YOUR BUSINESS HAS NO BACKLOG. MOST CFO ADVICE ASSUMES IT DOES.
A service business depends on a contract book, a fleet, and a technician's billable hours. It has none of the instruments construction finance is built around. So the questions change: what a truck costs per day, which agreements make money, how much travel time is using up capacity, and whether the service side is funding the project side without anybody seeing it. Those are answerable, and most service owners have never seen the answers.
The confusion makes sense. A service company and a project contractor look the same from the outside. Same trucks, same trades, same licences, often the same owner. Inside the books they work nothing alike. A project contractor's risk is in a handful of large commitments. A service company's risk is in three hundred small ones, each renewing on its own schedule. Advice written for the first one points the second at instruments it doesn't have.
WHAT IT MEANS.
The CFOS Service Business Operating System is SPM's system rebuilt for companies that bill recurring agreements and work orders. These companies have no backlog to reduce, schedule of values to bill against, retainage to collect, or work in progress schedule to reconcile.
WHY THE USUAL ADVICE DOES NOT FIT.
There Is No Backlog to Read
A project contractor forecasts from signed work not yet performed, and every lender, surety, and buyer reads that number first. A service business has nothing like it. Its forward view is a contract book that renews or cancels, more like a subscription. An owner who manages a service company by watching backlog is watching for a number that will never exist, and missing the one that decides the year.
The Costing Grain Is Wrong by Two Orders of Magnitude
Job costing tracks a few large jobs across months. A service business closes thousands of work orders across days. Full job costing at that level of detail is more admin than anybody keeps up. Dropping it gives you a blended P&L where you can't see a losing agreement inside a profitable month. So the unit of costing changes, and the rules stay the same.
Capacity Is Measured In Trucks
The binding constraint in a service business is how many trucks are rolling and how much of each technician's paid day is billable. Drive time is the largest uncosted expense in most of these companies, and it appears on no report because nobody codes it. A project contractor can win margin back with a change order. A service company gets it back by tightening a route, and only if somebody is measuring the route.
WHAT WE BUILT INSTEAD.
Each guide below covers one part of the system that had to be rebuilt for service work. If it's all new, start with the first. If not, go to the one that describes your week.
- Recurring Revenue vs BacklogA service business has no backlog to burn down.
- Work Order Costing vs Job CostingProject costing tracks a few big jobs across months.
- Per-Agreement ProfitabilityA blended P&L nets winning service agreements against losing ones and reports the average.
- Cost Per Truck Per DayThe fully burdened daily cost of one truck sets the price floor under every work order.
- Route Density and Drive TimeDrive time is the largest uncosted expense in most service work.
- Is Service Subsidizing ProjectsMost mixed contractors can't say whether service funds the projects or the projects use up service's profit.
THE NUMBER WE WILL NOT GIVE YOU.
We publish gross margin, net profit, and overhead benchmarks for 48 construction trades across seven revenue bands, and we don't publish a single one for service businesses. That's deliberate. Labour rates, drive time, competitive density, and what a market will pay for a recurring agreement vary more between two metros than they do between two trades. A national service margin is wrong somewhere before it's printed.
So there's no service benchmark table on this site, and be careful with anyone who offers you one. We build your own baseline from your own contract book, your own cost per truck per day, and your own billable hour ratio. It's less comfortable than an average. It's also the only number that was ever true where you operate.
Not everything changes. Cash still moves before profit does, so the 13 week forecast is the same instrument here as anywhere. Books still close by the tenth. Working capital still belongs at 10 to 15 percent of annual revenue. A service business with a healthy contract book and no reserve is as exposed as a contractor with a full backlog and no cash. The balance sheet work stays the same. The operating reports are what had to be rebuilt.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. We don't bill by the hour, and we don't do payroll.
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.
CFO work. Your own bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
We build your plan every month. Your team does the work.
You get the CFO work: job costing built to match the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, WIP every month, and a monthly meeting that ends with decisions.
Your bookkeeper still does the books.
Core, plus bookkeeping and bank reconciliations, plus job costing and WIP software set up and managed for you. Use your own online accounting software or we supply it, one price.
We build the plan, track it and adjust it every month.
We only work with trade subcontractors. We know what to look for, and we fix problems while they're still small. Everything in Core, plus the bookkeeping and bank reconciliations done for you, and the job costing and WIP software set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed every month. Use your own online software, or move to ours and we pay for it.
Our team does the bookkeeping and the reconciliations. We don't do payroll.
Strategic, plus a controller who handles payables and receivables the way an in-house controller would. You approve every payment.
We manage the money side for you, every week.
Everything in Strategic, plus our team does the controller work. We handle your bills and receivables the way an in-house controller would: we call vendors, pay the bills and keep the accounting current. We plan the cash flow first, and you approve every payment because it is your money.
Our team does the payables and receivables. We don't do payroll, pay applications or collections.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
