We manage the finance side for flooring subcontractors doing $1M to $12M. You get 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.
Flooring is the clearest overhead recovery problem in this dataset, so that's where we start. The showroom, the warehouse, the delivery fleet and the estimating desk are real costs no single job pays for. A bid built on install labor and material alone recovers none of them. We put moisture testing on the schedule of values as its own billed line, with a written sign-off protocol. A floor laid on a wet slab is a six-figure failure that becomes your problem. One such case settled at $1.3 million, and the general liability carrier declined coverage. Then we negotiate deposits and stored-materials billing up front. Without that, you carry a five-figure material position through freight, storage and acclimation on every specialty job.
BY JOSH LUEBKERPublished 2026-08-06Updated 2026-11-02
WHERE FLOORING LOSES MONEY
THE THREE THINGS THAT DRAIN THE CASH.
LEAK 01
The Moisture Gate
The slab decides the install date. The GC's schedule doesn't. A floor laid on a wet slab is a six-figure failure with the installer's name on it. Your protection is ASTM-documented testing, a written sign-off protocol, and testing billed as a line item. One Best Buy floor ended in a $1.3 million settlement.
LEAK 02
The Overhead Engine
Flooring earns a 19 percent gross margin and keeps 5 percent. The 14 percent overhead (showroom, warehouse, fleet, estimating) takes the difference. It's the clearest overhead-recovery problem in the 48-trade dataset. The loss comes from the building, and the field is fine.
LEAK 03
The Material Float
Deposits go out at order. Freight and acclimation come in the middle. Billing comes at install. So you carry a five-figure material position on every specialty job, unless you negotiate stored-materials and deposit terms up front.
THE MATH
FROM 5% TO 10% NET.
At $1M to $5M, the average flooring sub earns 19% gross margin and spends 14% of revenue on overhead. What's left is 5% net profit before taxes (Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference). The CFOS target is 10% before taxes. That is the flooring average plus 3.5 points, and never below 10%. The book CONTROL's 12% is the rule of thumb across trades. It is not the industry average.
Two changes get you to the target. Overhead comes down 1 point to 13%, and gross margin comes up 4 points to 23%, so 23 minus 13 leaves 10. The gross margin points come from the three problems above, once you price them and bill for them. On a $3M year, every point is $30,000.
HOW SPM FIXES IT
WHAT WE CHANGE.
These are the flooring 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 wet slab
Material deposits, acclimation, and the storage float
End-of-schedule compression
Retainage at the finish line
The overhead-heavy paradox
GAP CALCULATOR
THE FLOORING GAP CALCULATOR. AVERAGE AGAINST TARGET, IN DOLLARS.
Put in your annual revenue. You get gross margin, overhead and net profit for flooring contractors your size: the industry average and the CFOS target, in dollars a year. Nothing you type leaves this page.
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.
PRICING
YOU PAY ONE FLAT MONTHLY FEE.
The fee is set by your trailing 12 month revenue. We don't bill by the hour and we don't do payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is in the table too.
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.
COMMON QUESTIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
Flooring contractors at $1M to $5M net 5 percent on average, rising to 12 percent by $25M to $50M; the CFOS net profit target is 10 percent before taxes at $1M to $5M, since the target is the trade average plus 3.5 points and never below 10. Flooring has a 19 percent gross margin, and 14 percent overhead takes most of it. So look at overhead recovery first, before field performance. Every net profit figure here is gross margin minus overhead, stated before taxes, the same basis CFMA reports net income on.
Usually it needs the CFO work, and a full time CFO is more than it needs. At $5M to $10M, flooring subs average 8% net profit before taxes (Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference), and the CFOS target is 11.5%. On $5M of revenue every point is $50,000, so that difference is worth $175,000 a year. A full time CFO costs $150,000 or more in salary alone. SPM's published price for $3.5M to $6.5M is $3,800 a month for Core to $8,300 for Platinum.
It comes down to testing and paperwork. If you tested per ASTM, reported the readings and got a written directive or sign-off before installing, the liability moves up the chain. If you installed on a known-wet slab without that paper, you own the failure. One such failure settled for $1.3 million, and the CGL carrier didn't pay. Test, document, and never install past a failed reading without a signed directive.
Because curing and drying are different processes. Concrete reaches design strength at 28 days and can still hold moisture far above flooring tolerance, especially slabs without vapor retarders. The moisture readings set the install date. The pour date and the GC's schedule don't.
As its own line item, with documented ASTM-standard readings attached to the pay application. Testing inside the unit price gets dropped. Testing on its own line gets done and paid, and it builds the paper trail that decides liability if a floor ever fails.
Because the trade comes with buildings and trucks. The showroom, warehouse, delivery trucks and estimating load make flooring overhead 14 percent at $1M to $5M. That's near the top of the 8 to 15 percent total indirect cost range Jones Maresca and Company's 2025 Performance Benchmarks publish for construction as a whole. It's well above the 11.8 percent SG&A CFMA reports across all respondents. Those are whole-industry averages, and /construction-overhead-rates-by-trade has the flooring rate by revenue band. Put overhead recovery rates in every bid and review them every quarter. That's how the gross margin reaches the bottom line.
You order specialty material on deposits. It ships on the mill's timeline and acclimates on site before install. So you finance a five-figure material position through the middle of every job. Negotiate deposit reimbursement and stored-materials billing into the contract. On the default terms, you're the bank.
A bookkeeper records history. Moisture-testing protocols, overhead recovery rates, stored-materials terms and retainage tracking make up a control system, and that's CFO work. SPM does that CFO work for flooring contractors.
Three tiers, and which one you are in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. On Core we build your plan every month and your team does the work: job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a monthly meeting that ends in decisions, while your bookkeeper keeps doing the books. On Strategic we build the plan, track it and adjust it every month: our team does the bookkeeping and the bank reconciliations, and the job costing and WIP software is set up and managed for you, on your own online software or ours. On Platinum we manage the money side for you every week: our team handles your bills and receivables the way an in-house controller would, and you approve every payment. We don't do payroll.
Sixty days. We migrate your books back to the start of your last taxable year and build your job costing structure from scratch, and on Strategic and Platinum we set up the job costing and WIP software too. You're fully up and working in two months. The onboarding fee is one time, the same for every tier, and set by your revenue band.
ControlQore is the job costing and WIP platform we use on the Strategic and Platinum tiers. It's built for contractors, costs less than the older tools, and has AI built in. We set it up and manage it, so you do not have to learn it. Core is the CFO work only, so it does not include the software.
A bookkeeper records what happened. We tell you what it means and what to do about it. We align job costing to your estimates, track WIP monthly, and hold a monthly meeting where you decide what to fix and who fixes it.
Josh Luebker is a master electrician turned construction CFO, president of SPM The Construction CFO and author of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.
If price comes first, plenty of CFOs and bookkeepers can get your construction company results. It often takes the better part of a year.
If you're a trade contractor, a sub or a GC who wins work, keeps the crews busy and still can't figure out where the money goes, we get in the weeds with you. We change the processes that cost you money on every job, build the ones you're missing and give you the formula, so you see results in 60 to 90 days.
Twenty minutes of questions about how you price flooring work, what your jobs come in at once they close, and what keeps coming back to your desk. Nothing gets sold on that call and nothing gets proposed. If Josh can help, you'll set a longer second call.
You don't hire a CFO because it's safe, you do it because the real risk isn't having one.
