Every column on the schedule answers one question a banker, surety, or CPA will eventually ask. Here they all are, in contractor English, in the order they appear.
The contract columns
Original contract is what you signed. Change orders is the value of COs that have actually been approved, not the ones you're hoping for. Revised contract is the two added together, and it's the number every percentage on the schedule is ultimately anchored to.
Billings and earned revenue
Billings to date is what you've invoiced. Earned revenue is revised contract times percent complete: the revenue you've actually earned by doing the work. The two are almost never equal, and the difference is the whole point of a WIP schedule.
Overbilled and underbilled
Billed more than you've earned? That job is overbilled. The excess is a liability, listed as billings in excess of costs and estimated earnings, or BIE. Earned more than you've billed? Underbilled. That's an asset, costs and estimated earnings in excess of billings, or CIE. Neither is automatically bad. What readers care about is whether the amounts are explained, and whether they're moving the right direction. See the overbilled vs. underbilled guide for what they look for.
Cost and estimate columns
Cost to date is what the job has cost so far, straight from QuickBooks. Cost to complete is your call on what's left. Estimated total cost is the sum, and it's the denominator that percent complete comes from.
Percent complete is cost to date divided by estimated total cost. That's the cost-to-cost method: the standard for percentage-of-completion accounting, and the one method ClearWIP uses everywhere, every time.
Estimated gross profit at completion
Revised contract minus estimated total cost: what the job will make in dollars if your estimate is right. Projected margin turns that dollar figure into a percentage of the revised contract, and it's the number to watch: when it slides close over close, that's margin fade. See the margin fade guide for how to catch it early.
The rest of the row
Margin fade is projected margin dropping against the prior locked close, in percentage points, not a dollar swing. Forward loss flags a job the estimate says will lose money outright, no matter how much billing catches up.
Retainage is the share of billings held back until closeout: still owed to you, but not collectible yet. State and Notes are the two data-quality columns: State flags a calculation problem, like a missing input or a stale assumption, and Notes explains it in plain language.