Reports
How much cash is this job actually costing me right now?
A job can be profitable on paper and still be the reason you cannot pay the merchant this month. The number that tells you is not margin, it is the cash position: money the job has actually brought in, minus money it has actually sent out. Most builders have never seen it per job.
QScope Team·19 November 2025·5 min read
There is no statute in this page and no contract clause: this is arithmetic, and the only rule is honesty about what goes in it. The subtraction is:
cash in (payments actually received on this job, not certified, not applied for, received) minus cash out (subcontractors actually paid, materials actually paid for, plant, labour, the job’s share of what it took to run it).
That number, today, is the job’s cash position. On most live jobs it is negative for months, because you buy materials and pay labour weeks before the valuation that covers them gets paid. That is normal. What matters is whether the hole is the size you expected, and whether it is closing or growing.
Why it differs from profit, and why that gap bites
Profit compares value to cost. Cash compares receipts to payments, and three things sit in the gap:
- Retention: earned, certified, and not in your account, some of it for a year or more after the job ends. On a 5% job that alone is a twentieth of turnover you are lending out, and getting it back is its own subject.
- Timing: work done in March gets valued in April and paid in May, while March’s wages went out in March.
- The unbilled tail: variations done and not yet in any application, the most invisible lending there is, every variation goes into the next valuation or it is a gift.
The full explanation of that gap has its own page; this one is about the habit of measuring it.
What moves the number, in order of leverage
1. Getting paid what is already due. Anything past its final date is not a cash flow problem, it is a collection problem, with its own fix.
2. Billing everything the job has earned: variations, dayworks, materials on site where the contract allows them. The cheapest cash improvement is work already done that nobody has applied for.
3. Matching your outgoings to your certainty: paying subcontractors on subcontract terms rather than early, and not funding long-lead materials before the deposit conversation, which is allowed to happen.
What to do this week
1. Do the subtraction for your biggest live job, honestly, including its share of overhead. Expect an ugly number; the point is knowing it.
2. List what the job has earned but not billed, and put all of it in the next application.
3. Repeat monthly, same day as the valuation. One data point is a fright; a monthly series is a management tool, because the direction of travel is the real information.
Where the information stops
A persistently negative cash position across all jobs at once is not a project problem, it is a business one, and the person to talk to is your accountant, this month, not at year end. This page measures the hole; it does not advise on financing it.