FRACTIONAL CFO FOR STRUCTURAL STEEL CONTRACTORS.
We manage the finance side for structural steel 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.
In structural steel nothing gets fabricated until paper clears the engineer of record, so you either bill the detailing phase or give it away. AISC's Code of Standard Practice puts shop and erection drawings on the fabricator. Most rejections trace to incomplete coordination and missing joint detail. Every review cycle moves the mill order, the delivery and the crane schedule. We code crane cost by lift and document standby the same day. The most expensive spread on the project idles for foundation problems, incomplete inspections and poor access, and erection crews are rarely the cause. Then we split fabrication and erection into two P&Ls and put a dated price basis with escalation into the contract. Steel moved roughly 18 percent in a year on layered tariffs, against fabrication benchmarked at $1,800 to $3,200 a ton.
SPM is a construction CFO for structural steel 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 Paper Gate
Nothing gets fabricated until shop drawings clear the EOR. Most rejections trace to coordination gaps the fabricator controls. Every review cycle moves the mill order, the delivery and the crane schedule. You either bill the detailing phase or you give it away.
The Idle Crane
The most expensive spread on the project idles when foundations, inspections or access aren't ready. Erection crews are rarely the cause. Code crane cost by lift and document standby the same day. Then the GC's unreadiness becomes a claim you can bill.
The Ton Tape
Steel rose 18 percent in a year on tariffs. Fabrication is benchmarked at $1,800 to $3,200 per ton, and you sell it into fixed-price contracts. Without escalation clauses and dated price bases, you're trading commodities with a crane.
FROM 8% TO 11.5% NET.
At $1M to $5M, the average structural steel sub earns 23% gross margin and spends 15% 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 structural steel 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 25.5%, so 25.5 minus 14 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 structural steel 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 shop-drawing gate
- Steel price and fabrication cost
- The crane clock
- Erection stability and the Subpart R burden
- The fab/erect split
THE STRUCTURAL STEEL GAP CALCULATOR. AVERAGE AGAINST TARGET, IN DOLLARS.
Put in your annual revenue. You get gross margin, overhead and net profit for structural steel 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: Structural Steel 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 structural steel CFO firms compare: the structural steel firm study, with every score and its source.
MORE PROBLEMS WE PUT A NUMBER ON.
The crane clock (the most expensive hour on site)
Crane rental cost code by lift
Crane and equipment cost applies on every erection day, sequence changes reshuffle picks, and site-readiness failures idle the most expensive spread on the project. Erection delay causes are usually upstream: "foundation issues, incomplete inspections, poor crane access, and site conditions that aren't ready when steel arrives. Erection crews are rarely the source of delays when prerequisites are properly handled.".
(Tower Steel Buildings delay analysis, 2026, quoted above)
The shop-drawing gate (nothing fabricates until paper approves)
Shop drawing approval delay cost
Same critical-path physics as glazing, in tons: shop and erection drawings must be produced (AISC COSP 4.2 puts that duty on the fabricator), reviewed by the EOR, and approved before fabrication releases. Most approval delays trace to incomplete coordination, missing connection information, and weak internal QC, and every review cycle pushes fabrication, delivery, and the crane schedule downstream.
"Most delays in high-rise steel detailing approvals stem from incomplete coordination, missing connection information, and weak internal quality control." (AEC Associates, 2026) AISC 2026 raised the bar further: "Fabricators can no longer afford to 'assume compliance.'"
EACH STRUCTURAL STEEL PROBLEM HAS ITS OWN PAGE.
Structural Steel is one of 8 trades in the concrete and structure family on our CFO for subcontractors page. Nearby trades with their own page:
IN THEIR OWN WORDS.
As the owner of a union steel company, I know how fast cash flow and job costing can get away from you. About a month ago I brought on Josh and his team at SPM the Construction CFO, and we saw improvements right away.
Josh and Stewart are both great to work with. They're not only good at what they do — they truly care about helping you succeed and they deliver results. I've known Josh personally for a while, and he's the same person in business as he is outside of it: honest, straightforward, and a genuinely good guy.
If you're a contractor looking to get your finances in order, I'd recommend SPM without hesitation.
