Know which jobs lose money

Track labor, materials, and overhead per job in real time so you stop quoting blind and bleeding profit on work you thought was good.

Tell me if you build this One confirmation email now, updates every few weeks, nothing sold until it's real.
FieldMargin job profit calculator showing real-time margin tracking
The problem

You close the invoice, see the deposit hit, and assume you made money — until tax season reveals half your jobs ran negative after labor overruns, surprise material costs, and callbacks you never billed for. You're working 60-hour weeks but can't explain why the bank account stays flat.

What this makes possible

You finish a job and know within 24 hours whether it was a winner or a loser. You see which crew members consistently run over, which material suppliers quietly inflated costs, and which service types you should stop quoting altogether. You raise prices on the work that actually pays and fire the clients who don't.

Real example: Residential HVAC install, March 2024

Invoice total $4,200
Materials (quoted $980, actual) $1,100
Labor (18 hours × $62 burdened rate) $1,116
Overhead allocation (28%) $1,176
Callbacks / warranty (2.5 hrs) $155
Actual profit $653
Margin 15.5%

How it works

01
You enter the job estimate and actual hours/materials as the work happens, either from your phone on-site or by forwarding supplier invoices.
02
FieldMargin pulls your labor rates and overhead allocation once during setup, then auto-calculates real profit per job including callbacks and warranty work.
03
You get a single-page job report showing estimated versus actual margin, flagged line items that blew the budget, and a running tally of which clients and job types are profitable.
04
At month-end, you see a ranked list of your most and least profitable work, with enough detail to adjust pricing or stop taking certain calls.

If you're thinking

"I don't have time to enter data during jobs — I'm already buried, and this sounds like more paperwork that I'll abandon in two weeks."
Most data entry happens automatically: you forward supplier invoices to an email address, and your crew clocks in/out via a one-tap link you text them. The only manual entry is adjusting estimates if scope changes mid-job. If it takes more than 90 seconds per job, the design failed.
"My margins are fine; I just need to close more jobs. If I'm not profitable, it's a sales problem, not a tracking problem."
Closing more unprofitable jobs makes the problem worse. If your average install margin is supposed to be 30% but three of your last ten jobs ran at 8% because of unbilled overtime and change orders you ate, more volume just means more hidden losses. You can't fix pricing until you see which work is broken.
"I tried job costing software before and it was built for GCs with dedicated admins. I don't need another tool that requires a weekend of setup and a manual I'll never read."
This is not job costing software — it's a profit calculator that assumes you're too busy to be a bookkeeper. Setup is one 15-minute call where you tell me your loaded labor rate and average overhead percentage; I configure it, and you start using it the next day. No chart of accounts, no integration hell, no manual.

Questions

Why are you asking for signups before this is built?
I'm a former HVAC service manager, not a funded startup. I want to confirm that 50+ contractors will actually use this before I spend six months building it. If I don't get enough real signups from people who feel this pain, I won't build it, and I'll email everyone on the list to tell them why.
What happens to my email after I sign up?
You'll get one confirmation email immediately, then one update every 3 to 4 weeks while this is being validated and built — nothing more. If this doesn't get built, I'll send one final email explaining why, then delete the list. Unsubscribe anytime, no questions asked.
Will this cost money, and how much?
Yes. If this gets built, it will likely be $99 to $149 per month for the core calculator, with no per-user fees since your crew isn't logging in. Everyone on the waitlist gets 60 days free to test it on real jobs before paying anything. If you don't see a specific unprofitable job in the first two weeks, you shouldn't pay for it.
When would this actually be ready to use?
If I get 50+ qualified signups in the next 45 days, I'll start building in March 2025 and aim for a working beta by June 2025. I'll email progress updates monthly so you know it's real. If signups are slow or feedback reveals this idea is wrong, I'll kill it and tell you within 60 days.
Do I need to switch accounting software or change how I invoice?
No. This sits alongside QuickBooks, spreadsheets, or whatever you use now. It's not an invoicing tool or a replacement for your accountant — it's a parallel tracker that answers the one question your existing tools don't: did this specific job make money after all the real costs?
From the builder

I ran service for a 12-truck HVAC shop in Austin and watched us stay busy all year but run out of cash every January because no one knew which jobs bled money until the CPA reconciled everything months later. I'm building this to answer one question in real time: should I take more jobs like that one, or stop quoting them entirely?

Get notified when this is ready

You'll get an immediate confirmation email, then a message within 7 days asking 2 to 3 follow-up questions about your current job costing process to make sure this solves the right problem. If I hit 50 signups, I'll email the full list with a build timeline. If this doesn't get traction, I'll email everyone within 60 days and shut it down.

Planned at $49/month flat—no tiers, no sales calls, no feature bloat. Nothing to pay now; this is a waitlist.

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