Interior Trades

Finish work means every detail shows. The prep time, punch lists, and callbacks that eat your margin need to be tracked by job.

The Last Trade In

You’re doing the work that everyone sees. The homeowner walks through and inspects every wall, every floor, every cabinet. They notice the brush stroke that caught the light wrong. They see the grout line that isn’t perfectly straight. Interior trades face a standard that rough-in trades never deal with.

This visibility creates pressure that costs money. You spend extra time on perfection. You go back for touch-ups the client didn’t pay for. You protect existing finishes that aren’t yours. All of this time adds up, but it rarely shows up in the bid. Without tracking what jobs actually cost you in labor and materials, the margin you expected disappears into work you never planned to do.

Who This Covers

Painting contractors, flooring installers, drywall and finishing crews, tile and stone contractors, finish carpenters, millwork specialists, and cabinet installers across the Wasatch Front. Anyone doing visible finish work where quality standards are high and client expectations are even higher.

The Challenge

You quote the job based on square footage or scope. But complexity varies from house to house. Occupied homes take longer than empty ones. High ceilings take longer than standard. Existing conditions create surprises. Without job-level data, you can’t tell which jobs made money and which ones cost you.

Where the Margin Disappears

A painting job gets bid based on square footage. But the actual time includes moving furniture, laying drop cloths, masking windows and trim, and cleanup at the end. None of that is “painting” but it all takes labor hours. A flooring installer quotes per square foot but doesn’t account for moving appliances, working around existing cabinets, or the extra cuts required in an oddly shaped room.

Then there’s the punch list. You finish the job. The client does a walkthrough. Now you’re back for touch-ups, adjustments, and fixes. Some of that is legitimate warranty work. Some of it is clients being picky about things that were fine. Either way, it’s time you’re not billing for. We help you track all of this by job so you can see what projects actually cost and price future work accordingly.

Prep and Protection Time

We track labor hours by job, including the prep work that happens before the “real” work starts. You’ll see how much time goes into protection, masking, moving obstacles, and setup. This data shows which job types require more prep than your estimates assume.

Callbacks and Punch Lists

Return trips get logged against the original job. When you go back three times for touch-ups on a project you thought was done, those hours show up in the job cost. You’ll know which clients or job types generate the most callbacks and can adjust pricing or processes.

Bidding Without Data

Most interior trade contractors estimate based on experience and gut feel. You’ve done enough kitchens to know roughly what they take. But “roughly” isn’t precise enough when margins are tight. A standard kitchen remodel might net you 25%. A complicated one with custom details and a demanding client might net you 5% or put you in the red. If you’re not tracking job costs, you treat them the same in your head even though they’re completely different financially.

Material waste adds another layer of uncertainty. A tile setter might estimate 10% waste for cuts and breakage. On a straightforward job, actual waste is 6%. On a complex job with lots of corners and curves, it’s 18%. Paint gets wasted on touch-ups and extra coats. Flooring gets wasted on pattern matching. Without tracking actual material usage by job, your estimates are based on averages that hide the variance.

Complexity Gets Ignored

Square footage pricing assumes all square feet are equal. They’re not. Working in occupied homes takes longer. High ceilings require more time and equipment. Old houses have surprises behind every wall. When you track job costs, you start to see patterns in which job types consistently run over estimate.

The Cash Flow Squeeze

Many interior trades work as subcontractors for general contractors. You front materials and labor, then wait for draws. Some GCs pay in 30 days. Some take 60 or 90. Without tracking receivables by client, you don’t know which relationships create cash flow problems until you’re scrambling to make payroll.

What Changes

You stop guessing on bids. When you’ve tracked job costs for six months, you know what different types of work actually cost. That kitchen remodel in an occupied home with 10-foot ceilings? You have data from three similar jobs. You know the prep time ran 40% higher than a vacant home. You price accordingly instead of using the same formula for everything.

Cash flow becomes predictable. You know which GCs pay quickly and which ones stretch payments. You can see receivables aging and follow up before accounts go past 60 days. Tax time becomes straightforward because the books are clean and organized throughout the year. Your CPA gets a complete picture without having to reconstruct anything.

Bidding Based on Reality

Job costing gives you real numbers for real bids. You can separate job types and see which ones are profitable. High-end custom work might feel prestigious but net less than production work. You make decisions based on margin, not assumptions about what should be profitable.

Foundation for Growth

When you know your numbers, you can grow without guessing. Adding a crew becomes a calculated decision. You know your overhead, your average job margin, and how much revenue a new crew needs to generate. Growth happens based on profit, not just staying busy.

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