Tradepoint CFOs

Tradepoint CFOs CFO advisor, Bookkeeping and Tax Professional. I am a
Certified Quickbooks Online and Xero ProAdvisor.

My goal is to help small business owners to have a growing and successful business!

Three numbers. Three different stories.REVENUE tells you how busy you are.MARGIN tells you how smart you are.CASH tells ...
05/30/2026

Three numbers. Three different stories.

REVENUE tells you how busy you are.
MARGIN tells you how smart you are.
CASH tells you whether you'll be in business next year.

Most owners only watch one. The pros watch all three.

🔁 Save this & send it to a contractor friend.

DM "MARGIN" for our free Job Margin Audit checklist — 7 questions that surface where you're leaving money on the table.

Sometimes your biggest customer is your worst customer.I worked with an electrical contractor whose largest account was ...
05/28/2026

Sometimes your biggest customer is your worst customer.

I worked with an electrical contractor whose largest account was 35% of revenue. Big GC. Steady work. The owner was proud of it.

Then we did the math.

That customer's jobs ran at 14% gross margin. The rest of his book ran 38%.

He was working twice as hard for half the money — and he didn't realize it because the volume looked impressive.

When you do real job costing, you'll find your top customers fall into 3 buckets:

🟢 High volume + high margin = protect at all costs
🟡 High volume + low margin = renegotiate or fire
🔴 Low volume + low margin = walk away

Don't fall in love with revenue. Fall in love with margin.

Have you ever had to fire a big customer?

A $2.1M HVAC business came to us frustrated. Profitable, but barely. Owner working 60+ hour weeks.We didn't touch their ...
05/28/2026

A $2.1M HVAC business came to us frustrated. Profitable, but barely. Owner working 60+ hour weeks.

We didn't touch their pricing. We didn't bring in new customers. Here's what we did instead:

📊 **Step 1: True job costing for 60 days.**
We rebuilt their cost-per-job model with fully-burdened labor (they were under-loading by 22%).

📉 **Step 2: Margin analysis by job type.**
Discovered that residential service calls under $400 were losing $35/each on average. They were running 80+ of those a month.

🔄 **Step 3: Restructured the service tier.**
Minimum service call raised from $89 to $149. Truck-stocking optimized to cut return trips. Smaller jobs bundled into full half-days.

📈 **Result after 90 days:**
→ $87K in additional gross margin (annualized)
→ Same revenue
→ Owner working 50 hours instead of 65

The money was always there. It was just hiding in a job-costing report nobody was reading.

If you want to see what's hiding in your numbers, book a free 30-min Cash Flow Clarity Call → tradepointcfos.com

BIDDING is what you THINK a job will cost.JOB COSTING is what it ACTUALLY cost.Most trade businesses bid like pros and n...
05/27/2026

BIDDING is what you THINK a job will cost.
JOB COSTING is what it ACTUALLY cost.

Most trade businesses bid like pros and never close the loop on the actual.

That gap is where margin dies.

The discipline that separates 7-figure trade shops from 8-figure ones?

📊 They review every job after it closes.
📊 They compare bid vs. actual.
📊 They adjust the next bid based on what they learned.

Boring. Repeatable. Profitable.

🔁 Save this if you've never reviewed a job after it wrapped.

Quick reality check.When you bid a job using a "$30/hour" labor cost, what does that number actually include?If it's jus...
05/25/2026

Quick reality check.

When you bid a job using a "$30/hour" labor cost, what does that number actually include?

If it's just the wage you pay your guy — you're under-costing by a LOT.

True burdened labor cost includes:
✅ Wages
✅ Payroll taxes (F**A, FUTA, SUTA) — adds ~8%
✅ Workers' comp — varies wildly, often 5-20%
✅ Health insurance / benefits — 10-15%
✅ Paid time off, holidays — 5-7%
✅ Indirect time (drive time, shop cleanup, training) — 10-15%

Add it up: a $25/hr wage is realistically a $35-$40/hr cost to your business.

If you're bidding at the wage rate, you're giving away 30%+ of your labor cost on every job.

Pull your last 3 jobs. What labor rate did you use to bid them?

Most trade businesses know their TOTAL cost of doing business.Few know their cost PER JOB.That's where margin disappears...
05/25/2026

Most trade businesses know their TOTAL cost of doing business.
Few know their cost PER JOB.

That's where margin disappears.

The 4 buckets every job must capture:

1. **Direct labor** — hours actually spent on this job, at fully-burdened rate (wages + payroll taxes + benefits + workers' comp = usually 1.3-1.5x wage)
2. **Direct materials** — purchased and consumed for this job specifically
3. **Subcontractors** — passthrough costs with markup
4. **Job-specific overhead** — permits, dumpster, fuel, equipment time

What you'll find when you do this honestly:

→ You're losing money on at least 1 in 5 jobs.
→ One customer or job type is dragging the whole company down.
→ Your "best" job by revenue is rarely your best by margin.

Job costing is uncomfortable. It's also non-negotiable above $1M in revenue.

What's your current job costing setup? Pen and paper, QuickBooks, or full-blown software?

Old AR is expensive in ways most owners don't see:→ It's labor & materials you already paid for→ It's interest on the LO...
05/23/2026

Old AR is expensive in ways most owners don't see:

→ It's labor & materials you already paid for
→ It's interest on the LOC you used to bridge
→ It's the mental tax of "are they ever going to pay?"

Top trade shops review AR every Monday. Not quarterly. Not when their bookkeeper reminds them. Every. Monday.

What's your oldest open invoice right now? 👇

Here's a number that should bother you: the average residential contractor gets paid 47 days after they invoice.Top-perf...
05/21/2026

Here's a number that should bother you: the average residential contractor gets paid 47 days after they invoice.

Top-performing shops? They're at 22 days.

That 25-day gap is the difference between sleeping well and losing sleep over Friday's payroll.

How they do it:
✅ Deposits at signing (25-50%)
✅ Progress billing on jobs over 2 weeks
✅ Net-15 terms, not net-30
✅ Friday AR review every single week
✅ Auto-pay options for repeat customers

None of this is hard. But you have to actually do it.

DM "AR" and I'll send you our 1-page Cash Flow Tightening Checklist — the exact sequence we use to cut DSO in half within a quarter.

Hot take: most trade businesses don't have a financing problem. They have a billing problem.Every time I see a contracto...
05/21/2026

Hot take: most trade businesses don't have a financing problem. They have a billing problem.

Every time I see a contractor lean on their LOC to make payroll, I ask:

"When did you last invoice this job?"

The answer is almost always: "Uh… I'll have to check."

There's the problem.

The line of credit isn't there because the business is unprofitable. It's there because:
→ Invoices go out 2-3 weeks after work is done
→ Payment terms are net-30 (or unenforced net-30)
→ Nobody is chasing AR until it's 60+ days old

You've turned your bank into your customers' free financing.

The fastest way to free up cash isn't a bigger LOC. It's:
1. Invoice on the day work is completed.
2. Net-15 terms with a 2% discount for 7-day pay.
3. Weekly AR review. Every Monday.

Do those three things and most trade businesses can stop relying on their LOC inside 90 days.

If you're tired of the LOC stress dance, book a free 30-min Cash Flow Clarity Call → tradepointcfos.com

You can lose every box score and still win the game.You can win every box score and still lose the game.What ends the se...
05/20/2026

You can lose every box score and still win the game.
You can win every box score and still lose the game.

What ends the season? Cash.

Every owner who's ever had a "great year" and a tight bank account knows this in their bones.

Run your business by the scoreboard. Read the box score for clues.

🔁 Save this for the next time someone tells you to "focus on revenue."

Address

Woonsocket, RI

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 9pm
Tuesday 9am - 9pm
Wednesday 9am - 9pm
Thursday 9am - 9pm
Friday 9am - 9pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+14012165295

Website

https://www.libertytax.com/21668

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