CONSTRUCTION FINANCIAL DECISION FRAMEWORK: HOW DECISIONS SHOULD FLOW.
Most subcontractor financial problems trace back to a decision made by the wrong person, without the right information, at a point in the project where the consequences were already unavoidable. A PM who approved a subcontract without checking the job cost budget. An owner who signed a new contract without modeling the working capital requirement. None of those are accounting failures. They're decision making failures. The financial system's job is to put the right information in front of the right person at the right time.
SPM doesn't just produce financial reports. It builds the decision infrastructure that ties field performance to financial outcomes, so the owner stops being the only person in the building who understands the financial state of the company. Reports describe what already happened. A framework decides who acts on it and when. The difference is visible in how a business behaves in week two of a month rather than in how the month end package reads, and it's the reason two companies with the same numbers make different decisions.
WHAT IT MEANS.
A financial decision framework is the structure that decides which person owns which financial decision, on what cadence, and with what information in front of them when they make it.
Financial decisions in a subcontracting business happen at three different speeds, made by three different people, and each speed needs its own information. Daily field calls, a weekly financial review, and monthly strategic decisions aren't the same job. When all three route to the owner, the business moves at the speed of one person's attention.
THE THREE FAILURE MODES WHEN DECISIONS HAVE NO STRUCTURE.
The owner becomes the financial bottleneck
Every financial decision routes to the owner because no framework exists that lets anybody else make one. The business can't move faster than the owner's attention allows, and at $5M and above in revenue that's a genuine growth constraint rather than a personality trait. Decisions wait in a queue behind whatever the owner is dealing with that week.
Field decisions get made without financial context
PMs approve work that puts a phase over budget, order material that was never in the estimate, and allow overtime that goes past the labor budget. That's not carelessness. They don't have the financial information in front of them that they would need to make the right call, so they decide on schedule pressure and operational judgment, which is what they do have.
Strategic decisions get made on stale data
The owner signs a new contract off a bank balance and a feeling about working capital. The twenty minute working capital analysis that would have either confirmed the decision or flagged the problem never gets built, because nothing in the operating rhythm calls for it. The contract was probably fine, and nobody knows that either way.
THREE LAYERS OF FINANCIAL DECISIONS, AND WHO OWNS EACH ONE.
Field financial decisions happen every day: which crew to assign, whether to order material, whether to work overtime. Most PMs and foremen make those calls on schedule pressure and operational judgment rather than on whether the labor budget for this phase has room for what they're about to do. The fix is a simple cost-to-complete that gives the PM one number, which is whether the phase is ahead or behind on labor budget. That one number changes field decisions without creating bureaucracy around them.
Weekly financial decisions are about current trajectory. Is AR being collected on schedule? Is any active project costing more than budget on a cost code that needs attention? Is the 13-week cash forecast still right given what came in and went out this week? Those questions require weekly books, meaning weekly transaction entry, a reconciled AR aging, and current cost-to-complete data. Most subcontractors have monthly bookkeeping, which means weekly decisions get made on data that's 2 to 4 weeks stale.
Should we bid this next project, or does the backlog already strain working capital? Is this GC relationship worth keeping at the current margin? Do we need to raise the LOC before next quarter's mobilizations? Those decisions require the monthly CEO Report with its 10 rolling metrics, cost-to-complete on every active project, and both the 13-week and 24-month cash forecast. An owner deciding with that in front of them makes different calls than an owner deciding off gut feel and a bank balance check.
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. No hourly billing. No payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is right here in the table.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee | One-time onboarding |
|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $1,900 to $3,300 | $1,000 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $5,300 | $1,500 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $8,300 | $3,000 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $11,800 | $4,500 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $14,900 | $6,000 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $17,650 | $7,500 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $22,400 | $9,000 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually | Quoted individually |
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. Your first month is prorated, and your monthly engagement starts on the first of the first full month.
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. The onboarding fee is right here in the table.
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 and never in a report.
Your bookkeeper still does the books.
Every job shows its margin while it is still open.
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 cover it.
A bookkeeper we choose does the books and reconciliations. No payroll.
You approve, and the money side gets handled.
Everything in Strategic, plus a controller we choose who handles your bills and receivables for you the way an in-house controller would. They 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.
A controller we choose does the payables and receivables. No payroll, no pay applications, no collections.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
