Your Surety Broker is actually your most important "customer." Most contractors treat financial reporting like a tax chore. They send over their year-ends and WIP reports with a "hope they don't ask too many questions" attitude. But your financials aren't just data—they are a marketing tool, to your broker. When you provide clean, integrated job costing and real-time WIP reports, you aren't just "filing paperwork." You are selling your company’s stability. A surety isn't just

Trusting your gut? In construction, there is a dangerous plateau between $5M and $25M in revenue. We call it the "Owners' Trap." It’s the point where your business becomes too big to manage by "gut feel," but you haven't yet built the systems to manage it by the numbers. If you feel like you’re working harder than ever but your bank account is staying flat, you’re stuck in the trap! Unfortunately you’re likely capping your own bonding capacity without realizing it. How to Sp

Your Engagement Type affects your Bonding Capacity. Your financial statements might be costing you $5M - $10M in bonding capacity. In the Alberta construction world, I see many contractors stick with Compilation Engagement Reports (formerly Notice to Reader) because they’re fast and cost-effective. But here is the reality when that file hits a surety bond broker’s desk: The "Information Gap" - A Compilation provides no assurance. Because the CPA isn't verifying the data, the

How a client unlocked their bonding capacity Last week a client of mine walked into their annual surety meeting last week feeling a bit of the usual "under the microscope" pressure. In previous years, these meetings felt like an interrogation. This year, the atmosphere was completely different. We had spent the last few months overhauling their back-office ecosystem: Integrated Job Costing — Field data connected to accounting, moving reporting from weeks late to near real-ti