FRACTIONAL CFO FOR FRAMING CONTRACTORS.
We manage the finance side for framing 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.
Framing sells a commodity at a fixed price, so the first thing we build is your buyout process. The Random Lengths composite was at $487 per thousand board feet in April 2026, with a $440 to $540 expected range. Framers who spot-buy from one supplier at seasonal peaks lose $10,000 to $50,000 every year. We put a dated price basis and an escalation clause in the contract. We split wood and light-gauge steel into separate cost codes, since steel moved 18 percent in 2026 on its own tariffs. We price specialty features at $500 to $1,500 apiece. Then we document acceleration when the GC tightens the schedule. The first trade in has no float, and unpaid Saturdays come straight off an 18 percent margin.
SPM is a construction CFO for framing 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 Commodity Wrapper
Lumber is at $487 per MBF, with a $440 to $540 expected range and 20 to 30 percent price changes inside a year in the past. You sell it in fixed-price contracts. Without escalation clauses, dated price bases and careful buyout, you're an unhedged lumber trader with a nail gun.
The Pace-Setter's Penalty
The first trade in takes every delay from upstream and every schedule demand from downstream. If you speed up and don't document and bill the cost, you've given the GC free overtime.
The 18 Percent Ceiling
Framing has the thinnest gross margin of the served trades, with zero room for extra cost. Unpriced specialty framing at $500 to $1,500 per feature and blended wood and steel cost history turn a 5 percent net before taxes into a loss.
FROM 5% TO 10% NET.
At $1M to $5M, the average framing sub earns 18% gross margin and spends 13% 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 framing 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 12%, and gross margin comes up 4 points to 22%, so 22 minus 12 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.
WHAT WE CHANGE.
These are the framing 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 commodity in the contract
- First trade in, everyone's schedule on your back
- Piece rate vs hourly
- Wood vs metal stud
- MEP conflict rework
THE FRAMING GAP CALCULATOR. AVERAGE AGAINST TARGET, IN DOLLARS.
Put in your annual revenue. You get gross margin, overhead and net profit for framing 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.
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.
Prevailing wage note: Framing work often comes from public bids. On those jobs, certified payroll and wage classifications have to match the job cost record. ControlQore keeps the classification with the cost code, so the certified report and the job cost report come from the same data. Your office stops typing the same numbers twice every week.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
See the full benchmarks for every revenue band on Run On CFOS.
How framing CFO firms compare: the framing firm study, with every score and its source.
MORE PROBLEMS WE PUT A NUMBER ON.
MEP conflict rework (the framer's version)
MEP conflict rework change order
Plumbers and electricians notch, bore, and occasionally butcher framing; corrective work and engineered repairs land back on the framer's schedule and, untracked, on the framer's dime.
Piece rate vs hourly (the production wage question)
Roof framing vs wall framing rates
Framing labor costs $3 to $8 per square foot of wall area by region (union metros push $8 to $12), and crews price by piece or by hour with very different risk profiles. Piece rates transfer production risk to the crew but invite quality shortcuts; hourly transfers it to the company. Either way, if you don't measure production per square foot, you can't manage the margin.
labor $3-5/SF Southeast and Midwest, $5-8/SF West Coast and Northeast, $8-12/SF union metros; specialty framing (tray ceilings, arches, bulkheads) adds $500 to $1,500 per feature. (CostFlowAI framing guides, 2026)
The commodity in the contract (lumber volatility)
Lumber escalation change order
Framing sells a commodity with a fixed-price wrapper. The Random Lengths composite was at $487 per thousand board feet in April 2026, expected to trade $440 to $540 through the year, with Canadian softwood facing tariff burdens above 35 percent. Historically, 20 to 30 percent changes inside a single year are normal. Lumber is 15 to 20 percent of a wood-frame house's cost and 8 to 12 percent of wood-frame commercial, so a mid-job move without an escalation clause comes straight out of the frame crew's margin.
Wood vs metal stud (two trades in one bid book)
Wood vs metal stud cost codes
Wood framing and light-gauge steel are different material markets (steel up 18 percent in 2026 on layered tariffs), different labor skills, and different cost codes. Bidding both from one blended history misprices both.
Framing is one of 8 trades in the concrete and structure family on our CFO for subcontractors page. Nearby trades with their own page:
