General Contracting
Last year’s revenue isn’t for sale. The backlog and the open jobs are.
A few big jobs can make any year look like a trend. The work-in-progress schedule — earned against billed — and the signed backlog are what actually transfer. Ask for both before you price anything.
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Cash flow model · construction business plan · red-flag checklist
- TOTAL OVERBILLINGS (billed more than earned)$214,000
- TOTAL UNDERBILLINGS (earned more than billed)$186,500
- NET OVER / (UNDER) BILLING$27,500
A great business and a transferable business are two different purchases.
- Revenue jumped the year the listing went up, and nobody’s named the job that did it.
- The school district, the property managers, the repeat customers — twenty years of one man’s relationships, and he’s leaving.
- Profitable on paper, while the owner waits sixty days and the subs bill weekly. Somebody floats that gap.
- The broker calls it SBA-preapproved. Nothing about it has been verified.
Three moves, in this order.
1. Get the WIP schedule and the backlog. What’s earned against what’s billed, and what’s actually signed. Overbilling is customers’ money already spent — it reverses as jobs finish.
2. Rebuild the margins by year and by customer. The top-three-customer share tells you whose relationships the revenue really is.
3. Model the worst month, not the average. Retainage held back, owners paying in sixty days, subs billing weekly — then check the loan payment survives it.
You end up knowing which year was real — and what you’d actually take over.
The construction business plan, and the model underneath it.
Acquisition Toolkit — three files
| File | What it does |
|---|---|
General Contracting Cash Flow Template .xlsx | A working WIP schedule, backlog and bonding, then twelve months against the loan. |
General Contracting Business Plan Scaffold .docx | Sixteen numbered sections — backlog, bonding and job costing get their own. |
General Contracting Acquisition Red-Flag Checklist Guide | Eleven sections of what to verify yourself — the license first, the WIP schedule second. |
Lender Package — those three, plus three more.
| File | What it does |
|---|---|
General Contracting Personal Financial Statement .xlsx | What you own, what you owe, and what’s liquid — the picture of you a lender asks for. |
General Contracting Lender Resume Template .docx | Your experience, written for whoever decides on the loan. |
General Contracting Loan Document Checklist Guide | Nine sections of what a lender asks for — WIP, backlog and job history included. |
Spreadsheets open in Excel, Numbers or Sheets. Your numbers stay on your computer — nothing uploads.
No hype. No loan promises.
It won’t get you approved, and a preapproval letter isn’t a verdict either. It helps you build the number yourself — walking away is free.
It’s built for buying a construction business that already exists. Starting from scratch, there’s no backlog and no WIP to test — wrong tool.
We’re not lenders, brokers, attorneys or accountants. Where a question needs one, the files say so.
More before you decide
How to value a small business Due diligence before you buy See all industries