FRACTIONAL CFO FOR TILE & STONE CONTRACTORS.
We manage the finance side for tile & stone 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.
Tile is a rigid finish set on somebody else's substrate, so the first thing we do is get the handoff documented. Large-format tile tightened the industry flatness requirement to roughly 1/8 inch in 10 feet. So we ask for the flatness report and the moisture readings at handoff, price prep as its own scope and put substrate acceptance in writing before anybody sets. In wet areas we bill a witnessed, photographed flood test before setting. Showers fail at the membrane, and the tear-out bill goes to whoever can't produce the test record. Then we negotiate stored-materials terms and priced attrition allowances. Fabricated slabs and book-matched stone tie up five figures between deposit and install, with breakage and dye-lot risk.
SPM is a construction CFO for tile & stone 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 Inherited Slab
Tile is rigid. A slab that's out of flat, wet or cracked becomes your callback, unless substrate acceptance, prep pricing and test records are in writing before you set. Ask for the FF/FL report and the moisture readings at handoff.
The Slab on the Boat
Deposits go out months early. Material can break or come in the wrong dye lot. No warehouse restocks a cracked book-match. That float is a loan from your own cash. Stored-materials terms and priced attrition allowances pay it back.
The Flood Test Nobody Billed
Wet areas fail at the membrane, and the bill goes to whoever has no test record. A witnessed, photographed, billed flood test before setting costs little. The tear-out it prevents is the most expensive one in the interiors family.
FROM 8% TO 11.5% NET.
At $1M to $5M, the average tile & stone 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 tile & stone 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 tile & stone 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 substrate inheritance
- The material deposit float
- Waste is a pattern decision
- Wet-area liability
- Last-trade retainage, hard-finish edition
THE TILE & STONE GAP CALCULATOR. AVERAGE AGAINST TARGET, IN DOLLARS.
Put in your annual revenue. You get gross margin, overhead and net profit for tile & stone 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 tile & stone CFO firms compare: the tile & stone firm study, with every score and its source.
Tile & Stone is one of 6 trades in the interiors and finishes family on our CFO for subcontractors page. Nearby trades with their own page:
