Here's a question that keeps contractors up at night: Why am I always busy but never ahead?
You're booked solid. Jobs are lined up. Clients keep calling. But at the end of the year, there's not much to show for it. The truck needs work. The emergency fund is thin. And you're already stressing about next month's bills.
The kneejerk answer is "I need more jobs" or "I need to raise my prices." And maybe. But that's not usually the real problem.
The real problem is you're already earning the money — you're just not collecting it.
Most contractors I talk to have 5 revenue leaks running simultaneously. Not big, dramatic losses. Small ones. The kind that look like $50 here, $200 there, a forgotten charge order, a fudged estimate. Individually? No big deal. Compounded across 40-60 jobs a year? It's devastating.
Let's walk through all five.
The 5 Revenue Leaks Draining Your Business
You just finished a 10-hour day. You're covered in dust, your back hurts, and the last thing you want to do is sit down with receipts and figure out what to bill.
So you don't. You tell yourself you'll do it tomorrow. Or this weekend. Or when things "calm down."
Here's what happens when you invoice 3-7 days after the work:
- You forget line items. That extra trip to Home Depot? The 45 minutes you spent on a callback? The material you grabbed from your own stock? Gone.
- You round down. "Was it 6.5 hours or 7? I'll just say 6." Multiply that across 50 jobs.
- You lose leverage. A week later, you can't argue a line item you can barely remember.
Contractors who bill within 24 hours consistently collect 15-20% more per job than those who wait. Not because they charge more — because they charge for what they actually did.
Client asks you to move an outlet. Add a shelf. Swap the tile. "While you're here, could you also…"
You say yes because you're a professional and it's easier than having the conversation. The work takes 20 minutes. Or an hour. Or half a day.
And then you never bill for it.
Why? Because by the time you're doing paperwork, you've either:
- Forgotten the change happened
- Decided it was "too small to bill" (it wasn't)
- Lost the verbal approval and don't want the awkward conversation
The data is grim. 65% of small contractors never bill for at least some change order work. Not because they're pushovers — because there's no system capturing changes as they happen.
Real example: A GTA renovation contractor tracked his change orders for one month. He found $3,200 in work he'd done but never billed. That's $38K/year walking out the door.
Quick quiz: If your costs are $10,000 and you add a 20% markup, what's your profit margin?
If you said 20%, you're losing money and don't know it.
A 20% markup on $10,000 means you charge $12,000. Your profit is $2,000. But your margin is $2,000 / $12,000 = 16.7%. Not 20%.
This gap compounds. Contractors who think they're running at 20% margin are often running at 14-16%. Across $300K-$500K in annual revenue, that's $12K-$20K less profit than they think they're making.
The fix isn't complicated — you just need to understand the math. But most contractors were never taught it.
🧮 Check Your Real Numbers
Our free Markup Calculator shows your true margin, effective hourly rate, and how you compare to industry benchmarks.
Use the Markup Calculator →How do you estimate a job? If you're like most contractors, it goes something like this:
- Walk the site
- Ballpark materials in your head
- Think about how long it "should" take
- Add a buffer (maybe)
- Round to a number that feels right
The problem? The average contractor underestimates labor by 22%. Not on every job — but consistently, across the year, the estimate-to-actual gap eats profit like termites.
Why 22%? Because you estimate based on how long the work takes when everything goes right. But on actual job sites:
- Weather kills a morning
- Materials arrive wrong or late
- The client changes their mind twice
- You spend an hour on callbacks and warranty stuff
- Travel time between jobs adds up
None of that makes it into the estimate. All of it shows up in the actual hours.
📊 How Accurate Are Your Estimates?
Enter your last few jobs and see your real estimating accuracy score — plus where the gaps are.
Try the Estimating Accuracy Calculator →You eat costs to keep clients happy. Every contractor does it. The question is how much.
- Free callbacks: "It was a 15-minute fix, not worth invoicing." (It took an hour with drive time.)
- Absorbed materials: Extra caulk, a few extra screws, touch-up paint. "It's only $30." Times 50 jobs.
- Scope creep acceptance: The project slowly grows by 10-15% but the price stays the same.
- Discounts to close: "I can do it for $X" when you know $X doesn't cover your true costs.
None of these are wrong individually. Relationship-building matters. But without tracking what you're giving away, you can't make informed decisions about when to absorb and when to bill.
The contractors who track this stuff are shocked at the totals. $200/month in free callbacks alone is $2,400/year. That's a vacation. A new tool. An emergency fund buffer.
Why This Keeps Happening
It's not a knowledge problem. Most contractors know they should bill faster, track changes, and watch their margins. The issue is systems.
After a 10-hour day on site, you don't have the energy to:
- Open a laptop and enter time
- Create an invoice from scratch
- Log all the changes from today
- Cross-reference your estimates
- Track what you absorbed vs. billed
So the system needs to meet you where you already are. Not another app. Not another dashboard. Not another login you'll abandon in a week.
The contractors who plug these leaks have one thing in common: they capture information at the point of work, not at the end of the day.
That means voice notes on the drive home. Quick texts with photos. Anything that gets the data out of your head before you forget it.
The Quick Math That Changes Everything
Let's say you plug just half of these leaks. You're not perfect — just better. That's $10K-$22K back in your pocket.
What does that look like?
- $10K: That's two weeks of vacation you couldn't take before. Or a down payment on a new truck.
- $15K: That's hiring a part-time helper for summer. Or a serious equipment upgrade.
- $22K: That's the difference between surviving and growing. Between one truck and two.
And you didn't need a single new job to get there. Same clients. Same work. Just collecting what you're owed.
What to Do Next
You can't fix what you can't see. Start with two things:
- Know your real margin. Run your numbers through the Markup Calculator. If your true margin is below 15%, you have a pricing leak.
- Track your next 5 jobs honestly. Write down every hour, every material run, every "small" extra. Compare what you billed to what you actually did. The gap will surprise you.
The uncomfortable truth: You're probably already earning enough. You're just not keeping enough of it. Fix the leaks before you chase more revenue.
The contractors who win aren't the ones who charge the most or work the hardest. They're the ones who capture everything and leave nothing on the table.