A fractional CFO engagement with SPM The Construction CFO runs $1,900 to $13,500 per month, priced on your last twelve months of revenue across 7 published bands. Above $18.5M it's quoted individually. The range inside each band is the three tiers: Core, Executive, and Strategic. One flat monthly fee covers bookkeeping, controllership, and the CFO work together, so nothing falls through the cracks. No payroll, and the job costing platform is never a separate line item.
This is on the page because a construction owner comparing three firms shouldn't have to sit through three discovery calls to find out who is in his range. If the number below is wrong for your business, you've saved a week. If it's right, the call is about the work and not about the price.
Last 12 months revenue
Monthly fee
Up to $1M
$1,900 to $2,900
$1M to $3.5M
$2,600 to $3,900
$3.5M to $6.5M
$3,800 to $5,700
$6.5M to $9.5M
$5,100 to $7,100
$9.5M to $12.5M
$6,100 to $8,500
$12.5M to $15.5M
$7,400 to $11,000
$15.5M to $18.5M
$9,400 to $13,500
$18.5M+
Quoted individually
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items.
Boundaries sit on half-millions on purpose. The grid prices by whole million with revenue rounded to the nearest one, so $500,000 and above rounds up, which makes the half-million marks the true band edges. Bands labelled in whole millions would leave a contractor at $3.4M with no row to read.
THE THREE TIERS
THE RANGE IS NOT NEGOTIATION. IT IS SCOPE.
Every band above shows a low end and a high end, and the difference between them is which of these three you're buying. All three include the CFO work, because that's the point of the engagement. What changes is how much of the finance function is still sitting in your office.
1. CORE: You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions rather than a report.
Your bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
2. EXECUTIVE: You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Nobody in your office is answering coding questions or chasing a reconciliation at month end.
We do the books. No payroll.
3. STRATEGIC: Every job shows its margin while it's still running.
Everything in Executive, plus the job costing and WIP platform set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed for you every month. You never have to learn it.
We do the job costing.
WHAT THE FEE COVERS
ONE ENGAGEMENT, NO SCOPE GAPS.
Job costing built against your own estimating assemblies, so actuals compare to the number you bid rather than to a generic template.
A 13 week cash flow forecast with every inflow and outflow dated, which is the only report that describes a week you can still change.
Monthly WIP reporting with percentage of completion, your overbilled and underbilled position by job, and projected final margin from the actual cost trajectory.
Bank and credit card reconciliations, AR aging with collections worked every week, and AP scheduled against the forecast instead of against whoever calls.
An overhead rate that includes equipment, shop, and supervision, recalculated every month on your trailing twelve months, so the rate you bid is the rate you're running. The usual alternative is a rate that comes off the tax return about four months after the year closes, which prices a third of the next year on a year that's already over.
A monthly meeting that ends in a short list of specific decisions, and a next meeting that opens with whether they happened.
Benchmarking against SPM's reference data for 48 construction trades by revenue band, so your margin is measured against your own trade and not against construction in general.
WHAT IT DOES NOT COVER
THE FOUR THINGS WE DON'T DO.
Stated as plainly as the price, because a firm that's vague about its edges is a firm you will discover the edges of later.
Payroll. SPM doesn't run payroll and doesn't want to. Keep your provider.
Tax preparation, tax filing, audits, and review engagements. Keep your CPA, who will do all of it faster against books that are already right.
Legal work of any kind, including contract review. We will tell you when a subcontract term is going to cost you money, and then you call your attorney.
Residential contracting. This practice is built for commercial subcontractors and self-performing general contractors, and the system doesn't transfer cleanly.
ONBOARDING
60 DAYS TO FULLY OPERATIONAL.
Books are migrated back to the start of your last taxable year, so the year you're in is complete and comparable rather than beginning on the day you signed. If your tax year ends within three months, the migration runs through the last day of that year and the new structure starts clean from the next one, which avoids paying to rebuild a year that's about to close anyway.
Cost codes, the chart of accounts migration, and the WIP schedule template are built in month one. Job variance is readable in week two of live job costing. From there your own time in the system runs about five hours a month, which is one meeting and approvals, because the objective was never to teach you accounting.
HOW TO READ THIS AGAINST A CHEAPER QUOTE
A BOOKKEEPER IS NOT THE SAME PURCHASE.
A construction bookkeeper runs $800 to $2,500 a month in most markets and is a real service that real businesses need. It's a different purchase. A bookkeeper records what happened. What's on this page is the structure that makes what happened readable while a job is still running, plus somebody accountable for what you do about it.
The comparison worth making is against the cost of not having it. One job that closes eight points under bid on a $600,000 contract is $48,000. One month of missed retainage follow up on a job that closed out is often more than a year of this fee. That's the arithmetic, and the bookkeeper versus controller versus CFO page walks it properly rather than asserting it.
COMMON QUESTIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
On your last twelve months of revenue, and on how much of the work you want off your desk. Revenue puts you in one of the 7 published bands. Which end of that band's range you sit at is the tier: whether SPM is doing the CFO work only, the CFO work plus the bookkeeping, or all of that plus running the job costing platform. Above $18.5M the engagement is quoted individually because the work stops being comparable.
Because three different engagements sit inside each band and they aren't worth the same. Core, Executive, and Strategic. Core is the CFO work with your bookkeeper still doing the books. Executive takes the books as well. Strategic adds the job costing and WIP platform, set up with your cost codes and operated for you. The range in each row is the low end to the high end of those three.
No. ControlQore is the job costing and WIP platform SPM sets up and runs, and it's included in the Strategic tier. It never appears as a separate line on an invoice, and you never have to learn it, because SPM operates it. SPM is an official ControlQore implementation partner.
Onboarding runs 60 days to fully operational. Books are migrated back to the start of your last taxable year, so the year you're in is complete and comparable rather than starting from the day you signed. If your tax year ends within three months, the migration runs through the last day of that year and the new structure starts clean from the next one. Cost codes, the chart of accounts, and the WIP template are built in month one, and job variance is readable in week two of live job costing.
About five hours a month once you're running. One meeting, and approvals. The point of the engagement is to give you decisions with the analysis already done. Owners who want to be in the software every day can be, but nothing depends on it.
Bring this question to the call and Josh will answer it directly rather than through a page. It's a real question with a real answer and it deserves a person, not a footnote.
Former commercial project manager and master electrician: 150+ projects worth $2.1B combined, from $50,000 to $300M. Now fractional CFO to commercial subcontractors.
Twenty minutes with Josh. He will tell you which band you're in, which tier fits what you actually want off your desk, and whether this is worth doing at all.
You don't hire a CFO because it's safe, you do it because the real risk isn't having one.
