http://www.remodeling.hw.net/management/finances/slippage/slippage.aspx?view=rss&id=Query_tcm1765812http://www.remodeling.hw.net/slippage/ferreting-out-fraud.aspx?rssLink=Ferreting+Out+FraudConstruction fraud has worsened in the troubled economy. Here's what you can do to protect your company.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/estimating/price-is-right.aspx?rssLink=Price+Is+RightGet back to good estimating and job costing to offer accurate pricing on your jobs.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/foreman/know-your-numbers.aspx?rssLink=Know+Your+NumbersWhen John Gemmi of Gemmi Construction, in Doylestown, Pa., started sharing each project's financial information with his four lead carpenters and helping them to understand their contribution to the bottom line, the leads began to actively participate in controlling costs and decreasing slippage.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/slippage/your-slip-is-showing.aspx?rssLink=Your+Slip+is+ShowingAny amount of slippage, if consistent, will quietly and effectively kill your year. Some slippage is just bad luck, but here are eight causes that you can control.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/slippage/mental-shift.aspx?rssLink=Mental+ShiftSoon after transitioning from cost-plus pricing to a fixed-price system, Art Stinson's Trace Ventures ran into trouble with slippage. Stinson says the Nashville, Tenn., company was mired in a cost-plus mentality that allowed for imprecise estimates, and unforeseen costs (if they weren't due to a Trace mistake) were being passed on to the homeowner.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/slippage/permit-drivers.aspx?rssLink=Permit+DriversAll remodelers are robbery victims. The thief is slippage, which is the amount your profit falls short of plan. The root causes of slippage are often simple — but that doesn't mean they're easy to find. And while some sources, like inconsistent labor productivity or poor change order management, can take big bites out of profits, smaller losses tied to less obvious sources can add up.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/benchmarks/benchmark-room-for-improvement.aspx?rssLink=Benchmark%3a+Room+for+ImprovementOne factor affecting the numbers reported in the May issue was incomplete results. Since press time for the May issue, we've received additional data that change the slippage picture somewhat.The good news is that the median for all companies is -2.9%, meaning about half the companies performed better than Hanbury's "witch-hunt" standard.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/remodeling/slip-sliding-away.aspx?rssLink=Slip-Sliding+AwaySlippage occurs when something on the job causes unrecoverable costs to extend beyond the limits of the estimate. King has since refined and implemented several processes to help her company reduce slippage, most notably instituting a "post-mortem" review of costs at the completion of every job.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/netprofit/benchmark-big-50-by-the-numbers.aspx?rssLink=Benchmark%3a+Big50+By+the+NumbersAlthough this year's class of Big50 remodelers displays great variety in size, business structure, target market, project focus, and geographic location, the averages tell a fairly consistent story. By this measure, small- and large-volume companies in this year's Big50 class performed about the same, with most averaging net profit of between 8% and 9%.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/slippage/reader-panel-profit-slippage.aspx?rssLink=Reader+Panel%3a+Profit+SlippageTypical profit slippage -- the difference between estimated and produced gross profit--is 5% or more according to our survey.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/carpentry/accurate-job-costing.aspx?rssLink=Accurate+Job+CostingIf you only have one part of bookkeeping done right, it better be your progress job costs," says Mike Weiss of Weiss & Co. in Carmel, Ind. Because variances in labor costs are a major source of slippage, tracking payroll is key to accurate job costs.http://www.remodeling.hw.net/carpentry/slip-sliding-away.aspx?rssLink=Slip+Sliding+AwaySlippage measures the difference between estimated gross profit and produced gross profit. "You have to be suspicious of an owner who's doing sales, because owners don't package well," says consultant Linda Case of Remodelers Advantage in Fulton, Md. "Bringing production into the sales and estimating process can help, but carpenters are reluctant to complain to their boss about it." As an incentive to produce more detailed estimates, many companies are switching to commissions based on produced gross profit.