Roofing contractor CFO services: hold the margin per square

Per-square margin: one number that keeps everyone honest

Every completed roof should report its actual cost per square — shingles, underlayment and accessories, labour, tear-off and disposal, plus a warranty allowance — against the price per square it was quoted at. When that comparison runs weekly, by job type and pitch, estimating drift shows up in weeks instead of at year-end, and the crews learn that margin is measured, not assumed. Labour must be loaded honestly too: WSIB premium rates for roofing sit among the highest of any Ontario trade, and a labour rate that ignores the true burden overstates every quote.

Tear-off and disposal deserve their own line in the number as well. Bin counts and dump fees swing with the layers coming off, and a roof carrying two old layers routinely surprises an estimator who priced for one — a walk-through habit, not a spreadsheet fix.

Material volatility is the standing threat to the number. Shingle pricing moves with oil, steel moves with tariffs, and a roof quoted in April can be underwater by June — so quotes carry expiry dates, larger contracts carry escalation language, and supplier pricing gets locked the day a big job signs. The tariff and import side of US-sourced material is its own file, covered on our roofing cross-border tax page.

Storm season: a surge is not a scale-up

A hail or windstorm can deliver a year of demand in six weeks, and the classic failure is building permanent overhead on temporary volume — trucks, salaried staff, and a shop lease that outlive the storm by years. We plan surge capacity before it is needed: which subcontract crews scale up, on what terms, with T5018 reporting and WSIB clearances handled properly — who counts as staff versus sub is walked through on our roofing payroll page — and which price floor holds when the phone will not stop ringing.

The cash side of a surge is just as sharp. Materials are paid in days while storm receivables can take months, so the 13-week forecast gets a surge scenario: deposit terms, supplier limits, and a line of credit arranged before the working-capital spike, not during it. The discipline is to bank a surge, not annualize it.

Retail versus insurance work: two businesses, one crew

Insurance restoration and retail re-roofing wear the same shingles but behave like different companies, and the mix deserves a deliberate setting rather than whatever the season brought:

We track margin and days-to-cash by segment, because insurance work smooths demand while quietly stretching receivables, and retail pays fast but must be sold roof by roof. Rotten decking discovered mid-job is the test case: on retail it needs a signed change order before the plywood goes down; on insurance it needs a supplement documented with photos and billed, not absorbed. A restoration book where supplements are casual is a book leaking margin invisibly.

Cash, holdbacks, and the warranty tail

Commercial and builder work brings Construction Act holdbacks — 10% of billings sitting out of reach until release — so the forecast shows holdback receivables on their own line, and job pricing accepts that the last tenth arrives late. Workmanship warranties are a real liability rather than a slogan: we fund a small per-square accrual as jobs close, sized from your own callback history, so a bad batch of installs draws on a reserve instead of a crisis. The underlying job costing, deposit treatment, and holdback tracking live in our roofing bookkeeping service, which is what makes every number above trustworthy.

Season shape frames all of it. Ontario roofing compresses into roughly April through November, so the forecast funds HST remittances and equipment payments from the strong months, and the winter plan — which crews are laid off with proper ROEs, which overheads pause — is written before the first frost rather than after it. Winter is also when pricing gets reviewed, with a full season of per-square actuals on the table and supplier programs resetting for spring.