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Why you made money on every job and still missed EBITDA
The most common P&L mystery in the trades, the five indirect-cost leaks behind it, and how to find them in your own statement this week.
02 · Operations
Find the leak. Keep the margin.
You can make money on every job and still miss EBITDA. The difference hides in indirect costs, unread contracts, unbilled equipment and an uncounted warehouse. We find it, fix it and keep it fixed.
- $3.47MEBITDA in one branch year
- 211%of EBITDA goal, trailing twelve
- 12 / 12months profitable
What is the Profit Leak Audit?
The Profit Leak Audit is a fixed-fee, two-to-three-week, line-by-line review of the trailing-twelve-month P&L, vendor contracts, indirect costs, equipment utilization, warehouse control and job costing. You receive a ranked leak list with annual dollar values, the fix for each and who owns it.
For owner-operators, branch leaders and private-equity operating partners in restoration, MEP, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, roofing, design-build and home services. The operating cadence that follows — weekly KPIs, monthly P&L review — makes the recovered margin permanent.
2–3
weeks, start to read-out
Fixed
fee, scoped on the call
1 owner
named for every fix on the list
Sound familiar?
The P&L mysteries we solve most often.
“My managers have never read a P&L — and I am not sure I read it right either.”
- Every project report says we hit margin. The office still lost money.
- We own a warehouse full of equipment and nobody can tell me what it earns.
- Corporate signed a five-year contract for something we do not use.
- Our estimators price jobs one way and our PMs run them another.
- Material walks out the door and shows up as ‘cost of goods’.
- I get the P&L on the 20th and it is already history.
What we do
What does the audit cover?
Profit Leak Audit
Trailing-twelve P&L, every vendor contract, every recurring charge, every indirect cost. You receive a ranked leak list with annual dollar values and who owns the fix.
Job costing and project margin
One way to estimate, one way to run the job, one way to close it out — so “we made margin on the project” means the office did too.
Indirect-cost recovery
Equipment, vehicles, consumables and labor burden charged to the jobs that consume them. In the branch Steve ran, internal equipment rental carried a 50% margin once it was actually billed.
Warehouse and equipment control
Counts, check-in and check-out, utilization. If you do not know what leaves the building, you cannot know what the job cost.
P&L literacy for leaders
Whiteboard sessions that teach your managers to read the statement, find the drivers and explain the variance without an accountant in the room.
KPI cadence
A one-page weekly scoreboard and a monthly P&L review with owners and actions. The truth, on time, every month.
Leaks Steve found as the operator
- Phone lines$1,300 a month for an office with no desk phones, buried in a five-year corporate contractRenegotiated to $200
- Equipment rentalOwned air movers, dehumidifiers and scrubbers going out to jobs for freeBilled at a 50% margin
- Job costingEstimators, PMs and accounting using three definitions of marginOne definition, estimate to invoice
- The warehouseMaterials leaving for jobs — and for no job — unchargedCounted, checked in and out
From Steve’s own branch, 2019–2024. The full record.
How it runs
From audit to habit.
The audit finds the money. The cadence keeps it. Steve’s own operator leak list began with a $1,300-a-month phone contract for an office with no desk phones.
- Week 1Collect
Trailing-twelve P&L by month, general ledger detail, contracts, equipment list, job-cost reports, org chart.
- Weeks 2–3Audit
Line-by-line review, interviews with finance, ops and the warehouse, site walk. Ranked leak list with dollar values.
- Week 4Decide
Read-out with ownership: what to fix first, what to renegotiate, what to stop, who owns each action.
- Months 2–3Fix
Renegotiations, job-costing standards, equipment billing, warehouse control, the weekly scoreboard. We coach the owners of each action.
- Month 4+Sustain
Monthly P&L review on retainer until the cadence is second nature — then we step back.
What changes
What does protected margin look like?
The goal is not a one-time saving. It is an operation that sees its own leaks before we do.
EBITDA recovered
Recovered EBITDA
Contracts renegotiated, unused services canceled, indirect costs billed. Real dollars, this year.
Job GM held
Jobs that close at their sold margin
Estimating, execution and close-out speak the same language — the margin the team sold is the margin you keep.
Utilization
Equipment that earns
Utilization you can see and internal rental income you can count.
Shrink → 0
A warehouse you trust
What leaves is recorded, charged and returned.
Variance explained
Leaders who read the numbers
Managers who can explain the variance — and prevent it.
P&L by day 10
A monthly rhythm
P&L on time, reviewed with owners and actions, every month.
Questions
Asked often.
A fixed-fee, two-to-three-week review of your trailing-twelve P&L, general ledger detail, vendor contracts, recurring charges, equipment and warehouse practices, and job-costing reports. You receive a ranked list of leaks with annual dollar values, the fix for each, and who owns it.
It varies with size and history. As an operator, Steve found a $1,300-a-month phone contract for an office with no desk phones, and he knows where the quieter leaks hide: equipment rental that never gets charged to the job (a 50% margin when it is), and job-costing gaps that disguise the real project margin. A $10M–$30M branch typically has several such items.
A fixed fee agreed before we start, scoped on a 30-minute call to your revenue, number of branches and the depth of the ledger. No hourly billing and no open-ended retainer; the monthly cadence that follows is priced separately and only if you want it.
Almost never. Most leaks are fixed with standards, cadence and negotiation, using the systems you already own. Where a tool genuinely helps, we say so — but we do not sell or implement software.
Yes, and we prefer to. They own the numbers; we help operations own the drivers. The audit is stronger when finance is in the room.
Next step
What is leaking right now?
Thirty minutes. Bring the trailing-twelve P&L if you have it. We will tell you plainly what an audit would cover, what it costs, and whether it is the right first step.
- You talk to Steve, not a salesperson
- Replies within one business day
- Based in Tampa
- Nationwide
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