Roofing is inside the Construction Industry Scheme.
Repairing, replacing or building a roof is work on part of a building, which puts it squarely within construction operations. When a main contractor pays you, 20% comes off if you are registered and verified, 30% if you are not registered, and nothing at all if you hold gross payment status.
For a roofing firm on £1.5m of contract turnover, that difference is the whole working capital position.
Scaffold and access, which is where the money goes
Access is often the single biggest cost line on a roofing job, and it is the one most often quoted from memory rather than from a price.
Four things go wrong with it.
The hire period is priced by the week and the job overruns. Two wet weeks and a delayed tile delivery, and the scaffold has been standing for eleven weeks against a quote built on seven. Unless your quote says who carries that, you do.
Adaptations get forgotten. Temporary roofs, waste chutes, loading bays, edge protection and alterations part way through are all extra, and they rarely make it into the original figure.
Whose cost is it. On main contractor work the scaffold may be theirs, and on domestic work it is always yours. Firms who do both often price both the same way.
You become a contractor when you bring a scaffolder in. Erection of scaffolding is a construction operation, so if you subcontract it, you are the contractor for CIS purposes. That means verifying them, deducting, and filing monthly returns.
Price access as its own line, with its own hire period and its own margin. When the scaffold overruns you then know exactly what it is costing you per week.
Weather is a forecasting problem, not an excuse
Roofing revenue is seasonal and lumpy. Wages, van finance and yard rent are neither. A fortnight of rain in November takes the income out and leaves every fixed cost in place.
Forecasting for a roofing company means working from a normal bad month rather than an average month. We build the cash flow around the weeks you cannot work, so the quiet spell is a plan rather than an overdraft conversation.
Storm and insurance work pays differently
Insurance work is a separate revenue stream with its own behaviour. Demand spikes after a storm, the work is often urgent, and the money moves slowly because it waits on a loss adjuster and on the policyholder’s excess.
Two things follow. Your debtor days on insurance work will not look like your debtor days on trade work, so they should be tracked apart. And the labour you pull onto emergency call-outs is labour taken off a priced contract that still has a completion date, which is where the margin quietly goes.
Materials bought before you are paid
Tiles, slate, lead, membranes and battens go on the account weeks before the valuation lands. On a re-roof the material cost can be most of the job value, and lead in particular moves in price between quote and order.
Two habits fix most of it. Order against the job rather than against the month, so the cost lands on the right job. And put a validity period on quotes, so a price you gave in March is not still binding in August.
Domestic and contract work are different VAT questions
A homeowner is an end user, so a domestic re-roof is invoiced with VAT in the normal way.
Contract work for a VAT-registered contractor who is not the end user falls under the domestic reverse charge, so you invoice without VAT and they account for it.
Most roofing firms do both in the same week, which is why we set this up inside the accounting software rather than leaving it as a decision someone makes on each invoice.
What we do
CIS in both directions. Deductions coming off your invoices, and verification, deductions and monthly returns on the scaffolders and labour you pay.
Gross payment status where you qualify, so the 20% stays in your bank rather than HMRC’s.
Job costing with access as its own cost line, so you can see margin per roof rather than margin per year.
Cash flow forecasting built around seasonality and the wet weeks.
VAT set up correctly across domestic and contract work.
Plus the ordinary compliance. Everything else you would expect as well. We do the ordinary work too. Year end accounts, corporation tax, VAT, payroll and self assessment.
Who we work with
UK roofing limited companies turning over between £500,000 and £5 million. Pitched, flat, industrial and heritage. Everything runs on cloud accounting, so location is irrelevant.
Common questions
Do roofers need to register for CIS?
Yes. Roofing work is within the scheme, both when you are paid by a contractor and when you pay subcontractors.
Is scaffolding hire caught by CIS?
Erecting scaffolding is a construction operation, so the scaffolder’s labour is within the scheme. Hire of equipment without an operator is treated differently.
Do I charge VAT on a domestic re-roof?
Yes. A homeowner is an end user, so the reverse charge does not apply and you invoice VAT as normal.
Can I get gross payment status?
If you meet the turnover, compliance and business tests. On roofing turnover it is usually worth the application, and we make it for you.
How should insurance work be tracked?
Separately from trade and domestic work. It pays later and prices differently, and mixing it into one revenue line hides both facts.
Book a call and bring the last three jobs you priced. We will rebuild them with access, materials and labour costed properly, and show you what you actually made on each.
Common questions
Does CIS apply to roofers?
Roofing is inside the Construction Industry Scheme. Repairing, replacing or building a roof is work on part of a building, which puts it squarely within construction operations. When a main contractor pays you, 20% comes off if you are registered and verified, 30% if you are not registered, and nothing at all if you hold gross payment status.
Does the VAT domestic reverse charge apply to roofers?
Usually yes. The domestic reverse charge follows CIS scope. Where you supply roofers work that falls inside CIS to a customer who is VAT registered, registered under CIS and is not an end user, you do not charge VAT on the invoice. Your customer accounts for it instead. Supplies to homeowners and to end users stay outside it, and you charge VAT the normal way.