FRACTIONAL CFO FOR CURTAIN WALL AND GLAZING CONTRACTORS.
We manage the finance side for curtain wall and glazing 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.
Glazing spends five figures before a single unit ships, so the schedule of values is the first fix. A performance mock-up costs $30,000 to $80,000. Structural calculations and product approvals come on top, and fabricator deposits leave the account before production starts. All of it is months ahead of an installation milestone. We bill engineering, mock-ups, deposits and stored material as their own lines. We treat the submittal calendar as a cash calendar, since custom curtain wall takes 16 to 24 weeks from approved shop drawings to first delivery. We also cost idle crew days and document late deliveries. Nobody can add crew to glass in a plant queue, and a subcontractor waits an average of 51 days for payment, per Billd's 2026 report.
SPM is a construction CFO for curtain wall and glazing 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 Fabrication Queue
Nothing bills until shop drawings are approved. Custom curtain wall takes 16 to 24 weeks from approval to first delivery. The submittal phase is the cash phase, and the glazier pays for every review cycle.
The Front-Loaded Five Figures
Performance mock-ups cost $30,000 to $80,000. Engineering and calculations come on top, and fabricator deposits go out before production starts. If your schedule of values starts billing at installation, you pay for all of preconstruction with no payment coming in.
The Unaccelerable Schedule
You can't add crew to glass that's in a plant queue. One missed delivery idles your whole installation crew while every other trade keeps billing. Tracking idle-crew cost and documenting the delay decides whether you have a claim or a loss.
FROM 9% TO 12.5% NET.
At $1M to $5M, the average curtain wall and glazing sub earns 27% gross margin and spends 18% of revenue on overhead. What's left is 9% net profit before taxes (Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference). The CFOS target is 12.5% before taxes. That is the curtain wall and glazing 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 17%, and gross margin comes up 2.5 points to 29.5%, so 29.5 minus 17 leaves 12.5. 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 curtain wall and glazing 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 submittal-to-fabrication critical path
- The mock-up and engineering money pit
- Deposits and stored materials on custom fabrication
- One late truck, whole crew idle
- Out-of-tolerance openings and the field-condition dispute
THE CURTAIN WALL AND GLAZING GAP CALCULATOR. AVERAGE AGAINST TARGET, IN DOLLARS.
Put in your annual revenue. You get gross margin, overhead and net profit for curtain wall and glazing 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.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
See the full benchmarks for every revenue band on Run On CFOS.
How curtain wall and glazing CFO firms compare: the curtain wall and glazing firm study, with every score and its source.
EACH CURTAIN WALL AND GLAZING PROBLEM HAS ITS OWN PAGE.
Curtain Wall and Glazing is one of 6 trades in the building envelope family on our CFO for subcontractors page. Nearby trades with their own page:
