WHAT HAS TO EXIST BEFORE YOU GROW.
Most contractors install a financial system after something breaks. That's the most expensive time to do it. Doing it early costs less and takes the same work, because the steps go in the same order either way. Job costing goes in first, because every other report reads from it. The monthly close on a fixed date goes second, because a report built from books nobody closed is a guess. The forward tools go third. A cost to complete, a cash forecast and a WIP schedule all need closed months behind them before they mean anything. You can't do all of that in the month you win the job.
You can't produce history after the fact. A prequalification package, a credit increase and a bonding conversation are all built from closed months and a WIP schedule that ties to them. You can't close a month you already spent. Start the install while the business is calm and the reports are ready when the bigger work is available. Start it the week of the award and you spend the whole job proving your numbers when you should be managing it.
Rather talk it through first? Book a 20 minute call. Nothing gets sold on this call.
Want it set up for you? Onboarding only, from $4,500 one time. Books migrated and job costing built, then your own team keeps it up.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Scaling readiness means job costing, a monthly close on a fixed date, a cost to complete anybody can produce on request, and a working capital floor are all in place and working before you sign the revenue that needs them.
We wrote this page for an owner with nothing wrong. Your books are current. Your jobs mostly finish near where you bid them, and the bank says yes to what you ask for. But the next step is a second crew, a job twice the size of anything you've managed, or a customer with a real prequalification desk. That step will ask for something your business doesn't produce today.
The order counts more than how hard you work at it. Each item depends on the one before it. Install them out of order and you throw work away. That's the most common reason a contractor pays for a system twice.
WHAT BREAKS FIRST WHEN NOTHING IS BROKEN.
A financial system can't be installed in the month you need it
Your job cost codes get built to match how you estimate, so somebody has to read the estimates. A close date only holds once the habits before it are in place. A cash forecast is worthless until you've used it for enough weeks to compare it against what happened. All of that takes calendar time, and you can't speed it up. So the install has to start before the award.
The reporting breaks before the work does
Growth rarely breaks the crews first. It breaks your ability to say which job is making money. With two more jobs open at once, the monthly review you did in your head becomes a report somebody has to produce. The work is still good and the numbers stop being available. That looks like a bookkeeping complaint, and it's a control problem.
The proof a bigger customer asks for is built from closed history
A prequalification form, a credit increase and a surety's first look all read the same material. That's closed monthly financials, a WIP schedule that ties to them, and a cost to complete that holds up. All of it is history, and history only comes from a close that happened on time. If nobody closed the month, you can't produce a statement for it at any price.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
Say you hire a project manager at $90,000. With payroll taxes, workers comp and benefits, that's near $115,000 fully burdened. You add that person in March and keep bidding at the overhead rate you calculated last year. Now the $115,000 is in the business and in nobody's bid. Bid $4M of work that year at the old rate, and you've spread $115,000 of real cost across jobs that never covered it. That's roughly 2.9 points of margin given away. Recalculating the rate before the offer takes an afternoon.
Sign a job in March and start the install in March. The first closed month with that job in it closes in April. You have three closed months of history with the new work in them by June. So a bank or prequalification package built from that history is a summer conversation. The calendar decides that, and urgency doesn't move it. The only thing you can do is start earlier.
THE ORDER IT GETS INSTALLED IN.
The cost codes get built to match the assemblies you bid with, so you can read a finished job against the estimate line by line. This goes first because everything else reads from it. A close, a WIP schedule and a cost to complete built on cost codes that don't match the estimate produce reports nobody in the field believes.
Transaction cutoff, bank reconciliations and the WIP reconciliation go on a calendar with a date. The date holds whether or not the month was busy. Every other number in the business comes from the close, so it goes in before the reports you want. A report is only as current as the close behind it.
The cost to complete, the 13 week cash forecast and the WIP schedule get set up once you have two or three closed months to check them against. Set them up earlier and you get documents that look right and forecast nothing. Then you stop trusting the whole file.
Before you take on work a size larger than anything you've managed, do the same short review every time. Find out what the working capital floor has to be at the new revenue level and what the overhead rate is once the new hires are in it. Check whether the close date has held for three months in a row and whether you can produce a cost to complete on request. That's four answers in one afternoon, and it's the cheapest thing in this whole file. Do it every time and an award is never the first place you learn about your own capacity.
THE OUTPUTS, NAMED.
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. The one-time onboarding fee is in the table.
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.
