Finance & FP&A

How to model financial scenarios and sensitivities as Construction and Contractor Founders

Finance & FP&AFor Construction and Contractor Founders3 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

You're running three jobs simultaneously and your 'financial model' is a QuickBooks P&L you pull once a month and a gut feeling about whether the Riverside remodel will cover payroll. Change orders sit unsigned for weeks, so your revenue forecast is always wrong. Material costs spiked 18% since you bid the job. You want to know: if the Riverside job comes in 12% over budget and the Henderson addition delays 6 weeks, do you make payroll in October? Right now answering that question means two hours in Excel, half of which is hunting down the right QuickBooks numbers. You don't have a controller. You are the controller.

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Finance & FP&AFor Construction and Contractor Founders3 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A live baseline model that pulls your actual QuickBooks job costs, Plaid bank balances, and Stripe draws so your starting numbers are never stale

Side-by-side scenarios comparing your current job mix against what happens if a big job delays, a sub walks, or material costs jump — with runway impact shown in months of cash, not formulas

A recurring budget tracker by project category (labor, materials, subs, equipment) so you catch overruns on the current job before they eat the next one

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Scenario Analysis Runway Analysis Budgeting

Data sources & config

Starch connects directly to QuickBooks (scheduled sync — invoices, bills, vendor payments, and job-level cost data refresh automatically) and your Plaid bank accounts (scheduled sync — daily transaction feed and balances). Stripe is connected via scheduled sync for progress billing draws if you invoice through it. Buildertrend or CoConstruct job data is pulled through browser automation — no API needed. All three Starch apps share the same underlying data so your scenario model, runway dashboard, and budget tracker are always looking at the same numbers.

Prompts to copy

Build me a scenario model for my GC business. Baseline should pull from my actual QuickBooks job costs and my Plaid checking account. I want to compare three scenarios: (1) current pace, (2) Henderson addition delays 6 weeks and I eat the carrying cost, (3) Riverside remodel comes in 12% over budget. Show me how each scenario affects cash on hand and how many months of runway I have.

Show me my current burn rate and cash runway based on my Plaid bank feeds and Stripe progress billing draws. I want to see the last 6 months of net cash movement and a 12-month forward projection at current pace.

Set up a quarterly budget for my construction business with categories for labor, materials, subcontractors, equipment rental, and G&A. Pull my actual spending from QuickBooks and show me where each category stands versus budget this quarter.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Connect QuickBooks via Starch's scheduled sync. Starch pulls invoices, bills, vendor payments, and job-level cost categories automatically — no manual exports.

2 Connect your business checking and any draw accounts via Plaid. Starch syncs transactions and balances daily so your cash position is always current.

3 If you use Stripe for progress billing or owner draws, connect it via scheduled sync. Starch uses it as your revenue signal in the runway and scenario models.

4 If your job data lives in Buildertrend, CoConstruct, or a similar field management tool, tell Starch to pull cost-to-complete and schedule data through browser automation — describe which job columns you need and Starch automates the login and extraction.

5 Start the Runway Analysis app. It automatically calculates net burn from your Plaid and Stripe data. Verify the 6-month history looks right — spot-check one month against your own memory of a slow period.

6 Open Scenario Analysis. Your baseline populates from live QuickBooks and Plaid data. You're not entering numbers — you're adjusting assumptions on top of real actuals.

7 Build your first scenario: type 'Henderson addition delays 6 weeks, I'm carrying $8,400/month in subcontractor retainer and equipment rental during the delay. What does that do to my cash runway?' Starch builds the scenario from that description.

8 Build a second scenario for a material cost spike: 'Lumber and drywall costs run 15% over my QuickBooks estimates on the Riverside job. Show me the cash impact versus my current projection.'

9 Open Budgeting and set up quarterly buckets for labor, materials, subcontractors, equipment rental, and overhead. Tell Starch: 'Suggest budget allocations based on my actual QuickBooks spending over the last four quarters.'

10 Each week, check your Budgeting app for the categories running hot. When materials hit 80% of budget mid-quarter, you know before the QuickBooks P&L tells you next month.

11 Before you bid the next job, run a scenario: 'What if I take on a $340,000 framing subcontract starting in 60 days that requires $45,000 in upfront material draws before my first progress billing?' See whether your current cash covers the float.

12 Save your scenario set as a standing model. Update assumptions as jobs close or schedules shift — you're not rebuilding the spreadsheet, you're adjusting inputs on a model that's already wired to your real data.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

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Worked example

October 2025 cash crunch stress test — 3-job GC, $2.1M annual revenue

Sample numbers from a real run

Plaid checking balance (Oct 1)	87,400
QuickBooks AR — Riverside remodel draw due Oct 15	62,000
QuickBooks AR — Henderson addition draw due Nov 1	48,000
Subcontractor payables due Oct 20 (electrical, plumbing)	39,500
Payroll — 6 crew, 2 pay periods in October	44,800
Material orders in transit (lumber, roofing)	21,300
Overhead (insurance, equipment lease, G&A)	11,200

It's September 28th and you want to know whether October is fine or a problem. Your Plaid balance shows $87,400. QuickBooks shows a $62,000 draw from the Riverside remodel due October 15 — but the owner is slow and you know from experience it'll probably land October 22. The Henderson addition has a $48,000 draw coming November 1. Against that: $39,500 in sub payables due October 20, two payroll runs totaling $44,800, $21,300 in materials already ordered, and $11,200 in overhead. In the base case you're fine — $87,400 plus the Riverside draw covers everything before Henderson's draw arrives. But in Scenario B, you tell Starch: 'Riverside draw delays to October 28 instead of October 15.' Now you're looking at $87,400 covering $116,800 in October outflows before any draw lands. You're short $29,400 for about 10 days. Starch shows you this gap and the exact dates. You call your lumber supplier and push the material delivery to November 3, buying yourself the float. No spreadsheet. No controller. Fifteen minutes on a Sunday night.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Cash runway in months at current burn (updated daily from Plaid)

Job-level cost variance: estimated vs. actual QuickBooks costs per project

Days Sales Outstanding on progress billing draws

Subcontractor payables due in next 30 days vs. AR expected in next 30 days

Overhead as a percentage of active job revenue this quarter

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

Excel or Google Sheets model built manually

You own the model completely, but you're re-entering QuickBooks numbers by hand every time you run it — which means you run it less often than you should, and the version you have open is always a little stale.

QuickBooks reports alone (P&L, cash flow statement)

Accurate historical record, but no forward projection, no scenario modeling, and no way to ask 'what if this job slips 6 weeks' — it tells you what happened, not what's coming.

Hiring a part-time controller or bookkeeper for modeling

Gets you real financial expertise, but at $60–$100/hour and a 2–3 day turnaround, you're not running scenarios before every bid decision — you're running them once a quarter if you're lucky.

Buildertrend or CoConstruct financial reports

Good for job-level cost tracking if your team actually logs everything, but these tools don't connect to your bank account or model cash runway across your full business — they stop at the job edge.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — scenario planning, runway analysis, quarterly budgeting all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

My job costs live in Buildertrend, not QuickBooks. Can Starch still pull them?

Yes. Starch automates Buildertrend through your browser — no API needed. You describe which cost columns and job views you want pulled, and Starch logs in and extracts them on a schedule. The data feeds into your scenario and budget models alongside your QuickBooks and Plaid data.

QuickBooks shows my P&L but the job-level detail is a mess. Will Starch fix that?

Starch syncs QuickBooks entity-level data — invoices, bills, vendor payments, and job cost categories — on a schedule. It won't clean up miscoded transactions, but it will surface the raw data accurately. If your job costing categories in QuickBooks are inconsistent, you'll see that clearly, which is the first step to fixing it. One honest note: QuickBooks P&L and Transaction List report views are temporarily unavailable in Starch while an upstream fix is completed — entity-level data syncs normally.

I don't use Stripe — I invoice owners directly through QuickBooks. Does the runway model still work?

Yes. Stripe is one input; if you don't use it, your revenue signal comes from QuickBooks AR data (invoices and payments) and Plaid deposit transactions. The runway model works off your actual cash movements, not just Stripe. Connect Stripe only if you actually process payments there.

Is my QuickBooks and bank data stored somewhere I should be worried about?

Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified yet — that's worth knowing. Your QuickBooks data syncs into Starch's database on a schedule; your Plaid bank data does the same. If your business requires SOC 2 compliance from all vendors, that's a legitimate blocker today. Starch is working toward certification.

Can I build a cost-to-complete model, not just a cash flow model?

Yes, and this is where the custom app capability matters. You'd describe it to Starch: 'Build me a cost-to-complete tracker for each active job. Pull estimated costs from my Buildertrend job budgets via browser automation, actual costs from QuickBooks bills and payments, and show me remaining budget by category with a percent-complete calculation.' Starch builds that as a custom app on top of the same connected data — there's no pre-built template for it specifically, but you're not starting from scratch either.

How often does the data refresh? I need current numbers before a bid call.

QuickBooks and Plaid data syncs on a schedule — typically daily. Before a bid call, your scenario model reflects yesterday's actuals at worst. If you need a same-day refresh, you can manually trigger a re-sync from the Starch interface. Browser-automated sources like Buildertrend refresh on whatever schedule you set when you configure the automation.