The Clamp Method: Run a Residential Contracting Job From First Call to Closeout

A residential job, whether a remodel, a specialty trade, a service call or new construction, moves through seven stages, from the first phone call to closeout. Between those two sit five documents: the design agreement, the estimate, the proposal, change orders and invoices. Each document is filled in from the one before it, and each stage has one rule that, if you keep it, protects your margin.

The order matters. A lead you didn't score becomes an estimate you weren't paid for. An estimate with hidden unknowns becomes a proposal you can't build to. A proposal without a payment schedule becomes a job you finance yourself. Each stage below links to the guide that teaches it in full.

The documents move the job forward. These records tell you what it actually took, and they are what your next estimate learns from.

Read the receipts guide, the purchase orders, bills and vendors guide, the time on site guide, the mileage log guide and the job costing guide.

They meet in job costing, which measures the difference between what you estimated and what the job actually cost, so your next estimate is more accurate. Receipts, recognized bills and hours become the job's actual cost; purchase orders stay committed until they're billed; payments only settle what you owe. Compare actual with estimated by category at close, find the cause of each miss, and carry it into the next estimate.

Complete is defined in the contract. Walk the job once with the customer, write one punch list you both sign, reconcile the final invoice to the contract, signed changes and payments, collect the lien releases your state requires, and hand over the warranty and care records in writing. Then review the job's cost, and once the customer is happy, ask for a review and one referral. That referral is the next first call. Read the closeout guide.

Every guide in the series works the same published job, a 5x8 bathroom, so the numbers carry from one stage to the next.

The bathroom is Clamp's published example, not a bid or a market average; the purchases, payments and actual costs are illustrations on it. The last row is the point of the whole chain: the gap between estimated and actual is what makes the next estimate more accurate. See the 5x8 bathroom cost breakdown for every line.

You don't have to fix everything at once. Start where the money leaks.

Then score your business in the contractor business self-assessment. Each question links to the guide that fixes it.