Every client story below is anonymized — no real names, no identifying details. What’s real is the situation, the work, and the outcome. These are the kinds of problems SPM solves.
Owner came to SPM because he was thinking about selling in 3–5 years and his accountant told him the business wasn’t worth much without documented job costing history. Books were clean but there was no WIP, no job costing, and equipment depreciation was running entirely to overhead — inflating the apparent overhead rate by 9 points.
18 months later: job costing in place, WIP history built, adjusted EBITDA documented, equipment properly allocated to jobs. Estimated exit value increased from under $500K to over $1.2M based on the same revenue and margin. The financial systems were worth more than the revenue growth.
Owner had $180K in outstanding AR across three GCs — two with disputed invoices, one with no formal follow-up process. He had also taken a $120K MCA loan during a cash crisis six months prior and was paying $4,200/week in repayments. Cash was perpetually short despite strong revenue.
SPM implemented an AR collection system, worked through the disputed invoices with documentation support, and built a 13-week cash flow forecast that mapped the MCA payoff timeline. $163K recovered in 90 days. MCA cleared in 7 months. No new MCA needed.
Owner had come close to missing payroll twice in the prior 12 months — not because the business wasn’t profitable, but because pay-when-paid cycles meant cash was always 60 days behind revenue. No cash flow forecast existed. The owner was managing it by feel, which worked until it didn’t.
SPM built a 13-week cash flow forecast tied to actual pay app timing, structured billing to front-load early pay periods where contracts allowed, and built a payroll reserve account. Zero near-misses in the 14 months following onboarding.
Owner was running all QP inspection labor to overhead because the accounting system had no mechanism to track inspection hours by site. A review of active contracts showed that 11 of 23 active sites had SWPPP inspection specified as a billable scope item — but none of it had been billed as such.
SPM set up inspection hour tracking by site, identified billable inspection on applicable contracts, and restructured the overhead model to separate true overhead from recoverable job cost. $96K in previously unbilled inspection revenue identified and billed in the first quarter.
Overhead rate was running at 21%. SPM review showed that directional drill depreciation, vacuum excavator maintenance, and bore equipment costs were all running to overhead instead of being allocated to the jobs the machines worked. Job margins looked healthy. The overhead rate told a different story.
SPM built internal equipment rate models for the bore rig, vacuum excavators, and support equipment. Equipment costs allocated to jobs. Overhead rate recalculated. Apparent overhead rate dropped from 21% to 14%. Job margins became accurate. Bid markup was recalibrated.
Owner had been losing money on masonry jobs for three years without understanding why. Gross margin looked fine at the company level. SPM implemented phase-level job costing and ran the first monthly WIP review. Result: two of four active jobs were fading badly — labor running 28% over estimate on wall systems, scaffold costs allocated to overhead rather than to the jobs the scaffold worked.
SPM set an internal scaffold rate, implemented phase-level labor tracking, and rebuilt the overhead model. First quarter after implementation: gross margin improved 4.2 points on the same revenue base.
Owner was drawing $420K/year from a $6.1M grading operation — all of it running through the P&L as officer compensation. Adjusted for market rate ($190K), the company was showing $230K in excess owner draw that was artificially suppressing reported EBITDA. Bonding company was limiting capacity because financials looked thin.
SPM separated market-rate salary from owner distributions, rebuilt the adjusted EBITDA calculation, and presented the corrected picture to the bonding company. Bonding capacity increased from $4M to $8M single job. First $5.5M DOT project bonded within 60 days.
Revenue grew from $2.4M to $4.1M in 14 months. Owner took on three new job starts in the same 45-day window — each requiring significant mobilization costs before billing began. Line of credit was undersized for the new revenue level. Owner called SPM after the third week of a cash crisis that showed no clear resolution path.
SPM built a mobilization cash flow model, restructured the line of credit with documentation of actual AR cycle, and implemented pay app timing optimization to accelerate billing on all three active jobs. Cash crisis resolved in 6 weeks. Line of credit increased from $300K to $750K.
Owner had promised his key project managers profit sharing when the company hit certain net margin targets — but had never built the financial systems to track profitability accurately enough to calculate it fairly. Job costing was inconsistent across the portfolio. Overhead allocation was distorted by equipment in overhead. PM team had no visibility into job-level performance.
SPM rebuilt the job costing structure, standardized cost codes across all jobs, corrected the overhead allocation model, and built a monthly PM performance report. First profit sharing distribution executed at the 12-month mark. Key PM team retained.
All client stories are fully anonymized. No real company names, individual names, or identifying details are used in any SPM content — ever. Revenue figures, timelines, and outcomes are representative of actual client engagements.
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