Before you send off your financial statements to a bonding company or banker, stop.
Are your financials telling the story you want them to tell?
Because once you hit send, that’s the version of your business everyone sees—accurate or not.
At Atlas CFO, we call this the Financial Pre-Submission Check—and it’s one of the most overlooked yet valuable practices a contractor can adopt.
Here’s how to do one—and why it could make the difference between approval and delay.
Why This Step Matters
Your bonding agent or banker doesn’t just look at your financials—they interpret them.
They’re asking:
- Is this company financially stable?
- Do they know their numbers?
- Can they handle bigger work?
Even small errors, inconsistencies, or missing reports can create red flags—or worse, lead to a downgrade in bonding capacity or a no from your lender.
A pre-submission financial check ensures that you control the story before anyone else reads it.
The Pre-Submission Financial Checklist
Here are the five key areas to review before you send your financials out the door:
1. Balance Sheet Review
This is the first place most bonding agents and bankers go.
Ask yourself:
- Are all accounts reconciled (especially cash, AR, AP, loans, lines of credit)?
- Is my working capital position clearly presented?
- Do assets and liabilities look accurate?
- Have I reviewed for outdated or incorrect entries?
Pro Tip: Your current ratio (current assets ÷ current liabilities) and debt-to-equity ratio are often the quickest indicators of financial strength. Make sure they’re accurate—and if they’re weak, be prepared to explain.
2. Income Statement Consistency
- Are all jobs included?
- Are overhead costs recorded accurately?
- Do job margins reflect what actually happened?
Avoid big swings from month to month that suggest errors or cutoff issues. Make sure job revenue and job costs line up.
3. Work-in-Progress (WIP) Report
This is non-negotiable for bonded contractors.
Your WIP should:
- Tie to the Balance Sheet under/over billing line
- Reflect realistic cost-to-complete estimates
- Include all active jobs
- Be in a format your bonding agent understands
Pro Tip: Show a trend of consistent margins and explain any large profit fades or gains. They’ll notice—so get ahead of it.
4. Backlog and Future Work
Even if you’re submitting historical financials, your bonding agent wants to know:
- What’s next?
- Can this company support the upcoming work?
Prepare a simple backlog report with:
- Remaining contract value
- Estimated costs
- Start/end dates
- Key client details
This helps your agent understand the timing and size of future financial activity—and your ability to manage it.
5. Explain the Story
Once your numbers are clean, summarize what they say.
What’s improved?
What needs attention?
What changed from last quarter or year-end?
If you’ve had a tough quarter, don’t hide from it—frame it. Show what happened, what you learned, and what’s in place now to improve it.
Red Flags That Slow Down Bonding Approvals
- Large, unexplained fluctuations in revenue or profit
- Balance Sheets with unreconciled accounts
- WIP reports that don’t match the P&L or Balance Sheet
- Missing financials or late submissions
- No context for what the numbers mean
These are often fixable—but only before you hit send.
How Atlas CFO Can Help
We offer a Quarterly Financial Analysis Membership specifically for this.
It includes:
- A full pre-submission financial check
- Talking points for your bonding agent or banker
- Review of your Balance Sheet, P&L, and WIP report
- Optional projection model access to show future performance
- Training resources for your internal accounting team
Whether you’re doing your own statements or have a Controller, we help make sure your numbers tell the right story—before anyone else sees them.
Final Thought
You work hard all year to run jobs, manage cash flow, and build your company’s reputation.
Don’t let unclear or incomplete financials hold you back from the bonding support you’ve earned.
Take 30 minutes to run a pre-submission check.
It could be the simplest way to win your next big job.