | Dec 2025 | Jan 2026 | Feb 2026 | Mar 2026 | Apr 2026 | May 2026 | Jun 2026 | Jul 2026 | Aug 2026 | Sep 2026 | Oct 2026 | Dec 5 low | Jan 30 |
| Revenue | 468 | 403 | 378 | 353 | 455 | 503 | 579 | 568 | 598 | 609 | 597 | 558 | ||
| Gross profit | 81 | 64 | 55 | 49 | 75 | 87 | 99 | 98 | 100 | 101 | 107 | 52 | ||
| Cash at month end | 231 | 199 | 176 | 170 | 204 | 224 | 247 | 263 | 281 | 276 | 266 | 312 | 97 | 288 |
In thousands of dollars. Source: QuickBooks Online general ledger, each month as closed; October 2026 from sheets F-1 and F-2. The forecast low is the lowest closing cash in the 13 weeks (sheet C-1), in the week ending December 5, 2026.
Each step of the close has a due day
The close runs on a written calendar of 24 steps, counted in business days after month end. The last sheet of every package shows the day each step was due beside the day it was done.
Your part is on the calendar too: cost to complete from your project managers by day 5. Meet it and the tenth is ours to keep. A 45-minute call follows, to go through the package together.
From the second monthly close on, if your office met its dates on the close calendar and the package is late, half that month’s fee comes off the next invoice. You do not have to ask. All 24 steps, and how the WIP schedule is built
What it costs
A fixed monthly fee, from $3,000 a month, and a one-time onboarding fee, both set in writing after the diagnostic. Neither moves with the hours, because we do not bill by the hour. For a contractor in this range the monthly fee runs well under the cost of a controller on your payroll.
The monthly fee includes the year-end file your CPA works from. There is no long-term contract. The engagement runs month to month, and either of us can end it with 60 days’ written notice. Work outside the monthly close, such as catching up months that were never closed, is quoted first as a fixed price.
How it starts
A 20-minute call comes first: your jobs, your surety, your bank and who keeps the books. If the company fits, we spend two hours in your ledger on read-only access and send a one-page list of what we found. There is no charge for it, and the list is yours whether or not you go ahead.
A one-page proposal follows, naming the level of service, every fee and a start date. The first close is 30 days after you sign when the books are current. Questions owners ask
For surety agents, CPAs and bankers
We call a contractor you send us within one business day and tell you we have spoken. What they decide, you hear with their permission.