You’ve earned the money. The draw just hasn’t landed.
For electrical contractors, the gap between earning money and receiving it can run months. We build books that track every dollar through that gap.
Bid work has a cash rhythm all its own. You buy out material months before the first draw lands, the customer holds retainage on every invoice, and your crews rack up labor whether or not the pay application has been approved. On paper the job is profitable. In the bank, you’re floating it. Your books need to show both truths at once.
And then there are change orders — work your crew already did that nobody has billed yet. Directed changes pile up on a clipboard, weeks pass, and some never make it to an invoice at all. We track them as money in motion, so earned work stops leaking out of the job before it ever turns into cash.
- Material buyouts hit your bank long before the draw does.
- Retainage is your money — held hostage until closeout.
- Change orders done but not billed are gifts you didn’t mean to give.
typical retainage held back on bid work — earned money your books need to track until it finally lands
Books that speak contractor
Monthly reconciliation with retainage tracked as its own line, job costs coded to the job they belong to, and labor burden — payroll plus everything riding on top of it — calculated per job instead of guessed. You get statements that show what each project is really doing, not one blended number.
Draw and cash visibility
A forward view of cash that lines up buyouts, payroll, and expected draws on the same calendar, so a big material order never ambushes you. Plus a running change-order log with dollars attached, so nothing your crew installed dies unbilled on a superintendent’s clipboard. When a draw slips, you’ll know exactly how long you can float it.
Strategy for bigger bids
When you’re sizing up a larger project, the questions are about cash: can you carry the buyout, survive the retainage hold, and cover the crew until the draws catch up. We run those numbers with you before you commit — the way an owner would, because we’ve been owners.
Do you handle retainage and pay applications?
We track retainage on every job as its own balance, so you always know how much of your money is parked in other people’s projects and when it should come home. Draws, buyouts, and change orders get logged against the job too, so the whole cash story of a project lives in one place.
What does this cost for an electrical contractor?
Books Right is $159/mo to start — a special on the normal $300 rate. CFO Core begins at $1,325/mo instead of the usual $1,500, and Strategic CFO begins at $5,000/mo. If the books need rescue first, Catch-Up Cleanup carries a one-time fixed price. You’ll have a firm number after a 15-minute call, and it will never be an hourly rate.
A fixed number.No mystery.
Tell us what you do and how far behind the books are. You’ll have your price this week.
(254) 556-5277