The Quarterly Business Review for a Roofing Company

The QBR separates companies from hobbies

A hobby reviews itself when the owner feels like it. A company reviews itself quarterly with a structured format, written docs, and clear next-quarter priorities. If you have never run a formal QBR, you are running a hobby.

Here is the quarterly business review format we use at 3 to 15 million dollar roofing companies.

When and duration

First week after quarter end. Half day (4 hours). Not a full day. Not 90 minutes.

Schedule:

• Q1 QBR: first week of April
• Q2 QBR: first week of July
• Q3 QBR: first week of October
• Q4 QBR: first week of January (combined with annual kickoff prep)

Who attends

• Owner
• Sales manager
• Production manager
• Office manager or controller
• Marketing lead (if dedicated)
• Outside CPA (Q2 and Q4, at least)

Offsite location. Your office is too familiar. Conference room at a hotel, a private dining room, or a coworking space.

Pre work

Each attendee arrives with a 1-page summary of their area:

• Sales manager: pipeline, close rates, rep scorecards, marketing attribution
• Production manager: installs completed, quality metrics, crew utilization, supplier performance
• Office manager: AR aging, cash position, admin bottlenecks
• Owner: revenue, margin, net income, strategic initiatives status

1 page each. No fluff. Numbers and 3 key observations.

The 4 hour agenda

Hour 1: Quarter in review

• Revenue and margin: actual vs plan vs prior year
• Key wins of the quarter
• Key misses of the quarter
• Leading metrics: leads, pipeline, installs, AR

Round-table: each function owner reads their 1-pager.

Hour 2: Trend analysis

Pull 8 to 12 quarter trend charts:

• Revenue quarterly for last 12 quarters
• Gross margin percentage quarterly
• Net margin percentage quarterly
• Installs quarterly
• Average job size
• Sales conversion rate
• AR days outstanding
• Headcount
• Revenue per rep
• Revenue per crew

Look at 3-year trend lines. Ask: is this metric improving, stable, or degrading? What are we doing about it?

Hour 3: Forecast reset

Rebuild the forecast for the next 2 quarters with current data:

• Revenue target by month for the next 6 months
• Key assumptions: pipeline conversion, average job size, ramp of new hires
• Margin assumptions
• Cash flow forecast

Compare to original annual plan. Decide:

• On track: keep plan
• Under plan: action items to recover
• Over plan: raise the target or invest in capacity

Hour 4: Next quarter priorities and awards

Two parts:

Part A: Priorities

• Top 5 strategic priorities for the next quarter
• Owner assigned to each
• Success metric for each
• Quarterly milestones (what should be done by mid-quarter)

Only 5. Do not list 15. Focus is leverage.

Part B: Awards

Call out individuals who crushed the quarter:

• Top performer in sales, production, and office
• MVP: one person across the company who deserves public recognition
• Rookie of the quarter if you have recent hires

Announce these at the QBR. Follow up with company-wide announcement the following Monday at the weekly ops meeting, plus a cash bonus or gift.

The QBR deliverables

Leave the QBR with 4 written artifacts:

1. Quarter summary (1 page): highlights, lowlights, key metrics
2. Trend analysis (2 to 3 pages): charts and commentary
3. Forecast (1 page): revised 6-month revenue and margin
4. Priorities (1 page): top 5 with owners and milestones

These 5 pages go to every employee. Not every detail. The distilled version. Team members want to know what the company is focused on.

QBR discipline

Common failures:

• Running it 3 weeks after quarter end: too late. Do it in week 1.
• No pre work: attendees walk in unprepared. Require 1-pagers.
• Too long: 4 hours is enough. 8 hours is procrastination.
• Too short: 90 minutes does not allow real discussion.
• Skipping a quarter: never. Even if you feel you have no time.

QBR with outside advisors

By year 2 of running QBRs, invite your outside CPA for Q2 and Q4. By year 3, invite an outside advisor or consultant to one QBR per year for objective read.

Budget: 500 to 2,500 for CPA attendance. 2,000 to 7,500 for outside advisor attendance.

Connecting QBR to other cadences

The QBR sits on top of your daily huddles, weekly ops meetings, and monthly owner reviews. Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. Each cadence serves a different purpose. Skip one and the others weaken.

Track QBR priorities in RoofKnockers as initiatives with owners and milestones. Review at weekly ops meetings so priorities stay top of mind. For the annual frame around all of this, read our year-over-year planning guide.

QBR scorecard

After each QBR:

1. 4 deliverables produced? Yes
2. 5 priorities assigned with owners? Yes
3. Team communication of highlights sent within 1 week? Yes
4. Awards distributed within 2 weeks? Yes
5. Priorities tracked in weekly ops? Yes

FAQ

My company is too small for a QBR

Under 1 million revenue, do a 2 hour owner review quarterly. Same format, solo. Over 1 million, build the habit with your leadership team. Scale the format as the team grows.

What if leadership cannot agree on priorities?

Owner decides. Discussion is fine. Deadlock is not. You walked in as the owner and the team walks out aligned. That is your job.

How do I measure if QBRs are working?

Year over year revenue and margin growth plus team retention. If those are all trending up and QBRs are happening, they are working. If those are flat or down, look at whether QBR priorities are actually being acted on between meetings.