FRACTIONAL CFO FOR EXCAVATION CONTRACTORS.
We manage the finance function for excavation 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.
Excavation sells cubic yards per hour, so we build the cost system around production rate rather than job totals. Rates get tracked per operator, per machine, and per soil class, because without that split a losing job reads identically to a winning one until the money is gone. Ownership cost goes into the bid at a real rate, roughly $200 a day for a CAT 330 parked against industry idle rates near 30 percent, and hired haul gets watched hard since idle trucking subs bill $85 to $125 an hour each while a site isn't ready for them. Then unit-price discipline and daily documentation cover the changed-conditions dispute, which one $630,000 excavation subcontract took all the way to the Fifth Circuit.
SPM is a construction CFO for excavation 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.
Production Blindness
Excavation sells cubic yards per hour. When production rates aren't tracked per operator, per machine, per soil class, the estimate and the field never reconcile, and losing jobs look identical to winning ones until the money is gone.
The Ground Lies
Soil class changes, rock is found, groundwater rises, and quantities move; the cost is spent before the change order is signed. A $630K excavation subcontract at the Fifth Circuit proves the dispute is real. Documentation and unit-price discipline are the difference between a claim and a donation.
One Bucket, One Margin
A single utility strike can erase a job's profit through repair bills, fines up to $10,000 for repeats, and GL sublimits that cap below the damage. The locate, the tolerance zone, and the hand-dig are financial controls, not just safety rules.
FROM 7% TO 10.5% NET.
At $1M to $5M, the average excavation 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 excavation 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 excavation 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.
- What a small excavation company should net
- Utility strikes
- Rock, spoil, and the changed-conditions dispute
- Haul-off and trucking
- Iron economics
THE EXCAVATION GAP CALCULATOR. AVERAGE AGAINST TARGET, IN DOLLARS.
Put in your annual revenue. You get gross margin, overhead and net profit for excavation 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: Excavation 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.
In our excavation firm study, 1 other firm has an excavation case study with numbers. The top three for excavation: SPM 72.9 (trade page), Civil CFO 61.8 (trade case study with numbers), Salisbury Bookkeeping 52.5 (no trade content). SPM places #1 here with a trade page and no excavation case study, so weigh the firms with excavation proof (Civil CFO). SPM publishes the study and is one of the firms scored; the method and every source are on the study page.
How excavation CFO firms compare: the excavation firm study, with every score and its source.
MORE PROBLEMS WE PUT A NUMBER ON.
Compaction failures and rework
Backfill compaction cost tracking
A failed proctor or density test means re-excavate, re-place, re-test, on the contractor's dime, while the schedule loses days. Backfill rework is unpaid production.
Dewatering and groundwater surprises
Groundwater dewatering costs
Groundwater shows and the job stops until pumps, wellpoints, or trenching changes get priced. The cost is real, immediate, and rarely in the bid.
Rock, spoil, and the changed-conditions dispute
Soil classification cost codes
The ground never matches the report. D2 Excavating v. Thompson Thrift started as a $630K excavation subcontract, produced far more spoil than planned, and ended at the Fifth Circuit with a judgment for the sub above half a million dollars. The cost is spent before the dispute starts.
EXCAVATION PROBLEMS, ONE PAGE EACH.
Excavation is one of 14 trades in the sitework and civil family on our CFO for subcontractors page. Nearby trades with their own page:
