Which job or client pays you the most? Profit by project, crew or unit

Almost every business owner knows who their biggest client is. Far fewer know which client pays them the most. They are not always the same, and the difference may be why you work more and earn the same.

Assign every cost to its job

To compare, every expense needs a label: the job, client, crew, route or unit it belongs to. Whatever isn’t labeled ends up in “overhead,” and there you lose track of which job caused it.

You don’t need a complicated system. It’s enough that every receipt, every hour your people work and every payment to a subcontractor is recorded with the job’s name or number.

Compare margin, not sales

An example with illustrative figures:

• Client A: $60,000 in sales and $51,000 in costs → leaves you $9,000 (15%).
• Client B: $25,000 in sales and $17,500 in costs → leaves you $7,500 (30%).

Client A looks more important, but B leaves almost the same with less than half the work, materials and risk. With that information you can decide differently.

The costs almost nobody counts

When you compare, include what usually doesn’t show up in the quote:

• Overtime and waiting days for materials or permits.
• Extra trips to the job site and rework.
• Fuel and vehicle wear on long routes.
• Slow payment: a client who pays in 90 days makes you finance their job with your money.

By crew, route or unit

The same idea works for any trade:

• In landscaping, compare routes and crews: a route with scattered clients can cost more than it brings in.
• In cleaning, compare contracts by hour worked, not by monthly amount.
• If you’re an owner-operator, compare loads and units by what you earn against what each mile costs you.
• In construction and drywall, compare what you estimated against what each job actually cost.

What to do with the result

1. Adjust prices on the jobs that don’t leave the margin you need.
2. Renegotiate or change terms with clients who pay late or ask for a lot of rework.
3. Focus on the type of job, client or route that does pay off, and sell more of it.

Seeing profit by job isn’t an accounting exercise: it’s the most direct way to decide what to say yes to. In the free consultation we review how your information is set up and what’s missing to compare it this way.

The examples in this article are illustrative and are not a substitute for advice from your CPA.

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