Total Cost of Owning and Operating Construction Equipment

Understand, Control, and Optimize Your True Equipment Costs

Your equipment is one of the largest line items on your balance sheet — and one of the least visible on your P&L. 

Most contractors can tell you what a machine cost to buy. Very few can tell you what it cost to own last quarter, what it earned on Job 124412, or whether it’s been profitable over its life. The data exists — it’s just scattered across your ERP, your shop’s spreadsheets, your telematics provider, and your foremen’s memories. 

Without that data centralized, it’s impossible to accurately estimate the true cost of owning and operating owned construction equipment. Between fuel, maintenance, depreciation, utilization gaps, and labor, equipment costs are dynamic. Without accurate, real-time data, contractors rely on spreadsheets, assumptions, and delayed reporting. The result? Mispriced jobs, margin erosion, and underperforming assets. 


Tenna closes that gap, giving contractors operational truth via a data-backed view of equipment costs based on how their equipment actually works in the field, and translating that data into the financial truth of what it actually costs and earns, so contractors can confidently manage spend, improve profitability, and make smarter decisions across their fleet.
 

The Real Cost of Owned Equipment

Without a centralized system, these costs are often tracked in silos—or not at all.

Acquisition
and depreciation

Fuel consumption
and emissions

Preventive and reactive
maintenance and repairs

Labor and operator
usage, wear and tear

Idle time and
underutilization

Transportation
and mobilization

Insurance and
compliance costs

Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment

The Tenna Solution: Real-Time Equipment Cost Intelligence

Tenna connects telematics, field operations, and financial systems to give you a complete, real-time picture of equipment costs. With Tenna, you can:
  • Track actual equipment usage across jobs
  • Capture true operating hours and activity
  • Monitor maintenance and fuel costs
  • Allocate costs accurately to jobs and departments
  • Analyze utilization and cost performance

Turn Operational Data into Financial Clarity

Managing the cost of owning and operating construction equipment requires more than measuring areas of equipment operations in isolation. Tenna incorporates all assets and teams that contribute to total cost of ownership (TCO) in a single system, giving contractors a complete, real-time financial and operational picture.
Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment

Asset Financials

Tenna’s Asset Financials is the foundation for understanding TCO—turning operational data into real-time financial insight.
  • Automates job costing and internal equipment billing
  • Applies contractor-defined rate logic across assets and jobs
  • Supports real-time equipment P&L by asset and by project
  • Eliminates spreadsheets and manual reconciliation
  • Creates defensible, audit-ready financial data
Impact on TCO Transforms cost tracking into cost control and cost recovery, ensuring every dollar is accounted for and tied to revenue

Analytics & Reporting

Tenna’s dashboards and reporting tools provide a high-level and detailed view of your equipment cost drivers.

  • Monitor investment costs, utilization, maintenance, and rental spend
  • Analyze fuel consumption, parts, and labor costs over time
  • Identify trends in operator behavior that increase operating costs
  • Build custom reports or use standardized dashboards
Impact on TCO

Helps identify cost drivers and inefficiencies, enabling proactive decisions that reduce overall spend.

Analytics & Reporting

Asset Library

A centralized system of record for all assets—tracking both ownership and operating costs.

  • Monitor acquisition costs, depreciation, and book value
  • Track parts, labor, and repair expenses
  • Compare cost vs. revenue for owned and rented equipment
  • Reduce unnecessary rentals by improving asset visibility
Impact on TCO

Improves asset-level financial accountability, reducing waste and increasing ROI per asset.

Asset Library

Resource Management

Plan, request, and dispatch resources using real-time operational data.

  • Coordinate equipment, labor, crews, trucking, and materials
  • Leverage telematics, location, and availability data
  • Align resources with job demand and timelines
Impact on TCO

Reduces idle time, misallocation, and unnecessary rentals, ensuring assets are used efficiently.

Resource Management

Equipment Utilization

Track how often and how effectively equipment is being used.

  • Monitor engine hours and activity levels in real time
  • Identify underutilized or overworked assets
  • Compare actual usage against ownership costs
Impact on TCO

Helps eliminate underutilized assets and idle spend, a major driver of unnecessary ownership costs.

Reclaimed ~$75K in monthly revenue from unbilled utilization and $9K per month in fuel savings from reduced idling.

Customer Story
Equipment Utilization

Equipment Utilization

Track how often and how effectively equipment is being used.

  • Monitor engine hours and activity levels in real time
  • Identify underutilized or overworked assets
  • Compare actual usage against ownership costs
Impact on TCO

Helps eliminate underutilized assets and idle spend, a major driver of unnecessary ownership costs.

Reclaimed ~$75K in monthly revenue from unbilled utilization and $9K per month in fuel savings from reduced idling.

Customer Story
Equipment Utilization

Maintenance Scheduling and Tracking

Automate and manage preventive and reactive maintenance workflows.

  • Schedule preventive maintenance based on usage and time intervals
  • Track repair history, parts, and labor costs
  • Reduce unplanned downtime and catastrophic failures
Impact on TCO

Lowers repair costs, downtime, and premature asset replacement, extending equipment life.

We save money in preventive maintenance. We’re able to get things on time and down the road parts aren’t breaking down as fast.”

— Superintendent, Zefiro
Maintenance Scheduling and Tracking

Safety & Compliance

Leverage safety insights with Tenna’s comprehensive AI dash cameras and safety program to protect both people, equipment, and business.

  • Monitor unsafe behaviors and equipment misuse
  • Improve compliance with safety standards
  • Reduce incidents that lead to damage or downtime
Impact on TCO

Decreases repair costs, liability exposure, and insurance premiums—a triple impact on cost reduction.

Safety & Compliance

Safety & Compliance

Leverage safety insights with Tenna’s comprehensive AI dash cameras and safety program to protect both people, equipment, and business.

  • Monitor unsafe behaviors and equipment misuse
  • Improve compliance with safety standards
  • Reduce incidents that lead to damage or downtime
Impact on TCO

Decreases repair costs, liability exposure, and insurance premiums—a triple impact on cost reduction.

Saved ~$150,000 on a single insurance claim with Tenna’s dash cameras.

Customer Story
Safety & Compliance

Integrations

Ensure equipment cost data flows seamlessly into your financial ecosystem with purpose-built integrations.
Impact on TCO Creates end-to-end financial visibility, improving accuracy, forecasting, and decision-making
Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment
Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment
Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment
Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment
Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment
Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment
Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment

And more!

“Tenna helps us maintain a competitive edge. When you bring those efficiencies to the bottom line, that means your costs are ultimately going to be lower. And if your costs are lower in a bidding environment, we can pass those saving on in our bid to our clients.

Guigli & Sons

Use Cases for Managing Equipment Costs

The true cost of owning and operating construction equipment impacts every part of the business—from the field to the back office. Tenna helps finance and operations teams work from the same real-time equipment data, eliminating disconnects between usage, costing, billing, and profitability.
Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment

For Finance

Gain Defensible, Real-Time Equipment Financials

Finance teams need more than operational visibility. They need equipment data they can trust for costing, forecasting, and profitability analysis.
  • Automate job costing using real equipment usage
  • Eliminate spreadsheets and manual reconciliation
  • Create audit-ready, defensible cost records
  • Allocate equipment costs accurately across jobs and departments
  • Support real-time P&L visibility by asset and by project
  • Improve forecasting and margin analysis with live cost inputs
Business Impact for Finance Tenna helps finance teams improve cost recovery, strengthen financial controls, and reduce administrative overhead with real-time, audit-ready equipment data that holds up under scrutiny.
Total Cost of Ownership - cost of owning and operating construction equipment

For Operations

Turn Equipment Data Into Smarter Fleet Decisions

Operations teams need to understand how equipment is actually being used—not how it’s assumed to be used.
  • Monitor real utilization vs. estimated utilization
  • Identify idle, underused, or overworked assets
  • Improve maintenance scheduling and equipment uptime
  • Optimize equipment allocation across jobsites
  • Reduce disputes between operations and accounting teams
  • Make better purchase, lease, and replacement decisions
Business Impact for Operations Tenna gives operations teams the visibility to reduce idle time, improve utilization, and extend equipment lifecycle performance, bringing credibility to their numbers and reducing friction between field and finance.

Stop guessing what your fleet costs you

Your job cost reports are only as accurate as the spreadsheet feeding them. Tenna’s pull directly from the machine. Learn how to finally take control of your total cost of ownership.

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