Most home services owners came up through the trades, not the books. You can run a profitable job and still end the month wondering where the cash went — and that gap between “busy” and “actually making money” is where financial management lives.
The articles in this category cover the things we see blow up most often inside HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing businesses: job costing that actually ties back to the P&L, cash flow forecasting when receivables are choppy, labor burden math nobody wants to do, pricing floors that don’t leave margin on the table, and the monthly close discipline that separates a $2M shop from a $20M one. Every piece is written from the seat we sit in — working hands-on with home services contractors as fractional CFOs — not from a textbook.
If you’re trying to get a cleaner read on your numbers, fix a margin that’s been sliding, or just stop flying blind between tax returns, start here.
When to hire technicians, CSRs, and managers in home services. Revenue-per-employee benchmarks and headcount planning framework.
Supply house material cost tracking: COGS segmentation, PO systems, rebate recovery, invoice matching, and common waste elimination for home services contractors.
Compare lease vs. buy for service trucks with real TCO math, tax implications (Section 179), and balance sheet impact. Buying saves $20-50K/year...
Should you add plumbing or electrical? Learn incremental margin math, cross-sell economics, compliance costs, and what PE buyers evaluate for multi-trade businesses.
Build a financial model for your second location before opening. Learn breakeven math, overhead duplication, staffing costs, and what PE buyers evaluate.
Every year around February, I get calls from contractors who just got their tax bill and are in shock. They ran a...