This is a true story about the contractor who didn’t see the damage coming.

Most directors think delays cost time.
But delays actually cost profit – and often much more than anyone realises.

A contractor I worked with recently was proud of his “straightforward” financial routine: he checked his numbers once a quarter. The only figure he really watched? VAT. No job‑level reporting. No real‑time labour costs. No visibility on overspend. No tracking of delays or their cash consequence.

As long as money was in the bank, he assumed the projects were fine.

But when we sat down and looked at one of his bigger jobs, we discovered something he had never measured before: what one week’s delay actually does to gross profit.

He thought a delay was just a bit of inconvenience on site. But here’s the 60‑second math I walked him through:
THE DELAY MATH 
Weekly overhead burn: £7,500
(Staff, vans, insurances, finance, admin – all fixed costs)
Weekly labour assigned to that project: £12,000
(The team still gets paid even when progress slips)

Gross profit on the job: £85,000
(on a £400k project)

Now the punchline:
One week of slippage = extra £19,500 burned and £19,500 removed directly from gross profit! 

Because that extra week didn’t generate any additional revenue…
…but it did generate additional cost.

And because he wasn’t tracking costs in real time – because he only “did numbers when the VAT was due” – the damage was invisible until the quarter closed.

By then the job looked profitable on the valuation… but the real profit was almost £40k lower once delays and overhead burn were accounted for.
That was the wake‑up call.

What he learned:
✔ Profit doesn’t disappear at final account – it disappears week by week.
✔ Delays don’t just push the timeline – they shrink margin quietly.
✔ And if you’re not tracking time + cost weekly, your gross profit is a guess, not a number.

Contractor – this is your reminder! 
Your biggest losses happen in the projects you don’t measure.

Prevail Accountancy offers a free 1 hour consultation to review your current processes and show you where automation, systemisation and digitalisation would immediately strengthen your margins.
No spreadsheets.
No templates.

Just clarity and a roadmap.
Get in touch at office@prevailaccountancy.co.uk to book your session.