Florida Contractor Exam Math Formulas: Business & Finance, Takeoff, and Scheduling

This changes by exam part, and it decides how much you have to carry in your head. On the 2026 reference lists, Builder's Guide to Accounting is a room reference for Business & Finance, and the Contractors Manual on that list includes the IRS Circular E for payroll rates. On the list that covers Contract Administration and Project Management, Builder's Guide to Accounting and Walker's Building Estimator's Reference Book both appear as suggested study references, which may not be brought into the testing room.

So the accounting formulas can be looked up during Business & Finance, and the takeoff and scheduling methods on Project Management have to be automatic before you walk in. Our Builder's Guide to Accounting guide has the chapter map, and the books and tabs guide covers the full lists. Reference lists are reissued every year, so check the current one for your test date.

• Calculator: the candidate booklet permits one that is silent, hand-held, battery-operated, nonprinting, and without an alphabetic keypad, and it advises against solar models.
• Practice on the calculator you'll bring.

Ratio questions give you a balance sheet, or pieces of one, and ask for a number. In Builder's Guide to Accounting the ratios are in Chapter 23, Financial Ratios. For the examples below, take a company with $40,000 in cash, $80,000 in receivables, and $60,000 in inventory, for $180,000 in current assets, against $120,000 in current liabilities.

• Working capital = current assets − current liabilities. Example: $180,000 − $120,000 = $60,000.
• Current ratio = current assets ÷ current liabilities. Example: $180,000 ÷ $120,000 = 1.5.
• Quick ratio = (cash + receivables) ÷ current liabilities, which leaves inventory out. Example: $120,000 ÷ $120,000 = 1.0. Definitions of quick assets vary between textbooks, so use the book's.
• Debt to equity = total liabilities ÷ owner's equity. Example: $200,000 in total liabilities against $160,000 in equity is 1.25.
• Owner's equity = total assets − total liabilities. If a question gives you two of the three, this gets you the third.

Markup and margin are easy to confuse because both describe the same dollars of profit against different bases. Markup divides profit by cost. Margin divides profit by the selling price. A job that costs $80,000 and sells for $100,000 has $20,000 of profit, a 25% markup, and a 20% margin.

• Markup % = profit ÷ cost. Margin % = profit ÷ price.
• Price for a target margin = cost ÷ (1 − margin). Example: $80,000 ÷ 0.80 = $100,000. Adding 20% to cost gives $96,000, which is $4,000 short of a 20% margin.
• Converting: margin = markup ÷ (1 + markup). Example: 0.25 ÷ 1.25 = 0.20.
• Gross profit = revenue − direct job costs. Net profit = gross profit − overhead.
• Break-even revenue = annual overhead ÷ gross margin %. Example: $150,000 of overhead at a 25% gross margin needs $600,000 of revenue to break even.
• Percent complete (cost-to-cost) = cost to date ÷ total estimated cost. Example: $100,000 spent on a job estimated to cost $400,000 is 25% complete.
• Earned revenue = percent complete × contract price. Example: 25% of a $500,000 contract is $125,000.
• Over or under billing = billed to date − earned revenue. Example: $140,000 billed against $125,000 earned is $15,000 overbilled. A negative result is underbilled.
• Straight-line depreciation per year = (cost − salvage value) ÷ useful life. Example: a $48,000 truck with an $8,000 salvage value over 5 years is $8,000 a year.
• Payment due on a draw = work completed to date − retainage − previous payments. Example: $200,000 complete at 10% retainage is $180,000, and with $120,000 already paid the draw is $60,000. Pay applications and retainage also sit on the Contract Administration outline.

Payroll questions are percentage problems with one trap, the wage base. The rates below are from the IRS's Publication 15 for 2026. On exam day, use the Circular E reprinted in your Contractors Manual, since that is the edition the answers are based on.

• Social Security is 6.2% and Medicare is 1.45%, each paid by the employee and matched by the employer. That's 7.65% from each side.
• Example: on $1,000 of gross wages the employer owes $62.00 plus $14.50, or $76.50, and withholds the same amount from the employee.
• Social Security tax stops at an annual wage base that changes every year. Look the figure up in the Circular E.
• FUTA is paid by the employer only, at 6.0% on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages for the year. A credit of up to 5.4% for state unemployment taxes can bring the net rate to 0.6%.
• Example: one employee earning $30,000 has $7,000 of FUTA wages. At the full 6.0% that's $420, and at 0.6% with the maximum credit it's $42.

Takeoff errors are almost always unit errors. Convert every dimension to feet before multiplying, then convert the result to the unit being priced. Walker's is the study reference for this material and stays outside the room on the 2026 list, so these need to be memorized.

• Area = length × width. Volume = length × width × depth, with all three in feet. Inches ÷ 12 = feet.
• Cubic yards = cubic feet ÷ 27. Example: a 30 ft by 40 ft slab 4 inches thick is 30 × 40 × 0.333 = 400 cubic feet, or 14.8 cubic yards.
• Quantity to order = net quantity × (1 + waste %). Example: 14.8 cubic yards with 5% waste is 15.6. A 1,200 sq ft tile floor with 10% waste is 1,320 sq ft.
• Board feet = thickness (in) × width (in) × length (ft) ÷ 12. Example: one 2 × 10 that is 16 ft long is 2 × 10 × 16 ÷ 12 = 26.7 board feet.
• Duration = quantity ÷ crew output per day. Example: 4,800 sq ft of drywall with a crew that hangs 800 sq ft a day is 6 crew-days.
• Labor cost = hours × hourly rate, and burdened labor adds payroll taxes and insurance on top of the wage.
• Percent grade = rise ÷ run × 100. Example: a 2 ft drop over 100 ft is a 2% grade. Roof pitch states the same idea as inches of rise per 12 inches of run.
• Loose volume = bank volume × (1 + swell %). Example: 100 cubic yards in the ground at 25% swell is 125 cubic yards in the truck.
• Conversions to know cold: 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard, 9 square feet in a square yard, 144 square inches in a square foot, 43,560 square feet in an acre, 5,280 feet in a mile, 2,000 pounds in a ton.

Scheduling questions give you activities, durations, and what follows what. The method is two passes through the network. Our Project Management exam guide covers where scheduling fits on that exam.

Take four activities: A is 3 days, then B (5 days) and C (2 days) both follow A, and D (4 days) follows both B and C. The forward pass gives A a finish of day 3, B a finish of day 8, C a finish of day 5, and D a start of day 8 and a finish of day 12. The project is 12 days, on the path A, B, D. On the backward pass D must start by day 8, so C can finish as late as day 8 and start as late as day 6. C's early start is day 3, so it has 3 days of float. A, B, and D have none.

• Forward pass: early finish = early start + duration. An activity's early start is the latest early finish among its predecessors.
• Backward pass: late start = late finish − duration. An activity's late finish is the earliest late start among its successors.
• Total float = late start − early start, which equals late finish − early finish.
• The critical path is the longest path through the network, and its activities have zero total float.
• Free float = the successor's early start − the activity's early finish. It's the delay an activity can take without moving the next one.

Business & Finance gives you about 3.25 minutes a question, and a calculation that takes five of them gets paid back out of your lookup time. Work each problem type until the setup needs no thought, then time yourself. Our guide on how hard the Florida contractor exam is covers how the clock shapes the rest of your prep.

• Write the units next to every number. Most takeoff misses are inches multiplied by feet.
• For markup and margin, write down which base the question is asking for before you touch the calculator.
• On Business & Finance, find each formula in Builder's Guide to Accounting once and tab the chapter, so a blank on exam day costs seconds.
• Draw the network for every scheduling problem, even the small ones.
• LicenseReady's courses include original calculation questions for each part, with timed simulations on the real clock. The free readiness quiz shows whether the math domains are where you're losing points.