Financial clarity for TRADE BUSINESES
You know your trade. Do you know what your business should be making?
Builders Ledger builds the financial model your trade business should be running on, then puts it in your hands so you can manage to it every month.
Model-first
Built around your structure
Practical
Designed for monthly reviews
Your tool
Input workbook plus live model
Business Performance Model
Input workbook plus live model
Target return: What the structure should produce
Labour capacity: Productive hours and recovery
Overheads: Recovery logic and pressure points
Scenario planning: Test decisions before you make them
Scenario planning
Test decisions before you make them
Your bookkeeper keeps the accounts clean. Your external accountant is engaged to do the tax. But neither one necessarily tells you whether your business model actually works.
Most business owners make big decisions on gut feel. The model gives them a number instead.
- Are your labour rates and quoted hours internally consistent?
- Are you recovering overheads properly?
- Is growth creating profit, or just making the business busier?
- What happens if you hire two more people?
- What revenue do you need to budget for next year?
- What happens if you stop doing the work for a slow paying recurring customer?
- What should you be tracking each month to understand performance?
- what is the financial impact of labour blow outs?
- Are you optimised to extract the maximum value that your current footprint and capabilities allow?
How it works
The model comes first.
Most trade businesses have accounts. Very few have a model. The accounts tell you what happened. The model helps you understand what should be happening, what needs to be tracked, and where profit may be leaking.
01
We map your business
Workforce structure, labour costs, overheads, quoting assumptions, job types, revenue streams and operating risk.
02
We build your model
A practical financial model showing what the business should be capable of and what needs to be measured to confirm performance.
03
You get the tool
A live Excel-based model with input access, scenario planning and outputs you can share with your accountant or bookkeeper. It is the tool that turns a financial question into a number rather than a guess. It is also the budgeting tool, setting the annual targets the business should be managing toward.
Scenario planning and target setting
Annual budgeting and forward planning
Labour capacity and overhead recovery
Quoting methodology review
Project management software alignment and implementation
Accountant and bookkeeper liaison
EOM, quarterly or year-end journal support
Custom cashflow models and projections
Light touch, unless the business chooses to go deeper.
Some businesses use the model themselves. Others need help testing scenarios, improving tracking, aligning project management software, or eventually working with us or their accountant to run monthly, quarterly or year-end accounting adjustments
The model is where most engagements start.
But it is not the only starting point, and for some businesses it may be the only thing they need. Here is how engagements typically look.
The Model
The core engagement. A financial model built around your business, delivered as a live Excel tool you own and use. Fixed fee based on business size and complexity. Foundation from $4,400. Full model from $6,600. Complex from $10,000. All plus GST.
Scoped Works
Software implementation, process mapping, journaling, cashflow models, reporting tools, systems advisory. Every scoped engagement is priced individually based on what the business actually needs. No fixed rates. Clear scope and fee agreed before work begins.
Jobman Implementation
Purpose-built for joinery, cabinet making and shopfitting businesses. We implement Jobman at a starter level so that users can gain the most benefit right away. We include a light modelling review where a full model engagement is not required. Scoped per engagement.
Diagnostic Review
For businesses already generating a return but not understanding why the number is lower than it should be. No full model build required. We look at the structure, the pricing, the overhead recovery, and show where the gap is coming from. Scoped separately.
Built for owner-operated trade and project-based businesses.
Builders Ledger is suited to technically strong businesses that are busy, growing, or figuring out why the numbers are not adding up.
Joiners
Cabinet makers
Shopfitters
Builders
Subcontractors
Fabricators
Custom manufacturers
For accountants and bookkeepers
We build the model that helps your client understand the numbers.
Builders Ledger does not replace your role. We sit between clean accounts and the operational reality of the business, helping create a practical structure for performance conversations, reporting and decision-making.