Insurance work and retail work are different businesses. Your books treat them as one.

• 01

  Insurance versus retail, separated

  Two margins, tracked apart. It usually changes where the marketing money goes.

• 02

  Subcontractor cost per job

  What went out to subs, measured against what came in on that job. The jobs that do not work stop being invisible.

• 03

  Weather-driven cash flow

  Books that reflect a rained-out month, so a bad stretch is something you planned for rather than something you discover.

• Roofing

  Weather runs my schedule and my cash flow, and I'd never had books that reflected that reality. They set it up so I can see what a rained-out month actually does to me. First time in 12 years I've felt ahead of it instead of behind it.

• Roofing

  Insurance work versus retail work — completely different margins, and I was lumping it all together. Splitting those out was eye-opening. I've shifted where I spend my marketing money because of it.

• Roofing

  I was 8 months behind and had a bank asking for financials for a line of credit I needed. They got me current in time. That's not an exaggeration — that deadline was real and they hit it.

All client results

• Why should insurance and retail work be tracked separately?+

  Because they are effectively two businesses sharing crews. They price differently — one against a carrier estimate, one by you — and insurance work carries administrative load that almost never gets costed to the job: supplements, adjuster meetings, documentation, re-inspections. Reported as one revenue line the average looks fine while one stream quietly subsidises the other.

• How do I tie subcontractor costs back to individual jobs?+

  Require the job address on every sub invoice, split payments that cover several roofs across those roofs, and enter it while it is fresh. Sub labour is usually the largest cost on a roofing job and in most books it is a monthly total with nothing attached, which is the single most common reason roofing books cannot say what a job made.

• What records do I need for subcontractor insurance?+

  A W-9 and a current certificate of insurance before the first dollar is paid, with the expiry date somewhere a person checks monthly. If a sub cannot produce cover for the dates worked, a workers comp audit will typically treat what you paid them as your payroll at the roofing rate — one of the highest there is. If an uninsured sub is injured, the exposure is larger still.

• What does the free first month include for a roofing business?+

  Your most recent complete month in full: categorized and reconciled, a P&L and balance sheet, insurance separated from retail, subcontractor cost attached to jobs where the data supports it, and a one-page plain-English summary. A US CPA reviews and signs it. Two days, no card, yours either way.