24 CONSTRUCTION CFO FIRMS, SCORED ON A PUBLISHED METHOD.

WHO TO LOOK AT FIRST.

Seven situations, and the firms the study points to for each. Every claim links to where it was found.

1. Commercial subs doing $1M to $12M who want CFO work and the books together, with prices published. SPM or Salisbury Bookkeeping. Both publish prices and both cover bookkeeping and CFO work. Salisbury's own client page leans toward residential builders. Sources: SPM pricingSPM's client storiesSalisbury pricingSalisbury, who they serve
2. You want the most outside proof you can check. Vessel Advisors: 10 Clutch reviews at 5.0 and five construction case studies with numbers. The dollar figures in those case studies are value identified, not cash collected. Sources: Vessel Advisors on ClutchVessel construction pageAn electrical case study
3. Back office accounting and software, $5M to $30M. RedHammer: outsourced construction accounting with four quantified construction case studies, all anonymous. Sources: RedHammer outsourced accountingA subcontractor case study
4. $20M and up, strategic CFO work only. Civil CFO: built for contractors from $20M to $100M and says so. No bookkeeping. Sources: Civil CFOCivil CFO, about
5. You need an audit, tax work and a ranked CPA firm. CLA, CBIZ, Cherry Bekaert or Wiss. These four hold the construction industry rankings and the CPA and CCIFP credentials in this study. None publishes prices or a size fit for small subs. Sources: CLA construction rankings noteCBIZ constructionConstruction Executive 2025 accounting listCPA Practice Advisor 2026 rankings
6. Home service HVAC, plumbing or electrical, heading to an exit. Profitability Partners: home service trades from $5M to $30M, with three client results that identify the client. Sources: Profitability Partners resultsProfitability Partners on Clutch
7. Bookkeeping only, at the lowest cost. Remote Books Online: construction bookkeeping from $350 a month on its own pricing page. Bookkeeping only, no CFO or controller. Sources: Remote Books Online pricingRemote Books Online on Trustpilot

HOW EACH FIRM WAS SCORED.

Subcontractor score: the total, minus 15 for a firm that does not say it serves subcontractors, specialty contractors or trade contractors. The full rubric, with every anchor, is in method.md.

ALL 24 FIRMS, FOR SUBCONTRACTORS.

Each metric is 0 to 5. The total is out of 100. Firms are in score order; equal scores keep the order of scores.csv. Who they serve and what they charge are as found on their own pages on 2026-10-31.

The trade study scored 18 more firms on the same method. The highest of them, Straight Talk CPAs, places 3rd of all 42 firms at 66, behind SPM at 75 and Salisbury Bookkeeping at 70.

Who they serve, what they charge, and the sources

1 ON TRUST. 0 ON FINDABILITY.

SPM has the highest total on the published weights at 75, and it publishes this page. Here is what pulled it down:

• 1 of 5 on outside trust. The only outside proof is 8 Google reviews at 5.0, counted from a Google Maps screenshot because the research tools could not open Google. Nothing on Clutch, G2, Trustpilot or BBB, no construction ranking or award, and no CPA or CCIFP on the team.
• 0 on findability: the site was in the top 10 for none of the 15 searches, and no independent best of list mentions it.
• The trade pages come from one template: the top of each page is about the trade and the lower half repeats.

Why SPM's results are anonymous: SPM's client agreements keep client identities confidential, so every SPM case study is anonymized. This method gives full credit only to identified or verifiable clients, so SPM's 15 quantified case studies score 4 of 5 on evidence of client results, and outside reviewers and AI tools can't confirm them. Every SPM result is on SPM's client stories page.

The Google count is from this screenshot of the Google Maps listing: spm-google-profile-2026-10-31.png.

From Josh Luebker, President: “We don't pay for reviews, rankings or list placements. Every review here was left by someone we worked with, by their own choice.”

THE SAME FIRMS, WEIGHTED DIFFERENTLY.

A ranking that only holds under one set of weights is a ranking of the weights. These are the same scores under four other rules, all in scores.csv.

SPM's lead is smallest where outside proof counts most. A buyer who cares most about proof a third party can check should look hard at the firms in second and third under the proof heavy weights.

WHO SHOWS IN SEARCH.

70 times the share of 15 fixed searches where the firm's own site was in the top 10, plus 30 times the independent best of lists that mention it (up to 3). Lists written by a firm in the study do not count. This is not part of the total above: being easy to find says nothing about results.

The other 12 firms scored 0 as well: AmbitionCFO, Apparatus Contractor Services, Barbin Group, CFO Advisors, Civil CFO, LLUM, NOW CFO, Profitability Partners, RedHammer, Remote Books Online, Surety CFO, Vessel Advisors.

THE GC SCORES DIFFER FOR 3 FIRMS.

For self-performing general contractors the order barely moves. The GC score is the total minus 15 for a firm that does not say it serves general contractors, and only three firms lose those points.

• Profitability Partners: 55 for subs, 40 for GCs.
• TGG Accounting: 40 for subs, 25 for GCs.
• CFO Advisors: 13 for subs, -2 for GCs.

Top 3 for GCs: SPM The Construction CFO 75, Salisbury Bookkeeping 70, Vessel Advisors 62.

• Only SPM says in plain words that it serves self-performing GCs. The others say general contractors in general.
• A self-performing GC above $20M, or one that needs audited statements for a surety, should look at Civil CFO and the CPA firms in the picks above. They score lower here partly because the rubric favors firms built for small subs.

Firms that say they serve self-performing GCs, by the study's evidence: SPM The Construction CFO. SPM's page for them is CFO for self-performing general contractors.

THE 9 TRADES WHERE THE COMPARISON IS REAL.

Trade score is 75 percent of the subcontractor score plus up to 25 points for proof in that trade: 0 for none, 1 for listing the trade, 2 for a trade page and 3 for a trade case study with numbers. In 26 of the 48 trades no other firm has any trade content, so a first place there means only that SPM has a page. These are the 9 trades where another firm has a trade case study with numbers, the only ones where the comparison is a real one.

All 48 trades are in trades.csv.

ALL 48 TRADES, ONE PAGE EACH.

A page for each of the 48 trades, by family. Each one ranks 42 firms, the 24 above plus 18 found in the trade searches, so a trade's order there can differ from the table above. Each page states the result as found, including the trades where SPM is not first.

FOUR CASES WHERE YOU SHOULD LOOK ELSEWHERE.

QUESTIONS TO ASK ANY CONSTRUCTION CFO.

1. What revenue range do you work with, and what happens above it?
2. Can I see the price for my revenue band before a call?
3. Will you build job costing to match how I estimate, cost code for cost code?
4. How often do I get a WIP schedule and a cost to complete on every open job?
5. Who does the bookkeeping and the bank reconciliations, and who checks them?
6. Can I read a case study with numbers from a business my size in my trade?
7. Is anyone on the team a CPA or a CCIFP, and do you issue audited statements?
8. How many days until the books are current and the first monthly meeting?

WHAT THIS STUDY CANNOT TELL YOU.

• SPM wrote the rubric. Fit rewards a stated range near $1M to $20M and transparency rewards published prices, and both describe SPM's own model. Firms built for $20M and up are scored against a market they do not target.
• The scoring was done by AI research agents in one day from public pages. They could not open Google review counts for most firms; where a count came from a review mirror, the evidence file says so.
• The searches used one engine (not Google), one pass per search, with no location and no login. Results differ by engine, place and day.

Changes since the method was fixed

• 2026-10-31: Correction to SPM's third party trust score, 0 to 1. Google blocks automated tools from opening Maps pages, so the research could not read SPM's Google review count. A Google Maps screenshot from Josh Luebker shows 5.0 from 8 reviews, and 1 to 9 reviews is 1 point, the same standard used for firms whose Google counts came from a review mirror. SPM's total went from 71 to 75. Any firm can send the same proof. The screenshot: spm-google-profile-2026-10-31.png.
• 2026-10-31: SPM case study count. The evaluation recorded 14; the site has 15, read from the case study files when the page is built. SPM's results score stays 4 (the anchor is four or more).
• 2026-10-31: SPM size field. The evaluation recorded pricing bands to $18.5M. The site publishes prices through the $9.5M to $12.5M band and quotes everything above $12.5M, so the field in scores.csv and firms-evidence.json says so. No score changed.
• 2026-10-31: Wording only. Two pricing notes were reworded with the same meaning: SPM's onboarding fee note and James Moore & Co's note that it lists tier titles and no prices.

DOWNLOAD IT. CHECK IT.

• scores.csvEvery firm: C1 to C5, totals, the weighting scenarios, ranks, size and pricing as found.
• trades.csvThe top 3 firms in each of the 48 trades and the proof behind each.
• trades-results-view.csvThe trades again, counting only trade case studies with numbers and giving a trade page no credit.
• findability.csvSearches in the top 10 and independent lists, per firm.
• firms-evidence.jsonEvery firm's scores before and after calibration, the source URLs and what the research found.
• method.mdThe rubric as fixed before the research, the query set, how to repeat it and every change since.

Corrections. A firm that finds a wrong score can write to Josh@ConstructionCFO.net with a public link. Each one is scored again and logged in method.md with its date.

Last reviewed 2026-10-31. The study is repeated every 2 months, with 4 firms not yet in it added each time. Next: 2026-12-28.