StashGrade for fencing
Margin by fence type, straight from QuickBooks.
Chain-link, cedar, vinyl, ornamental, repairs. Each one keeps a different share of the dollar. StashGrade shows you which lines carry the company and which ones quietly bleed.
Where fence companies leak money
The segment that loses money on every job
Blended margin can look fine at 30% while one product line runs negative. In one set of books we analyzed, commercial chain-link lost $241K in a single year while vinyl earned 55 cents on the dollar. The owner saw a plateau. The books showed a mix problem.
Materials that outran your quotes
Steel and lumber move. Quotes lag. When materials drift from 32% of revenue to 45% and field labor holds steady, the leak is pass-through pricing, and the fix shows up in the next bid.
Overhead that scaled faster than the crews
Gross margin healthy at 47%, take-home down to 5%. That pattern means the office grew ahead of the work: salaries, fleet, software. The P&L names the lines.
Cash parked at finished jobs
Commercial work on net terms can leave $1.5M in unpaid invoices while the P&L shows 18% profit. Profitable and tight on cash at the same time. The books show which jobs and how old.
What the readout looks like
A real margin-by-segment readout from a sample fencing P&L:
| Segment | Gross margin | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Vinyl / PVC | 55% | best margin, smallest segment |
| Ornamental aluminum | 52% | |
| Cedar / wood privacy | 48% | |
| Repairs & service | 12% | |
| Commercial chain-link | −12% | lost $241K in 2025 |
Sample data from a seeded demo company.