Concrete contractor bookkeeping: yards, pours and weather

Concrete is the trade where a single day decides the job. The forms are set, the truck is booked, the pump is on site, the crew is standing by — and the pour either goes well or it does not. Most of the cost of a concrete job is committed within a few hours.

That makes the books different from most trades. The costs worth tracking are the ones that cluster around the pour: material by the yard, the pump, finishing labor, and the weather. A concrete contractor who knows those per job knows where the margin went. One who knows them only as monthly totals is guessing.

Ready-mix by the ticket

Every ready-mix delivery comes with a ticket: the yards, the mix, the time on site. Those tickets are the most useful source document in the business, and they should be matched to the job and to the supplier's invoice every month.

Three things to watch for:

Yards ordered against yards placed. Over-ordering is normal — nobody wants to run short mid-pour — but the gap should be roughly consistent. A job where it is much larger than usual points to an estimating error, a form problem or waste, and you only see it if both numbers are recorded per job.

Extra charges. Short-load fees, waiting time beyond the allowance, weekend or after-hours delivery, hot- and cold-weather additives. They arrive on the invoice after the fact and are easy to code to general materials. They belong on the job, because they are costs the job created.

Price movement. Ready-mix pricing can move between the bid and the pour. On fixed-price work, that is margin moving, and it is worth being able to see it per job rather than discovering it as a vague sense that last quarter was thin.

The pump and the subs

Pumping is often subcontracted, charged by the hour or the pour with a minimum. Code it to the job and the pour. Same for any saw cutting, rebar placement or testing you sub out. These are among the costs most commonly missing from concrete estimates, and the only way to catch that is having actuals to compare against.

Labor on pour days

Finishing crews work to the concrete's schedule, not the clock. Pour days run long, overtime is routine, and a crew kept on through the evening because the slab is setting slowly is a real cost of that job.

Labor should be costed to the job at the burdened rate — wage, payroll taxes, workers comp and benefits — including the overtime premium. Concrete workers comp classes tend to be expensive, and costing at the bare wage understates every job. The true hourly cost calculator works the rate out.

Form setting and stripping days count too. They are less dramatic than the pour and often a larger share of the hours.

Weather is a cost, so record it

A cancelled pour still costs you: a crew sent home paid, or stood around; a pump booking with a cancellation charge; a second mobilisation to the site. Hot and cold weather bring their own costs — additives, blankets, heaters, curing compounds.

If those costs are coded to the job they happened on, you build a record of what weather actually costs you by season. That record is what lets you price winter work, or a job with an unforgiving schedule, on evidence rather than instinct.

Forms, tools and equipment

Reusable forms are equipment, not a job cost — they last for many jobs. Mixers, power trowels, screeds, saws, skid steers and trucks are the same. Their cost reaches jobs through an equipment charge per day or per job, so the equipment-heavy work carries its real cost. The equipment buy, lease or finance guide covers the ownership decision itself.

Single-use items — form ties, release agent, forms built for one unusual job — are job costs.

Different work, different businesses

Residential flatwork, decorative and stamped concrete, foundations, and commercial structural work differ in almost every way that matters: crew size, equipment, margin, payment terms and risk. Separate them with classes or income accounts and the books will tell you which one is worth growing.

Commercial and structural work add pay applications, retainage, lien waivers and sometimes prevailing wage. See retainage explained and lien waivers explained.

Callbacks

Cracking, scaling, drainage complaints — some are warranty, some are not, and all of them cost a visit. Code return trips to the original job. Over time that shows whether particular mixes, finishes, seasons or crews produce more callbacks than others, which is information you cannot get any other way. See what callbacks are really costing you.

Related

• Construction bookkeeping, step by step
• How to bid a job so it makes what you intended
• The job profit calculator

General information, not tax or legal advice.