Trades & Home Services health calculator
A full calendar of service calls can still be an unprofitable month if dispatch is inefficient, materials ran hot, or you never recovered overhead. This calculator is for owner-operators and small shops who know last year’s revenue, job count, and roughly how many hours they actually worked.
Who this is for
Licensed trades and home services with job-based revenue. General contractors with long jobs may prefer the construction calculator; many one-truck shops belong here.
What to enter first
Revenue, jobs completed, labor, and operating expenses. Hours worked unlocks effective hourly rate. Materials belong in cost of what you sold if you job-cost that way.
Worked example: two-van HVAC service company
Original trailing-twelve-month sketch.
- Revenue: $614,000
- Materials / equipment COGS:
- Field labor + payroll tax:
- Office, insurance, trucks, software:
- Jobs completed: 1,420
- Owner + techs hours on the clock: 7,360
- Job gross margin = (614,000 − 186,000 − 198,000) ÷ 614,000 = 37.5% if you treat field labor as direct. Many residential service targets sit nearer 40–55% depending on mix. This shop is tight.
- Average job value = 614,000 ÷ 1,420 = $432. That mix is service calls, not installs. If the owner thinks they are an “install company,” the average job is arguing.
- Effective hourly rate on all clock hours = 614,000 ÷ 7,360 = $83.42 top-line per hour before expenses. After all costs, net ≈ 614,000 − 186,000 − 198,000 − 112,000 =
Raising the diagnostic fee $25 with a 1,420-job year is $35,500. That often beats buying another van. The results cards are written to push you toward rate and job-mix, not toward more busywork.
How to read the results
Revenue per job is mix. Job margin is pricing vs. truck cost. Effective hourly rate is whether the license is paying. Overhead recovery asks if the office is funded. Cancel bleed is the quiet leak in dispatch.
Mistakes that make the math useless
- Owner hours missing from the denominator, so the “rate” looks like a W-2 manager’s dream.
- Warranty callbacks counted as new revenue.
- Using bid prices as revenue when collections lag 40 days.
When to re-run the check
After a material-price spike, a wage change, adding a van, or a month of weather cancellations. Month-end is more useful than year-end if you want to catch bleed.
Should permit fees sit in COGS or opex?
Pick a rule and keep it. Direct job costs in COGS, office in opex. Consistency beats a perfect textbook category.