Benchmarks
What good looks like in real books
These are the ranges we see when books are clean and closed on time. Use them to check your own numbers — not as rules, but as a first sanity test.
Virtual CFO for restaurants and food trucks
How restaurant and food truck books really work: prime cost, daily sales journal entries, tip liability, third-party delivery fees and food cost swings.
Prime cost
58%
Median of the full service restaurants we close each month
Food cost
30.4%
Higher for scratch kitchens, lower for limited menus
Delivery share of sales
18%
Down from the 2021 peak but still material
Net profit margin
5.9%
Before owner distributions
Virtual CFO for construction and contractors
Job costing, retainage, progress billing and work in progress, explained for contractors who need books their bonding agent and banker will accept.
Gross margin
24.8%
Median across the residential contractors we support
Labor burden
1.33×
Higher in states with heavy comp rates
Retainage held
5–10%
Typical on commercial work
Days sales outstanding
46 days
Excluding retainage
Virtual CFO for ecommerce and online sellers
Marketplace payouts, inventory, cost of goods sold, sales tax nexus and ad spend, handled the way ecommerce books actually need.
Gross margin
42%
Median for the DTC brands we close
Marketplace fee load
23% of gross
Amazon FBA sellers, all fees combined
Refund rate
5.1%
Apparel runs far higher
Inventory turns
5.4×
Below 3 signals a cash problem building
Virtual CFO for real estate investors
Per-property books, mortgage payment splits, capital improvements versus repairs, security deposits and the reports a lender will accept.
Operating expense ratio
41%
Small residential portfolios
Vacancy loss
6.3%
Long-term rentals, excluding short-term rental portfolios
Maintenance per door
$1,780 / yr
Higher for pre-1980 buildings
Debt service coverage
1.34×
Median across financed portfolios we close
Virtual CFO for medical and dental practices
Insurance adjustments, patient receivables, provider productivity and payroll-heavy overhead — a virtual CFO built for practices, not retail.
Overhead
61%
Median for the small practices we close
Net collection rate
96.2%
Below 93 usually means a denial backlog
Staff payroll
27% of collections
Excluding providers
Clinical supplies
6.8%
Dental labs run higher
Virtual CFO for agencies and consultants
Deferred revenue, pass-through media spend, utilization and project profitability for service businesses that bill on retainer.
Agency gross margin
57%
Excluding pass-through media
Utilization
66%
Across delivery staff, not owners
Net margin
14.8%
After owner salary
Revenue per employee
$168,000
Median across agencies we close
Virtual CFO for CrossFit gyms and boutique fitness studios
Membership revenue, prepaid packages, coach payroll and retail, explained for gym and studio owners who need to know their real monthly recurring revenue.
Monthly churn
3.5%
Typical range across the boutique studios we support; yours will vary by contract length
Average revenue per member
$175
Higher for studios with strong personal training attach rates
Coach cost ratio
30%
Excludes owner-coaches who also draw an owner's distribution
Retail gross margin
42%
Apparel and supplement sales combined
Virtual CFO for HVAC contractors
Job costing on service and install work, maintenance agreements as deferred revenue, truck stock and technician efficiency, explained for HVAC company owners.
Service gross margin
57%
Typical range across the HVAC companies we support; yours depends on labor rates and dispatch density
Install gross margin
24%
Lower on straight equipment swaps, higher on full system redesigns
Technician efficiency
68%
Best-run shops we see run 75%+
Maintenance agreement renewal rate
82%
Drops sharply without a proactive renewal call schedule
Virtual CFO for plumbing, electrical, landscaping, pest control and handyman businesses
Job costing, dispatch efficiency, materials markup, seasonality and customer deposits, explained for home service business owners across trades.
Gross margin
41%
Typical range across the home service businesses we support, varies widely by trade
Materials markup
1.4×
Lower on commodity parts, higher on specialty landscaping materials
Billable hour ratio
66%
Route-based trades typically run higher than on-call service
Recurring contract share
27%
Highest for pest control, lowest for handyman services
Virtual CFO for commercial cleaning and janitorial companies
Recurring contract revenue, labor as a percentage of revenue, supplies, and subcontractors versus employees, explained for janitorial company owners.
Labor cost
60% of revenue
Typical range across the janitorial companies we support
Gross margin by contract
14%
Lower on new contracts still ramping up staffing efficiency
Supplies cost
4.8% of revenue
Higher for medical and food service accounts
Contract retention
88%
Drops sharply after service quality complaints go unaddressed
Virtual CFO for professional service firms
Billable utilization, unbilled work in progress, retainers as a liability and per-client profit, explained for attorneys, consultants and agencies.
Billable utilization
71%
Typical range across the professional service firms we support, varies by role
Realization rate
89%
Firms with clear engagement letters and fast invoicing run higher
Work in progress
24 days
Rises quickly when invoicing slips to end of month instead of as work completes
Operating profit margin
22%
Before owner or partner compensation
Ecommerce KPIs that come straight out of your books
The seven numbers an online store should read every month, how to build each one from real bookkeeping data, plus healthy ranges.
Revenue understated before cleanup
8–20%
Typical gap when payouts were booked as sales.
Margin found in the first close
3–6 pts
Mostly fee reclassification and landed cost.
Time owners spend on books after
Under 30 min/mo
Answering questions, not building spreadsheets.
Construction and trades KPIs built from job-level books
Gross profit per job, work in progress, backlog coverage and cash on hand: how contractors build each number and what healthy looks like.
Jobs found losing money in first review
1 in 6
Usually change orders never billed.
Typical burden left out of estimates
22%
Taxes, comp and non-billable time.
Unbilled change orders recovered
$9k–$40k
Per year for a $2M contractor.
Agency and professional services KPIs from the books up
Utilization, effective hourly rate, realization and margin per client: how service firms build each number, with healthy ranges.
Clients found below target margin
20–30%
Almost always scope creep, not rate.
Realization before tracking
68–78%
Rises quickly once it is visible.
Revenue chart smoothing
Immediate
Once retainers move to deferred revenue.
Short-term rental KPIs measured per unit, per month
Net operating income per unit, RevPAR, cleaning recovery and cash-on-cash return, plus the payout reconciliation behind them.
Revenue understated by payout posting
12–18%
Host fees and taxes buried in net payouts.
Hosts subsidizing cleaning
About half
Fee never raised after cleaner rate increases.
Deductions recovered in cleanup
$4k–$22k
Supplies, mileage and interest split.
Trucking KPIs built on a real cost per mile
Cost per mile, net revenue per loaded mile, deadhead percentage and days to get paid: how small fleets build each from the books.
Owner-operators who know cost per mile
Fewer than half
Most estimate within about 20 cents.
Factoring fee creep found
0.5–1.5 pts
Invisible when only net deposits are booked.
Lanes found below cost
1 in 5
Usually because of the empty return leg.
Appointment business KPIs measured per service hour
Revenue per available service hour, service versus retail margin, rebooking rate and payroll load, built from real salon books.
Salons with retail cost mixed into supplies
Most
Makes retail margin impossible to read.
Typical unsold chair time
20–35%
Concentrated in specific days and providers.
Profit gain from mix and no-show work
6–12 pts
Without raising base prices.
Monthly bookkeeping, closed by the 10th
Every transaction categorized, every account reconciled, one short list of questions and a close package you can read in five minutes.
Median close time
7 business days
Across active LedgerDude clients
Receipts auto-matched
88%
Remainder reviewed by a person
Questions per close
4
Down from 15 in a client's first month
Catch-up bookkeeping for months or years behind
Behind on your books? We rebuild prior months in order, reconcile every account and hand you filing-ready financials with a fixed quote up front.
Typical catch-up length
8 months
Median for new catch-up clients
Turnaround
2–4 weeks
For six months with documentation available
Corrections per month
31
Median count of reclassifications
Automatic receipt reading with human review
Snap a photo, and the platform reads the vendor, date, total and tax, then matches it to the right bank transaction. Low-confidence results go to a person.
Receipts auto-matched
88%
After two months of vendor learning
Extraction accuracy on totals
97%
Legible photos
Review queue time
Under 1 business day
Median
Want to know where you stand?
We close your books each month and put your real numbers next to these ranges, so you always know if the month was good.