Skip to content
Paving Alliance
Guides

Playbooks you can start this week.

Each one is a sequence, not a concept. Work through it in order and you'll have changed something real by the end.

Four Playbooks

The highest-leverage changes, in order.

01

Standardizing your cost codes

One coding structure every estimator and crew uses, so two jobs can finally be compared and history can inform a bid.

  1. 1List every cost category you currently track, including the informal ones
  2. 2Collapse them into no more than a dozen top-level codes
  3. 3Define what belongs in each in one sentence, with an example
  4. 4Apply it to three closed jobs and see whether the numbers still reconcile
  5. 5Roll it forward only — don't recode history
02

Calculating labor burden properly

A defensible burden rate per employee classification, rather than one company-wide guess applied at year end.

  1. 1Pull total employment cost for last year: taxes, comp, liability, benefits, PTO
  2. 2Group employees by classification, not by crew
  3. 3Divide non-wage cost by base wages within each group
  4. 4Sanity-check each rate against a single employee's actual cost
  5. 5Apply the rate at the point hours are entered, not at month end
03

From estimate to job without re-entry

A workflow where an approved bid becomes a live job carrying its own cost structure — so estimated vs. actual works from day one.

  1. 1Estimate using the same cost codes you'll job cost against
  2. 2Get the approval in writing, e-signed, with scope attached
  3. 3Convert the estimate to a job without retyping anything
  4. 4Carry the estimated cost by category across as the budget
  5. 5Review estimated against actual weekly, by category
04

Reducing owner dependency

Getting yourself out of the critical path, starting with the three processes that break first when you're away.

  1. 1Identify what actually stops when you're gone for two weeks
  2. 2Pick the three highest-frequency items from that list
  3. 3Write down how each works, including the judgement calls
  4. 4Assign one owner per process, with the numbers they need
  5. 5Leave it alone for a month, then review outcomes rather than decisions

Not sure which one to start with?

The assessment ranks your weakest areas, which maps directly onto these guides.

Get your score

Find out where your margin is going.

The assessment scores your job costing, operations, purchasing, technology and growth readiness — and tells you what to fix first.

Take the AssessmentTalk to us

Free · About 10 minutes · No obligation