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# Which work actually makes money?

The plain answer

Revenue by client is easy. Margin by client is the number that changes decisions, and it is the one many owner-led businesses do not have.

The reason is that the cost of delivering the work is rarely all on the invoice. Senior time spent rescuing a job. The rework nobody logged. The account that takes four calls a week and was priced for one. The travel, the software seat, the subcontractor premium paid to hit a date. None of it is hidden deliberately – it just never gets attached to the piece of work that caused it.

So the reporting shows revenue by client and profit for the business, and nothing in between. Work that loses money keeps getting sold, because nothing separates it from the work that pays. In our work, the busiest year is often the thinnest one.

Getting the answer is less work than owners expect. The delivery cost has to be allocated honestly to each kind of work, not perfectly – close enough to rank them is close enough to act on. The usual finding is that the biggest line of revenue is not the best one, and that two or three jobs are being carried by the rest.

What follows is a pricing conversation rather than a cost-cutting one. Pricing stops being folklore. And the work you would rather sell becomes obvious, which changes what the business goes after.

Answered by Kristina Walls, who leads the financial practice. More on [the finance seat and how it runs](https://stoneforgegroup.com/financial-leadership/).

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