We manage the finance side for solar 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.
Solar's economics got rewritten twice, so the first thing we do is map your pipeline against two clocks. Section 48E's 30 percent credit now follows one of two paths only. Safe-harbored work that began construction by July 4, 2026 has to hold continuity. Post-deadline work has to be in service by the December 31, 2027 cliff. A project with no clock has an unknown margin. We treat the audit file as the largest line item on the job. Begin-construction evidence, physical work records, binding contracts and Foreign Entity of Concern content documentation decide whether the credit exists at all. Then we cost the operating model choice. The residential 25D credit ended December 31, 2025, and commercial, storage and service each have their own cash curve.
BY JOSH LUEBKERPublished 2026-08-06Updated 2026-11-02
WHERE SOLAR LOSES MONEY
THE THREE THINGS THAT DRAIN THE CASH.
LEAK 01
The Countdown Book
Every commercial project is now on one of two clocks. Safe-harbored backlog has to hold continuity into 2030. Post-deadline work has to meet the December 31, 2027 in-service cliff. If your pipeline isn't mapped against those clocks, you don't know its margins.
LEAK 02
The Audit File
Begin-construction evidence, physical-work records, binding contracts and FEOC content documentation decide whether the 30 percent credit exists. That paperwork is the largest single line item on the project.
LEAK 03
The Model Reset
The end of the residential credit repriced a whole business model overnight. Commercial, storage or service is an operating-model choice with its own cash curve. The operators who chose on purpose beat the ones who didn't.
THE MATH
FROM 7% TO 10.5% NET.
At $1M to $5M, the average solar sub earns 22% gross margin and spends 15% of revenue on overhead. What's left is 7% net profit before taxes (Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference). The CFOS target is 10.5% before taxes. That is the solar 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 14%, and gross margin comes up 2.5 points to 24.5%, so 24.5 minus 14 leaves 10.5. 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.
HOW SPM FIXES IT
WHAT WE CHANGE.
These are the solar 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 OBBBA cliff
Safe harbor as a legal moving target
FEOC content rules
The dealer-fee hangover and the residential reset
The everything-else of solar construction
GAP CALCULATOR
THE SOLAR GAP CALCULATOR. AVERAGE AGAINST TARGET, IN DOLLARS.
Put in your annual revenue. You get gross margin, overhead and net profit for solar 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.
Solar contractors at $1M to $5M net about 7 percent on the SPM 48-trade benchmark dataset, rising to 13 percent by $25M to $50M; the CFOS net profit target is 10.5 percent before taxes at $1M to $5M, the trade average plus 3.5 points. In 2026-2027 you can't separate margin from policy. It depends on which clock each project is on and whether the credit documentation holds. 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, solar subs average 9% net profit before taxes (Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference), and the CFOS target is 12.5%. 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.
The OBBBA, signed July 4, 2025, ended the residential 25D credit on December 31, 2025. It put commercial 48E on a deadline. Projects that begin construction by July 4, 2026 keep the 30 percent credit with a four-year completion window. Later starts must be fully in service by December 31, 2027 to claim anything. Check the current federal and state posture before you quote. The safe-harbor rules themselves have been litigated mid-year.
Through the begin-construction tests. That means physical work of a significant nature (on-site, or off-site under binding contract) or, where it applies, the 5 percent cost safe harbor. You also need continuity documentation through completion. A court vacated the IRS notice that limited the 5 percent path in mid-2026, and an appeal is expected. So the physical-work record is the evidence that lasts. Keep it to audit standard. It's worth 30 percent of the project.
Foreign Entity of Concern restrictions tie credit eligibility to supply-chain content. For 2026 construction starts, at least 40 percent of relevant equipment cost must come from non-FEOC sources, and that rises after. Your procurement file is now a tax document. Cheap modules and credit eligibility can work against each other, and the difference belongs in the bid.
Treat the pivot as an operating-model decision, with a cash curve for each path. Commercial subcontracting means pay apps and retainage. Storage and service mean different sales cycles and recurring revenue. Model each path's working-capital needs before you choose. Moving between models without a plan uses cash faster than either one.
Sulphur Prairie Management, operating as SPM The Construction CFO, publishes the 48-trade benchmark dataset these numbers come from. SPM's deepest specialization is 24 core commercial trades, and SPM works with solar contractors who want the same financial system: onboarding, clean books, a maintained 13-week cash flow forecast, and monthly health reviews, with job costing simplified to what the business depends on. The full 48-trade benchmark reference exists so owners in every trade can measure against real numbers.
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 solar 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.
