FRACTIONAL CFO FOR INSULATION CONTRACTORS.
We manage the finance side for insulation 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.
Insulation sells three products with three cost structures, so the first step is three cost histories. Batt is piece-rate manual labor. Blown is machine production by the bag. Spray foam is a chemical process with rig cost, certified applicators and a yield problem. The most mispriced line wins the worst work. For spray we reconcile chemical sets bought against board feet installed on every job. Substrate temperature, overspray, trimming and cavity geometry cost yield on every set, and without that reconciliation the waste factor is a guess. We also put substrate prep and access premiums on the schedule of values as their own lines, since prep done inside a unit price disappears.
SPM is a construction CFO for insulation 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 Blended Product Book
Batt, blown and spray are three businesses with three cost structures, sold off one estimate history. The most mispriced line wins the worst work.
The Set-Yield Spread
You buy spray foam in chemical sets and sell it in board feet. Geometry, temperature and overspray cost you yield on every set. Reconcile yield on every job. Skip it and your waste factor is a guess.
The Cover-Up Clock
Insulation passes inspection or the drywall behind it stops. You mobilize after rough-in and take the compression. You work in the tightest slot on the schedule and get paid like you have float.
FROM 8% TO 11.5% NET.
At $1M to $5M, the average insulation sub earns 22% gross margin and spends 14% of revenue on overhead. What's left is 8% net profit before taxes (Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference). The CFOS target is 11.5% before taxes. That is the insulation 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 2.5 points to 24.5%, so 24.5 minus 13 leaves 11.5. 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 insulation 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.
- Three products, three cost worlds
- Spray foam yield
- The inspection gate
- Access premiums
- Substrate prep and the SOV line
THE INSULATION GAP CALCULATOR. AVERAGE AGAINST TARGET, IN DOLLARS.
Put in your annual revenue. You get gross margin, overhead and net profit for insulation 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: Insulation 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 insulation CFO firms compare: the insulation firm study, with every score and its source.
MORE PROBLEMS WE PUT A NUMBER ON.
Access premiums (the attic tax)
Access constraint premium billing
Retrofit attics, crawl spaces, and occupied buildings have different production math than open new-construction walls.
Spray foam yield (the waste factor geometry writes)
Spray foam waste factor by geometry
Spray foam is bought in chemical sets and sold in installed board feet, and the spread between theoretical and actual yield is where the margin lives: substrate temperature, ambient conditions, overspray, trimming, and geometry (studs, penetrations, odd cavities) all tax the set.
Substrate prep and the SOV line
Substrate prep separate SOV line
Prep (air sealing, baffles, blocking, protection) done inside the insulation unit price disappears, so name the work, bill the work.
Three products, three cost worlds (batt, blown, spray)
Pipe vs batt vs spray cost codes
Batt is piece-rate hand labor; blown is machine production by the bag; spray foam is a chemical process with rig costs, yield variance, and certified applicators. One blended cost history misprices all three.
Insulation is one of 6 trades in the building envelope family on our CFO for subcontractors page. Nearby trades with their own page:
