If you run a contracting business, you probably don't need another article explaining that material prices are complicated right now.

You already know.

You quote a job today and the price of a material can look different when you're ready to order it. A supplier gives you a lead time that changes two weeks later. A project that looked profitable when you bid it can suddenly have a much smaller margin.

And now the Canada-US trade relationship has added another layer of uncertainty.

On August 25, 2026, Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on approximately $20 billion worth of US imports following the United States' latest 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods. Canada's measures are scheduled to take effect September 8 and cover roughly 700 US products.

For contractors, the important question isn't which politician said what.

It's:

What does this mean for my next job?

What Contractors Actually Need to Worry About

Tariffs don't have to apply directly to the material you purchase to affect your business.

Construction supply chains are interconnected.

Steel, aluminum, equipment, electrical components, machinery and other inputs can move through multiple suppliers before they reach a jobsite. When costs or availability change somewhere in that chain, contractors can eventually feel the impact.

Statistics Canada reported that non-residential construction costs increased 1.4% in the second quarter of 2026 and were up 3.5% year over year. The agency specifically cited tariffs, supply-chain disruption, higher fuel costs and a constrained skilled trades workforce among the pressures affecting construction.

For contractors, that creates three problems.

1. Your estimate can become outdated

A quote isn't just a number.

It's a prediction about what a job will cost in the future.

If material prices are moving quickly, the longer the gap between estimating and purchasing, the more uncertainty you're carrying.

That makes it increasingly important to know:

• When the estimate was created
• Which supplier provided the price
• What materials were included
• What the expected purchase date is
• What the actual purchase price ended up being

The more expensive the project, the more important this becomes.

2. Fixed-price jobs become harder to manage

Fixed-price work puts more risk on the contractor.

If you quote a job at $100,000 and your costs come in at $70,000, everything looks great.

If those costs become $78,000, you've just lost $8,000 of expected margin.

The customer generally doesn't care that your supplier increased its price.

That's your problem.

This is one reason Construction Dive reported that contractors are increasingly looking at stronger escalation language when dealing with material price volatility.

3. Procurement becomes part of project management

Buying materials isn't just a purchasing task anymore.

It can affect:

• Schedule
• Labour utilization
• Cash flow
• Job profitability
• Customer expectations

If an important component arrives three weeks late, your crew might be sitting idle or you might need to reschedule the project.

That can create costs far beyond the price increase of the material itself.

So What Can Contractors Actually Do?

You can't control tariffs.

You can't control your supplier's warehouse.

And you can't predict every price change.

What you can control is how quickly you see what's happening to your jobs.

That starts with better information.

Know Your Estimated vs. Actual Costs

One of the most useful things a contractor can do is compare what they expected a job to cost with what it actually cost.

For example:

Estimated labour: 400 hours
Actual labour: 465 hours

Estimated materials: $32,000
Actual materials: $36,800

Estimated job cost: $52,000
Actual job cost: $59,100

If you're only looking at the final invoice, you might see revenue.

If you're comparing estimated and actual costs, you see the problem.

That's the difference between knowing what happened and knowing why it happened.

Don't Wait Until the Job Is Finished to Find Problems

This is where a lot of contractors still have a visibility problem.

The job gets completed.

The invoice gets sent.

The books get updated.

Then someone looks at the numbers and says:

"Why didn't we make more money on that job?"

At that point, it's too late.

The useful information was happening weeks earlier.

A crew was taking longer than expected.

Materials were costing more than expected.

A project was consuming more labour than the estimate allowed.

A change order wasn't properly tracked.

Those are the things you want to see while the job is still active.

A Simple Weekly Job Review

You don't need a complicated system to start.

Once a week, review your active jobs and ask:

1. Are we on budget?

Compare estimated costs against actual costs.

2. Are we on schedule?

Compare planned hours and completion dates with actual progress.

3. Are material costs changing?

Pay particular attention to major materials and components.

4. Are labour hours running ahead of plan?

If so, find out why before the job is finished.

5. Has anything changed since the original estimate?

Document changes instead of relying on someone's memory.

This kind of review can take less than an hour.

Finding a major margin problem after the job is finished can cost considerably more.

The Contractors Who Have Better Information Have an Advantage

This doesn't mean you need to predict the economy.

You don't.

It means you need to know what is happening inside your own business.

The contractors who can quickly answer questions like:

How much have we spent on this job?

How many hours have we used?

What did we estimate?

What's left to complete?

Which jobs are actually making money?

have a much better starting point for making decisions.

That information becomes even more valuable when the external environment is unpredictable.

Where Software Fits In

This is one of the reasons contractor management software has become less about "going digital" and more about getting visibility.

A contractor shouldn't have to pull information from a spreadsheet, a time tracking app, an accounting system, a paper folder and a text message just to figure out whether a job is on track.

A centralized system can connect things like:

• Projects
• Labour
• Employee time
• Materials
• Equipment
• Scheduling
• Customers
• Financial information

Tradetraks is built around that idea.

The goal isn't to give contractors another dashboard to stare at.

It's to make it easier to answer the questions that actually matter when you're running a job.

What Should Contractors Do Right Now?

You don't need to panic about tariffs.

You do need to take them seriously.

For your next few projects, pay particular attention to:

Material pricing: Get current pricing before committing to major purchases.

Lead times: Don't assume your supplier's current availability will remain unchanged.

Contracts: Understand how your contracts deal with price changes and delays.

Estimates: Make sure your estimates are based on current information.

Job costing: Track actual costs while the work is happening.

Cash flow: Remember that higher material costs can mean more cash is tied up before you get paid.

Margins: Don't wait until the final invoice to determine whether a job was profitable.

The Bigger Lesson

Tariffs may eventually change.

Material prices will eventually stabilize.

Supply chains will adjust.

But the underlying lesson is bigger than the current trade dispute.

Contractors need better visibility into their businesses.

When costs are predictable, good systems make you more efficient.

When costs aren't predictable, good systems become even more valuable.

You can't control the price of steel.

You can't control a supplier's lead time.

You can't control government policy.

But you can control how quickly you know that something has changed.

And in construction, knowing sooner can make a very big difference.

Want better visibility into your jobs?

Tradetraks gives contractors a single platform for managing projects, scheduling, employee time, materials, equipment and financial information.

See how Tradetraks works for your business →

Learn more at https://www.tradetraks.ca or book a free demo today.