← The 5Q Review SystemSample 5Q Launch · fictional company and data
The 5Q Review System · 5Q Launch

Waterline Plumbing Contractors, LLC

Five-Question Analysis — 2021 through June 30, 2026
Prepared by Hannum Advisory · Josh Hannum, CPA · CGMA
Prepared from consolidated and branch financial statements: June 30, 2021 (YTD), December 31, 2022 (FY), June 30, 2024 (YTD, with 2023 comparatives), and June 30, 2026 (YTD, with 2025 comparatives). All year-over-year comparisons use June 30 YTD figures unless noted. Full-year data exists only for FY2021 and FY2022. Illustrative demonstration — fictional company and data.
What do you want?What would prove it?What happened?Why?What now?
1

What do you want?

For purposes of this report the assumption is:

"A plumbing business that produces $900K–$1.6M a year of income, funds the other ventures, pays down its debt, and doesn’t require me to worry about cash."

That is not aspirational. It is a description of 2021–2022, when the company earned $1.13M and $1.66M in consecutive full years while carrying essentially the same fleet, the same three branches, and more debt than it carries today.

The question at hand is: why did the machine that did that stop doing it?

2

What would prove it?

The company has proven in the past what it is capable of. These targets are set at levels the company has actually achieved, not theoretical benchmarks:

MeasureProof levelWhere it stands (6/30/26 YTD)Verdict
Revenue, YTD June$4.9–5.2M (2021–2025 range)$4.32MMiss, −$0.59M
Gross margin56–60% (5-yr norm)51.2%Miss, −8.4 pts vs 2025
Field labor % of revenue≤ 18%21.3%Miss, +3.8 pts
Vehicle & equipment repairs % of revenue≤ 5.5%7.6%Miss, +2.1 pts
Net income margin13–16%6.4%Miss, −7.3 pts
Net income, YTD June≥ $650K$277KMiss, −59%
Cash on hand≥ $350K$71KMiss
Related-party receivablesFlat or declining+$310K YoY; $8.3M totalMiss
Debt paydown≥ $650K/yr−$905K YoYMet
Each branch profitableNI margin ≥ 10% per branchMobile 16%, Birmingham 4%, Pensacola 0.2%One of three
One of ten measures met. The debt line is the lone bright spot — the company is deleveraging on schedule even in a bad year, which says the underlying cash engine still works when it runs.
3

What happened?

The trajectory — consolidated, YTD June 30

20212023202420252026
Revenue$5,214,600$5,189,300$5,002,450$4,905,880$4,318,240
Gross profit$3,001,450$2,902,110$2,833,880$2,922,050$2,211,690
Gross margin57.6%55.9%56.7%59.6%51.2%
Operating expenses$1,569,300$1,762,540$2,003,120$1,876,310$1,614,970
Net income$1,164,820$854,110$472,920$670,990$276,630
Net margin22.3%16.5%9.5%13.7%6.4%

(Full years for context: FY2021 revenue $10.24M / NI $1.13M; FY2022 revenue $10.37M / NI $1.66M. No June-YTD statement exists for 2022.)

Read across the row and the story has two chapters:

Chapter one, 2021 → 2024: slow erosion. Revenue drifted down ~4% while operating expenses grew 28% ($1.57M → $2.00M). Gross margin held near 56–57%, so the damage came from overhead creep and rising interest (YTD interest: $182K in 2023 → $232K in 2024). Net income fell from $1.16M to $473K — a 59% decline with no single driver.

Chapter two, 2025 → 2026: the break. 2025 was actually a recovery year — best gross margin of the period (59.6%), overhead cut $127K, net income recovered to $671K. Then the first half of 2026 broke both levers at once: revenue fell $588K (−12.0%) and gross margin collapsed 8.4 points. Net income fell $394K to $277K, the worst half in the company’s modern history.

Where 2026 broke — the bridges

Net income bridge, YTD 6/30/25 → 6/30/26:

2025 YTD net income$670,990
Gross profit decline($710,360)
Operating expenses cut+$261,340
Other expense lower (depreciation down)+$44,570
Other income higher (incl. $26K gain on sale)+$33,190
New state income tax accrual($23,100)
2026 YTD net income$276,630

The entire problem is the gross profit line. Overhead was cut $261K — and it bought back only 37 cents of every gross-profit dollar lost.

Gross profit bridge: of the $710K decline, $350K is volume (revenue down $588K at the old margin) and $360K is margin (the same revenue now costs 8.4 points more to produce). Two separate problems requiring two separate fixes.

Where it happened — by branch, YTD June net income

Branch20232024202520262026 vs 2025
Birmingham, AL$371,200$239,800$266,100$64,300($201,800)
Mobile, AL$127,900$144,300$247,600$232,500($15,100)
Pensacola, FL$415,000$281,000$264,900$2,480($262,420)

Branch revenue, YTD June:

Branch20232024202520262026 vs 2025
Birmingham$1,884,200$1,809,300$1,851,400$1,472,600-20.5%
Mobile$1,290,700$1,315,900$1,325,000$1,437,900+8.5%
Pensacola$2,014,400$1,877,250$1,729,480$1,407,740-18.6%

This is a two-branch problem. Mobile grew revenue in every period shown and held a 16% net margin in 2026 — it is the proof that the model still works. Birmingham and Pensacola together lost $464K of net income year over year, and Pensacola — the most profitable branch in 2023 at $415K — is now at breakeven. Pensacola’s revenue has fallen every single year: $2.01M → $1.88M → $1.73M → $1.41M, a 30% cumulative decline. That is a four-year slide.

The balance sheet story, 2021 → 2026

6/30/2112/31/226/30/246/30/256/30/26
Cash$1,224,300$84,600$10,900$425,200$71,300
Related-party & officer receivables$3,742,100$5,318,900$6,371,600$8,022,400$8,332,700
Net property & equipment$3,006,900$5,799,100$5,154,300$3,892,700$3,775,000
Total debt (notes + current portion)$6,410,900$8,161,500$6,692,600$6,586,300$5,681,000

Three facts stand out:

First, related companies have absorbed the earnings. Amounts due from Stonebridge Properties, Gulf Coast Equipment Rentals, WPC Real Estate, TruLine, and officers have grown $4.59M over five years — $1.96M in just the last two — and now equal 61% of total assets. Over roughly the same span the company earned on the order of $4.5M cumulatively. In plain terms: essentially every dollar of profit this business has generated since 2021 has been lent out rather than retained. Due from Stonebridge Properties alone is $5.55M; Gulf Coast Equipment Rentals has gone from $159K (2022) to $1.37M.

Second, the fleet has not been reinvested in. Gross service vehicles & equipment was $5.84M at 12/31/22 and is $5.80M at 6/30/26 — effectively zero net additions in 3.5 years — while accumulated depreciation on vehicles and equipment climbed from $735K to $2.52M. The fleet is the same iron, 3.5 years older. Depreciation expense is now falling ($89K YTD vs $133K prior years) because assets are aging out of their schedules — which flatters net income while the real cost shows up one line higher, in repairs.

Third, cash is at the floor. $71K on hand does not support a business doing ~$720K/month of revenue with a $1.78M current debt load.

One important counter-signal: June 2026

June standing alone was the best month in a long time: revenue $739,850 (up 4.3% vs June 2025) and net income $118,220 at a 16.0% margin. All the YTD damage sits in January–May (revenue −14.7%, net income $158K vs $637K). Whether June is a genuine inflection or one good month is the single most important thing the next 8–12 weeks of data will answer.

4

Why?

Driver 1 — Volume left at two branches (≈ $350K of the GP decline). Birmingham −$379K and Pensacola −$322K of revenue account for the entire consolidated decline (Mobile’s +$113K partially offset). Pensacola’s four-year slide says this is share/demand/sales coverage. Birmingham’s drop is newer and steeper. The statements can’t say whether it’s lost customers, lost bids, pricing, or estimators — that is the diagnostic question for the branch managers, and it needs a customer-level answer, not a P&L answer.

Driver 2 — Costs didn’t flex down; several flexed up (≈ $360K of the GP decline). On revenue down 12.0%, the three biggest field costs all rose in absolute dollars:

Line (consolidated YTD)20262025Δ$% of rev 2026 vs 2025
Field labor$918,400$856,200+$62,20021.3% vs 17.5%
Fuel — service vehicles$372,600$305,900+$66,7008.6% vs 6.2%
Vehicle & equipment repairs$326,800$268,100+$58,7007.6% vs 5.5%

Total field cost went from 38.7% of revenue to 47.7%. Field labor up $62K on $588K less revenue is the clearest operational finding in the entire dataset: crews were staffed for work that didn’t come. Pensacola is the extreme case — field labor rose $50K (to 28.0% of its revenue) while its revenue fell 19%, and its repairs line went from $89K to $143K. Fuel rose $67K while billed fuel & trip charges fell slightly ($401K vs $416K) — cost recovery is slipping.

Driver 3 — The aging fleet is now a P&L problem. Zero net fleet investment since 2022 (Driver 2’s repairs line is the invoice for it). Repairs as a % of revenue: 3.5% (2023) → 4.3% (2024) → 5.5% (2025) → 7.6% (2026). The trend is compounding, and older vans and equipment also mean more downtime — which feeds Driver 1.

Driver 4 — Related companies drained the tank. $4.6M of earnings redirected to related entities over five years, $2.0M in the last two. This is the structural "why" behind thin cash, deferred fleet investment, and the company’s reduced margin for error. It is invisible on the income statement and it is the biggest number in this analysis.

Driver 5 — Overhead was already fixed; the remaining problems are operational. Operating expenses were cut from $2.00M (2024) to $1.61M (2026) — insurance −$86K, building −$46K, payroll −$46K, licenses & permits −$43K, professional fees −$41K YoY. The overhead lever has largely been pulled. The next $350K of improvement has to come from revenue and field cost.

5

What now?

Ideas to consider…matched to the drivers, in priority order:

1
Flex labor to volume.
Consider a standing field-labor target of ≤ 18% of revenue per branch and manage crew count/overtime to it weekly. At current run-rates that is roughly $140K/year of margin consolidated. Pensacola cannot carry a 28% field-labor ratio on $2.8M annualized revenue; either its crew count comes down or its revenue comes up, and one of those is controllable immediately.
2
Put Pensacola on a 90-day turnaround plan.
Four straight years of revenue decline and a breakeven half demand a named answer: what accounts/GCs/property managers were lost, to whom, at what price, and is the branch manager/sales coverage the issue? By roughly November 1, the branch is either on a credible path back toward a 10%+ net margin or significant changes are made by management (including personnel and/or fleet redeployment).
3
Diagnose Birmingham's $379K revenue hole at the customer level.
Birmingham's decline is one year old, not four — it is the most recoverable revenue in the company. Pull the top-20 customer list for H1 2025 vs H1 2026 and name every dollar of the gap. June's rebound suggests some of it may already be coming back; confirm it.
4
Decide the related-party question explicitly.
Stop all intercompany funding by 11/30/26.
5
Build a fleet strategy.
Implement a repair approval process for anything over $7,500.
6
Recover fuel and trip charges with profit.
YTD 2026 shows a net cost coverage of $29K (7% margin) compared to YTD 2025 which showed a net cost coverage of $110K (26% margin).
7
Optimize field labor.
Match technician hours to work-order hours. Identify and eliminate waste/redundancy while level loading crews with revenue, accepting 30-day lead time for revenue recovery.

What's Possible:

Revenue back to $4.9M (2025 level), gross margin back to 57%, overhead held at the new $1.6M level, other lines as-is — that is a ~$850K YTD-June net income run-rate, better than any June-half since 2021. Every piece of that math has been achieved by this company within the last 24 months. Nothing in it requires the business to do something it hasn’t already done.

A

The numbers

Year-over-year key numbers — the data behind sections 2–4.

20212023202420252026$ Change% Change
CONSOLIDATED INCOME STATEMENT — YTD JUNE 30
Total revenue$5,214,600$5,189,300$5,002,450$4,905,880$4,318,240($587,640)-12.0%
Materials & fixtures cost$123,300$89,000$56,100$87,200$48,400($38,800)-44.5%
Total field cost$2,089,850$2,198,190$2,112,470$1,896,630$2,058,150+$161,520+8.5%
Gross profit$3,001,450$2,902,110$2,833,880$2,922,050$2,211,690($710,360)-24.3%
Total operating expenses$1,569,300$1,762,540$2,003,120$1,876,310$1,614,970($261,340)-13.9%
Interest expense$136,800$182,400$231,600$243,100$242,980($120)-0.1%
Depreciation expense$133,400$133,400$133,400$133,400$88,950($44,450)-33.3%
Other income$2,870$30,340$7,160$1,750$34,940+$33,190+1896.6%
Income tax expense$0$0$0$0$23,100+$23,100
Net income$1,164,820$854,110$472,920$670,990$276,630($394,360)-58.8%
KEY RATIOS — % OF REVENUE
Total field cost40.1%42.4%42.2%38.7%47.7%+9.0 pts
Gross margin57.6%55.9%56.6%59.6%51.2%-8.3 pts
Operating expenses30.1%34.0%40.0%38.2%37.4%-0.9 pts
Net margin22.3%16.5%9.4%13.7%6.4%-7.3 pts
KEY FIELD COST LINES
Field labor$947,900$1,056,400$893,200$856,200$918,400+$62,200+7.3%
% of revenue18.2%20.4%17.9%17.4%21.3%+3.8 pts
Shop & warehouse payroll$261,100$304,100$392,000$318,400$302,400($16,000)-5.0%
Fuel — service vehicles$280,100$392,500$354,600$305,900$372,600+$66,700+21.8%
Vehicle & equipment repairs$313,900$180,100$217,500$268,100$326,800+$58,700+21.9%
% of revenue6.0%3.5%4.3%5.5%7.6%+2.1 pts
Fuel & trip charges billed (memo)$449,500$428,400$415,600$401,300($14,300)-3.4%
KEY OPERATING COST LINES
Payroll (officer/sales/office/mgr)$530,400$546,800$667,200$705,900$659,800($46,100)-6.5%
Benefits$320,900$374,100$451,000$325,600$362,400+$36,800+11.3%
Insurance$298,500$311,400$359,900$289,800$204,100($85,700)-29.6%
Professional / accounting services$116,100$118,000$124,300$128,900$88,100($40,800)-31.6%
Office expense$12,700$56,600$50,400$43,400$36,200($7,200)-16.6%
Building rent & maintenance$113,600$129,100$161,900$105,400$59,500($45,900)-43.5%
Sales & advertising$86,100$116,300$113,600$139,100$109,700($29,400)-21.1%
Licenses & permits$57,000$70,900$31,700$81,800$38,500($43,300)-52.9%
Utilities$34,600$41,100$50,100$52,000$49,600($2,400)-4.6%
Total operating expenses$1,569,300$1,762,540$2,003,120$1,876,310$1,614,970($261,340)-13.9%
2023202420252026$ Change% Change
BY BRANCH — YTD JUNE 30
Birmingham, AL
Revenue$1,884,200$1,809,300$1,851,400$1,472,600($378,800)-20.5%
Field labor$362,900$289,600$268,200$226,300($41,900)-15.6%
% of revenue19.3%16.0%14.5%15.4%+0.9 pts
Net income$371,200$239,800$266,100$64,300($201,800)-75.8%
Net margin19.7%13.2%14.4%4.4%-10.0 pts
Mobile, AL
Revenue$1,290,700$1,315,900$1,325,000$1,437,900+$112,900+8.5%
Field labor$316,900$246,100$243,300$297,500+$54,200+22.3%
% of revenue24.6%18.7%18.4%20.7%+2.3 pts
Net income$127,900$144,300$247,600$232,500($15,100)-6.1%
Net margin9.9%11.0%18.7%16.2%-2.5 pts
Pensacola, FL
Revenue$2,014,400$1,877,250$1,729,480$1,407,740($321,740)-18.6%
Field labor$376,600$357,500$344,700$394,600+$49,900+14.5%
% of revenue18.7%19.0%19.9%28.0%+8.1 pts
Net income$415,000$281,000$264,900$2,480($262,420)-99.1%
Net margin20.6%15.0%15.3%0.2%-15.1 pts
6/30/2112/31/226/30/246/30/256/30/26$ Change% Change
BALANCE SHEET — KEY ITEMS
Cash$1,224,300$84,600$10,900$425,200$71,300($353,900)-83.2%
Accounts receivable — trade$736,900$741,600$782,400$638,700$721,900+$83,200+13.0%
Due from Stonebridge Properties$3,391,600$4,175,300$4,655,900$5,704,200$5,547,800($156,400)-2.7%
Due from WPC Real Estate$0$80,400$377,900$620,600$715,300+$94,700+15.3%
Due from TruLine Holdings$227,600$337,100$337,100$337,100$361,200+$24,100+7.1%
Due from Officers$122,900$567,400$177,500$240,300$334,500+$94,200+39.2%
Due from Gulf Coast Equipment Rentals$0$158,700$823,200$1,120,200$1,373,900+$253,700+22.7%
Total related-party & officer receivables$3,742,100$5,318,900$6,371,600$8,022,400$8,332,700+$310,300+3.9%
Net property & equipment$3,006,900$5,799,100$5,154,300$3,892,700$3,775,000($117,700)-3.0%
Total assets$9,679,200$12,991,000$13,395,600$13,286,300$13,663,000+$376,700+2.8%
Current notes payable$605,900$1,192,600$1,567,800$1,776,400$1,776,400$0+0.0%
Notes payable (long-term)$5,805,000$6,968,900$5,124,800$4,809,900$3,904,600($905,300)-18.8%
Total debt$6,410,900$8,161,500$6,692,600$6,586,300$5,681,000($905,300)-13.7%
Accounts payable (total)$231,100$213,400$413,600$389,900$663,800+$273,900+70.2%
Total liabilities$6,673,400$8,366,200$7,097,300$7,043,000$6,382,400($660,600)-9.4%
Total owner's equity$3,005,800$4,624,800$6,298,300$6,243,300$7,280,600+$1,037,300+16.6%