FRACTIONAL CFO FOR PAVING CONTRACTORS.
We manage the finance side for paving 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.
Paving buys by the ton and sells by the square yard at a depth. So the first report we build reconciles plant tickets against placed quantity on every job. Waste, over-depth and handwork are all in that spread. A quarter inch of over-depth across a big lot is material given away, and nobody catches it without the reconciliation. We write index-tied escalation language into private bids. DOT contracts adjust pay to the liquid asphalt index automatically, and most private contracts leave you fully exposed on the same commodity. Then we build a winter reserve. Plant windows and temperature floors put the year's revenue into a short season, and the fleet and the overhead cost you for twelve months.
SPM is a construction CFO for paving 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 Unhedged Tuesday
DOT work adjusts your pay to the liquid asphalt index automatically. Private work leaves you fully exposed on the same commodity. Index-tied escalation language in your private bids is the most valuable contract habit in the trade.
The Ticket-to-Yield Gap
You buy by the ton and sell by the square yard. Waste, over-depth and handwork are in the spread between plant tickets and placed quantity. Nobody sees the material given away until each job is reconciled.
The Ninety-Day Season
Plant schedules, temperature floors and a short calendar put the year's revenue into one window. The fleet and the overhead cost you for twelve months. You need a winter reserve to stay in business.
FROM 6% TO 10% NET.
At $1M to $5M, the average paving sub earns 20% gross margin and spends 14% of revenue on overhead. What's left is 6% net profit before taxes (Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference). The CFOS target is 10% before taxes. That is the paving 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 3 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.
WHAT WE CHANGE.
These are the paving 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 escalation clause DOT gives you and private work doesn't
- Plant availability and the paving window
- Tonnage is the measurement
- Subgrade acceptance
- The maintenance annuity
THE PAVING GAP CALCULATOR. AVERAGE AGAINST TARGET, IN DOLLARS.
Put in your annual revenue. You get gross margin, overhead and net profit for paving 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: Paving 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 paving CFO firms compare: the paving firm study, with every score and its source.
MORE PROBLEMS WE PUT A NUMBER ON.
Iron per ton (paver-roller fleet math)
Equipment fleet paver roller roi
Pavers, rollers, milling machines, and distributor trucks are high-dollar, short-season iron; utilization against a compressed calendar decides whether the fleet makes money for the company or costs it money. Existing.
Plant availability and the paving window
Seasonal asphalt plant availability
Hot mix comes from someone else's plant on someone else's schedule, seasonal plant shutdowns compress the calendar, and haul-time physics (mix arriving too cold to lay) put a radius around every job.
Subgrade acceptance (pave over it, own it)
Subgrade failure changed condition
Paving inherits the subgrade: pave over soft spots without documented acceptance and the failure becomes the paver's warranty claim. The discipline is proof-rolling documentation and written acceptance before the paver moves.
The maintenance annuity (crack seal, striping, sealcoat)
Crack seal striping separate revenue
Maintenance lines (crack seal, striping, sealcoating) are the trade's recurring-revenue counterweight to seasonal paving, with different crews, margins, and sales cycles; blended books do not show the annuity.
Tonnage is the measurement (yield tracking)
Tonnage cost tracking
Paving buys by the ton and sells by the square yard at a depth; the spread between plant tickets and placed quantity (waste, over-depth, handwork) is the job's real margin story. Over-depth of a quarter inch across a big lot is an invisible material donation.
Paving is one of 14 trades in the sitework and civil family on our CFO for subcontractors page. Nearby trades with their own page:
