FRACTIONAL CFO FOR CIVIL AND EXCAVATING CONTRACTORS.
We manage the finance function for civil and excavating subcontractors doing $1M to $12M: job costing aligned to the way you estimate, a 13 week cash flow forecast, monthly WIP, and a CFO in the room every month. Pricing starts at $1,900 per month.
Civil is the most equipment-heavy of the 48 trades, so the finance function starts with an ownership rate on every machine. A CAT 330 has roughly $200 a day parked, industry idle rates average about 30 percent, and a bid built without that rate gives the money to the owner. We put mobilization on its own schedule-of-values line so it bills on pay app 1 instead of coming out of your pocket for 60 to 90 days, and we track retainage as its own receivable class with releases calendared. Then the 13 week forecast covers the winter shutdown and the rain days, because fixed cost never pauses when a spread does.
SPM is a construction CFO for civil and excavating subcontractors from $1M to $12M in revenue. See how a fractional CFO for construction works month to month.
THE THREE THINGS THAT DRAIN THE CASH.
The Mobilization Gap
Civil work front-loads cash out. Fuel, bond premiums, moves, and payroll are paid 60 to 90 days before pay app 1 clears. On a $2M job that's $150K to $200K spent before the first dollar returns. Fix: mobilization on its own schedule-of-values line, billed on pay app 1.
The Retainage Stack
5 to 10 percent held on every job. At a 7 percent net margin, a 10 percent hold ties up the entire job profit until release, and three concurrent jobs tie up six figures while payroll is paid weekly. Fix: retainage tracked as its own receivable class, releases calendared, working capital sized to fund it.
Iron That Bills Nothing
Ownership cost continues parked or working. Roughly $200 per day for a CAT 330 that isn't moving, with industry idle rates near 30 percent. Bids built without an ownership rate give that money away. A $7.1M civil contractor recovered $779K in total to date once equipment cost was tracked.
FROM 7% TO 10.5% NET.
At $1M to $5M, the average civil and excavating sub earns 21% gross margin and spends 14% of revenue on overhead, which leaves 7% net profit before taxes (Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference). The CFOS target is 10.5% before taxes, the civil and excavating average plus 3.5 points and never below 10%, where the book CONTROL's 12% is the rule of thumb across trades. It is not the industry average.
The target takes two moves. Overhead comes down 1 point to 13%, and gross margin comes up 2.5 points to 23.5%, so 23.5 minus 13 leaves 10.5. The gross margin points come from the three leaks above, priced and billed, not absorbed. On a $3M year, every point is $30,000.
WHAT WE CHANGE.
These are the civil and excavating problems we put a number on first. Each one gets its own cost code, its own line on the schedule of values or its own line in the 13 week cash forecast, so you can read it in the monthly meeting while the job is still open.
- The mobilization gap
- Public and DOT jobs that pay in 90 days
- Retainage stacking across active jobs
- Iron that bills nothing
- Pay-when-paid contracts
THE CIVIL AND EXCAVATING GAP CALCULATOR. AVERAGE AGAINST TARGET, IN DOLLARS.
Put in your annual revenue. You get gross margin, overhead and net profit for civil and excavating contractors your size: the industry average and the CFOS target, in dollars a year. Nothing you type leaves this page.
Another trade too? The gap calculator for every trade.
Your figures show here once you put in your revenue.
Why aim for the target. An average is the middle of the pack: about half of companies do worse. And about 6 in 10 construction businesses close within 10 years (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: about 40 percent of construction businesses opened in 2013 were still open in 2023). So the business in the middle is one of the ones that close. On those numbers, average is a business that closes within 10 years. That is why the CFOS target is a requirement.
Want your own numbers against these? The Financial Health Snapshot builds a CEO Report from your last 12 months and sets every figure against your trade.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Priced by trailing 12 month revenue. No hourly billing. No payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is right here in the table.
Type a number and your band and its prices show here. The full table is below.
Built for subs doing $1M to $12M. Above $12.5M we quote.
| Last 12 months revenue | Core | Strategic | Platinum | One-time onboarding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $1,900 | $3,100 | $3,300 | $2,500 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 | $4,100 | $5,300 | $4,500 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 | $5,900 | $8,300 | $6,000 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 | $7,600 | $11,800 | $7,500 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 | $8,900 | $14,900 | $9,000 |
| Above $12.5M | Quoted | Quoted | Quoted | Quoted |
The onboarding fee covers migrating your books back to the start of your last taxable year and getting you fully operational in 60 days. It's billed once, with your first invoice. It's the same for all three tiers, and it moves with your revenue band. Your first month is prorated, and your monthly engagement starts on the first of the first full month.
Just want the setup? Onboarding only is the same onboarding work with no monthly service after it, one time, at the onboarding fee plus $2,000. Start a monthly engagement later and $2,000 counts toward it. It starts at $4,500, and the price for every band is on the pricing page.
The three tier columns are the whole price. Which one fits depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items. The onboarding fee is right here in the table.
- Online software only: QuickBooks, Sage, Viewpoint and similar. No VPN or hosted desktop.
- Not in any tier: payroll, pay applications, collections on receivables.
- Pricing valid through 2027.
What Core, Strategic and Platinum each include is on the pricing page.
Prevailing wage note: Civil and Excavating work often comes from public bids, which means certified payroll and wage classifications have to line up with the job cost record. ControlQore holds the classification against the cost code, so the certified report and the job cost report come from the same data, and your office stops keying the same numbers twice every week.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
See the full benchmarks for every revenue band on Run On CFOS.
In our civil and excavating firm study, 3 other firms have a civil and excavating case study with numbers. The top three for civil and excavating: SPM 81.2 (trade case study with numbers), RedHammer 71.5 (trade case study with numbers), Vessel Advisors 71.5 (trade case study with numbers). SPM places #1 here with a civil and excavating case study of its own. SPM publishes the study and is one of the firms scored; the method and every source are on the study page.
How civil and excavating CFO firms compare: the civil and excavating firm study, with every score and its source.
MORE PROBLEMS WE PUT A NUMBER ON.
Bonding capacity as the growth ceiling
Bonding capacity job costing
Sureties size programs off working capital and clean WIP schedules. A civil sub with held retainage, equipment costs not visible, and no WIP report reaches a bonding wall right when the bigger public work shows.
Changed conditions and the excess dirt dispute
Right of way delay constructive change
The ground never matches the geotech report. Quantities move, hauling distances grow, and the change order dispute starts after the cost is already spent.
D2 Excavating v. Thompson Thrift. A $630K excavation subcontract produced far more spoil than planned. The dispute over the excess dirt ended in a judgment for the subcontractor above half a million dollars, decided at the Fifth Circuit.
CIVIL AND EXCAVATING PROBLEMS, ONE PAGE EACH.
Civil and Excavating is one of 14 trades in the sitework and civil family on our CFO for subcontractors page. Nearby trades with their own page:
