Free Tool — Receipt Leak Calculator

See how much your job profit
is overstated.

When receipts hit the bank but skip the job, the IRS still gets the right number — but your next bid doesn't. Move the slider to your honest untagged rate. The number on the right is what your next similar bid will be low by.

Built for contractors 1-minute calc Math on screen

Watch first · 47 seconds

"The IRS gets the right number. Your pricing doesn't."

A quick take from Joe on what untagged receipts actually cost you — not on the tax return, but on the very next bid. The slider math below shows it in dollars.

Quick truth check
Most people think missing receipts mean lost tax deductions. They don't — your bank feed catches everything that left the bank account, and your bookkeeper deducts it on the company P&L. What missing receipts actually break is JOB-LEVEL profitability. This calculator shows you what that costs you on the bidding side.

Your numbers

Crew size W-2 + 1099 — anyone who buys materials
4
Receipts per crew member per week Home Depot, Lowe's, supply houses, gas, lunch on the road
6
Untagged % Hits the bank — never tagged to a job
12%
Average receipt $ Across all the small stuff and the bigger material runs
$85
Planned bid GM % The gross margin you target on similar jobs
38%
Similar jobs you bid per year How many of these you'll quote in 12 months
20

Where your receipts end up

Two columns. Left: every receipt that hit the bank (your bank feed always catches them — the IRS gets the right number). Right: receipts that also made it onto a specific job (so the job-cost report tells the truth).
Deducted on company P&L
Bank feed catches them all. Always full.
0 receipts/yr
The IRS got the right number on your tax return.
Tagged to a specific job
Only the tagged ones reach your job-cost report.
0 of 0 tagged
Untagged dollars never make it to a job — your jobs look more profitable than they were.

What it costs your bidding

Untagged $/year
$0
Receipts hidden from job reports — still deducted on company P&L.
Per-job overstatement
$0
Each job appears more profitable by this much.
Cumulative loss/year
$0
Total your bids are short across the year.
Per-job under-bid risk
$0
If you reuse the overstated profit as your benchmark, your next similar bid will be low by this much.

Where your untagged rate lands

Untagged rate under 5% is healthy. 6–15% is fixable with a receipt-capture process. 16–25% is bidding-wrong territory. 26%+ means the next bid is very wrong.
Healthy
Fixable
Bidding wrong
Very wrong
0% 5% 15% 25% 40%+
Fixable
A receipt-capture process and a daily tag-to-job habit closes most of this gap in 30 days.
Email yourself the report.
Your inputs, your zone, the 6-formula breakdown — sent as a PDF. The email also includes a one-click link to the Excel mirror with a 12-month tracking tab.

If your last 10 similar bids ran like this…

Your last 10 similar bids were each $0 low. You left $0 on the table — across just those 10 jobs.

The IRS got the right number off your bank feed. Your pricing didn't.
Methodology & Sources

How the math works. Every number on this page is a transparent calculation from your slider inputs. There are no industry-stat claims — only your numbers, run through the formulas below.

receipts/year = crew × receipts/wk × 52

untagged/year = receipts/year × untagged %

untagged $/year = untagged/year × avg receipt $

per-job overstatement = (untagged $/year) ÷ (similar jobs/year)

per-job under-bid risk = per-job overstatement × (1 + planned GM %)

cumulative loss/year = per-job under-bid × similar jobs/year

What this calculator does NOT claim. It does not cite an industry "average receipt-leak rate" or an "average contractor untagged %." Those would be industry-stat claims that need a real source. This tool is your slider × your math — pick the rate that's true for your business.

Sources. The §0.10 framing on what the bank feed actually catches is built into how QuickBooks Online and any modern bank-feed bookkeeping works — it's a product fact, not an industry stat. The Excel companion has the same explanation on the "Methodology — Cited" / "— Examples" / "— Sources" tabs (all empty for this tool — by design).

From Behind the Books · The show

The episode behind this calculator.

Joe walks through why untagged receipts break your bidding even though the IRS still gets the right number — and the daily receipt-tagging habit that closes the gap in 30 days.

Watch on YouTube →
Behind the Books · How untagged receipts break your bidding YouTube

Companion toolkit

The calculator names the gap. The toolkit closes it month by month.

This page shows what each percentage point of untagged receipts is costing your bidding right now. The free Receipt Leak Toolkit is the 12-month Excel mirror — log your monthly untagged rate, watch the zone meter move, and prove the fix is working.

  • ■ Receipt Leak Tracker (Excel) — same six inputs as this calculator, twelve months of tracking, the same zone meter on every month
  • ■ Methodology mirror — the six formulas from the calculator, printed inline so you can defend the number
  • ■ Behind the Books episode link — the show that walks through why this matters