It's been three years since we published an index of Benchmarks. This updated version is organized by topic and includes dates for any Benchmark column that discusses the topic.







Volume & Margins
Minimum Annual Volume $250,000 (2/00, 9/02)
Job Size & Number (2/03, 3/03)
Gross Margin/Produced Gross Profit 40% / 32.7% (11/98, 1/02)
Net Profit Margins 10% (6/00, 11/02)
Slippage 2% to 5% (3/02, 7/03)
Annual Overhead 16% (1/01, 10/02)
Current Ratio 1.3-to-1 (11/99)
Growth 10% a year (7/98)
Risk Management
Cash Reserves 20% of revenue (4/01)
Debt-to-Equity Ratio 3-to-1 (9/00)
Minimum Liability Insurance
Incident $1 million
Aggregate $2 million (5/01)
Safety 0 accidents (4/99)
Marketing
Marketing Expenditures 3% of revenue (8/98, 11/03)
Contacts with Past Clients 3 per year (10/99)
Warranty Period 2 years (11/00)
Cost of Warranty Work 1/2% of revenue (7/01)
Response Time to Client Complaints 24 hours (1/99)
Personnel
Performance Evaluations 1 per year (5/00)
Employee Paid Vacation 2 weeks (12/00)
Matching Retirement Benefits 25% (5/99)
Employee Training 2% of payroll (12/98)
Carpenter's Wages $18.50 per hour (10/00)
Sales
Close Ratio (qualified leads) 20% (2/99)
Referral Work 60% of sales (8/01,10/03)
Customer Satisfaction 95% (1/00)
Design Fees & Documents (9/98, 9/04)
Annual Per-Person Sales (Specialty Firm) $1 million (9/99)
Change Orders 10% of budget (7/02)
Backlog (9/03)
Cost-Plus (6/04)
Owner Issues
Owner's Salary 10% of revenue (3/99, 12/02, 4/04)
Allocating Owner Hours (2/04)
Risk Quotient (1/03)
Business Development Time 5 hours per week (10/98)
Continuing Education 40 hours per year (6/99)
Annual Vacation 2 weeks (3/00)
Critical Metrics (12/03, 3/04)
Production
Volume Produced by Lead Carpenter $300,000 per year (7/99, 7/00)
Volume Handled by Production Manager $1.25 million (12/99)
Labor Cost 23% of cost of construction (2/01)
Field-to-Office Staff Ratio 2.5:1 (11/01)
Nonproductive Hours 20% of payroll (6/02)