Marawood Construction Accounting
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For Western Canadian Contractors

Most bond conversations don't break down
because of losses.
They break down because the
financials aren't believable.

Your surety isn't just looking at your balance sheet. They're looking at the quality of your working capital, the credibility of your WIP, and the predictability of your margins. Marawood helps contractors build the financial infrastructure that turns underwriting from an interrogation into a partnership.

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Monthly
WIP Reporting Cadence
Surety-Ready
Financial Statements
Real-Time
Job Costing Integration
$0–$60M
Contractor Revenue Range
The Reality

The problems that quietly shrink
your bonding capacity

These aren't catastrophic failures. They're the quiet, cumulative issues that underwriters notice — and that contractors don't see until they're sitting across from a surety wondering why their capacity hasn't grown.

WIP Credibility
Your WIP is only updated at year-end
To a surety, unreliable WIP equals unreliable working capital. When project managers aren't involved in cost-to-complete estimates and revenue is recognized inconsistently, the underwriter can't trust the numbers — and conservative capacity is the result. Clean, monthly WIP reporting changes the entire underwriting conversation.
Working Capital Quality
Two contractors show the same number — completely different risk
AR aging stretched beyond contract terms. Retainage misclassified. Shareholder loans masking weak liquidity. On paper, the ratio works. In reality, the flexibility doesn't. The quality of your working capital is just as important as the total — and surety can see the difference.
Margin Fade
A job starts at 18% and ends at 11% — with no explanation
Sureties and banks don't just value your net income — they value your predictability. Unexplained margin variance signals estimating or project control weaknesses even if the company remains profitable. Predictable margins build trust. Unexplained variance erodes it — quietly, over multiple reporting cycles.
The CTC Plug Number
Cost-to-complete becomes a number someone needed to be true
When CTC isn't tied to actual burn rate — when it moves to keep the margin looking okay rather than reflecting what the field actually costs — you are effectively stealing from your future self. Drifting margins signal lack of internal project controls. Lack of controls means quietly reduced bond capacity and harder renewals.
Financial Reporting Tier
Your compilation statements may be costing you $5–10M in capacity
Because the CPA isn't verifying the data, the underwriter takes a conservative approach — discounting inventory, questioning AR aging, and applying lower multipliers. Upgrading from a compilation to a review engagement is often the single move that unlocks maximum bonding capacity without changing a single dollar on the balance sheet.
CapEx Strategy
Equipment purchases that look like growth — and read like risk
Large equipment purchases might position you for long-term growth, but they can instantly tighten your working capital. How you classify a cost — repair vs. improvement, OpEx vs. CapEx — impacts your EBITDA, equity, and key financial ratios. Inaccurate reporting here leads to surprises during underwriting that no one wants.
"Your financials aren't just data —
they are a marketing tool.
When you provide clean, integrated job costing and real-time WIP,
you aren't just filing paperwork.
You are selling your company's stability."
— Doug Watmough, Marawood Construction Accounting
What Surety Sees

The difference between a contractor
who gets capacity — and one who doesn't

The underwriter sitting across from you is asking the same questions every time. The answer your financials give them determines everything that follows.

✗
WIP updated at year-end only
Underwriter can't verify percentage complete or margin trajectory. Working capital is unreliable by extension. Conservative capacity applied.
✓
Monthly WIP with PM-driven CTC estimates
Underwriter can see margin trends across all active jobs. Percentage complete is defensible. Working capital is verifiable. Capacity reflects the real picture.
✗
Compilation (Notice to Reader) statements
No CPA assurance. Underwriter applies conservative multipliers, discounts questionable assets, and caps capacity at a lower ceiling — regardless of the underlying numbers.
✓
Review engagement financial statements
CPA has provided limited assurance. Underwriter applies maximum available multipliers. Same balance sheet — potentially double the bonding capacity. This is often the entry fee for larger municipal and provincial work.
✗
Retainage buried in general AR
Surety can't separate what's collectible now from what's contractually held back. Working capital looks inflated. The underwriter makes their own — usually conservative — adjustments.
✓
Retainage tracked separately and clearly disclosed
Surety can see exactly what is liquid now and what is held back. Working capital quality is transparent. No surprises, no adjustments, no capacity haircut from classification issues.
✗
Margin fade with no documented explanation
Underwriter sees a pattern of projects finishing below estimated margin. Signals weak estimating or project control. Risk multiplier increases, capacity decreases — quietly, over time.
✓
Consistent margins with variance explanations on file
When margins hold — and when they don't, the reason is documented and specific — the underwriter sees a business in control of its numbers. Capacity follows confidence.
How We Help

Building the back office that makes
the bond conversation easy

Surety capacity isn't won in the underwriting meeting. It's built in the months before it — through the systems, reporting, and financial discipline that make your numbers believable before anyone asks.

01
Monthly WIP Reporting — To Surety Standards
We prepare WIP and WOH schedules every month — not just at year-end. PM-driven cost-to-complete estimates, margin tracking, and over/underbilling analysis. The schedule that shows your surety you are running a controlled business.
02
Integrated Job Costing Connected to Your Books
Field data connected to accounting in near real-time. No more weeks-late reporting, no more gut-feel CTC estimates, no more surprises at month-end. We work within your existing platforms — Buildertrend, Procore, JobTread, Knowify — and connect them to your accounting system.
03
Review-Ready Financial Statements
We prepare your books to the standard your accountant needs to issue a review engagement — clean AR aging, properly classified retainage, accurate working capital. If you are currently on a compilation and want to upgrade, we help you get there.
04
Balance Sheet Optimization for Surety
Working capital quality. Shareholder debt subordination. LOC vs. term debt strategy. CapEx classification. We identify the specific levers that improve your surety-adjusted position — and we manage your balance sheet with bonding capacity in mind every month, not just at year-end.
05
Cash Flow Mapping Aligned to Backlog
Short-term cash flow management aligned to project billing cycles and backlog timing. Line of credit usage that makes sense to your banker and your surety. The forward-looking financial picture that separates contractors who manage growth from those who are managed by it.
06
Surety Meeting Preparation
We prepare you for the annual surety meeting the same way we prepared the client in the story below — so you walk in with command of your numbers, a clear narrative for every question, and a posture that turns the underwriting conversation from an interrogation into a growth discussion.
A Real Outcome

From "under the microscope"
to "how can we help you grow?"

A client of mine walked into their annual surety meeting last year feeling the usual pressure. In previous years, these meetings felt like an interrogation. The underwriter asked hard questions. The answers were uncertain. The atmosphere was tense.

We spent the months before the meeting overhauling their back-office systems — integrated job costing with field data connected to accounting, monthly WIP reviews replacing gut-feel estimates, and cash flow mapping aligned to their project backlog.

What changed wasn't just that the numbers were better. It was that the command of the numbers was absolute. They were ready to speak clearly about WIP integrity, over and under billings, and the specific project controls managing their largest backlog risk.

"The underwriter stopped asking 'Why?' and started asking 'How can we help you grow?' Within days, the bonding capacity discussion shifted from maintaining limits to expanding them. The conversation moved from a quest for approval to a true partnership."

Warning Signs

Signs your bonding capacity is
being quietly constrained

You may not hear it from your surety directly. But these are the signals that the conversation is more difficult than it needs to be.

WIP is only prepared when your broker asks for itIf your WIP schedule is a compliance document rather than a monthly management tool, your surety already knows — and adjusts accordingly.
Your year-end feels like a tax chore, not a growth toolIf you send over financials with a "hope they don't ask too many questions" attitude, you are not using your reporting as the marketing tool it is.
You are still on a compilation engagementOnce you start chasing larger municipal or provincial work, a review engagement is the entry fee. A compilation is a glass ceiling — and many contractors don't know they've hit it.
Retainage is buried in your general AR balanceIf your surety can't see the difference between what's collectible now and what's contractually held, they make their own assumptions — and they are not optimistic ones.
Your cost-to-complete estimates come from the office, not the fieldIf PMs aren't involved in CTC estimates, the numbers aren't forecasts — they are wishes. Surety can tell the difference between a disciplined CTC process and a plug number.
Margins consistently fade from bid to close with no documented explanationOne unexplained fade is a bad job. A pattern of unexplained fades is a systems failure — and surety treats it as one, quietly reducing capacity over successive renewals.
Your line of credit is permanently drawnA LOC sitting in current liabilities reduces your surety-adjusted working capital dollar for dollar — and that reduction gets multiplied by your working capital multiple. The impact on bonding capacity is significant and fixable.
Revenue is growing but cash is tighter than everGrowth in construction ties up cash in receivables, underbillings, and retainage. Without the financial infrastructure to manage it, more revenue means more pressure — not more freedom.
Frequently Asked Questions

Questions contractors ask
before working with Marawood

The questions you are probably thinking but haven't asked yet.

Next Step

Stop flying with
broken gauges.

A 30-minute conversation is enough to identify the specific gaps between where your reporting is now and what your surety needs to see. No obligation. No sales pitch. Just a direct conversation about your numbers and what's holding your bonding capacity back.

Book a Free Discovery Call
Or call 403-803-5907
Free 30-minute session No obligation Western Canadian contractors $0 – $60M revenue