CONSTRUCTION FINANCIAL GOVERNANCE: THE STRUCTURE THAT MAKES DISCIPLINE SELF-SUSTAINING.
Financial governance answers three questions: who is responsible for each financial outcome, what information do they need, and when do they act on it. Without those answers documented and operating consistently, financial control depends on the owner remembering to check the numbers, the bookkeeper initiating the close, and the PM caring about their project margin. With them answered and embedded in a recurring cadence, financial control is a system rather than a collection of good intentions.
SPM installs the governance structure at engagement start and holds it through the monthly cadence. The cadence doesn't depend on the owner remembering, because it runs on a schedule, in writing, with follow-up between meetings. That's the difference between a business that reviews its numbers most months and one that reviews them every month. A structure nobody wrote down degrades back toward what it was before the engagement, and it doesn't take long. Ninety to a hundred and twenty days of drift is enough to undo a year of work.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Financial governance is the system of rules, roles, and rhythms that financial control operates within.
Financial governance isn't a compliance exercise. It's the operational framework that answers three questions: who is responsible for each financial outcome, what information do they need to fulfill that responsibility, and when do they act on it. Without those three questions answered and written down, financial control depends on the owner's memory, the bookkeeper's initiative, and luck.
The structure has three components. Roles set who owns what: the PM owns job-level cost outcome, the CFO function owns cash, AR, and financial reporting, and the owner owns strategic financial decisions, each with defined scope and defined authority. Cadence sets when things happen. Accountability sets how outcomes get tracked, so every action item out of the monthly meeting has one owner and one due date, completion is tracked, and missed items get addressed in the next meeting instead of forgotten.
WHERE GOVERNANCE BREAKS DOWN.
Nobody owns the outcome, so the owner's memory does
When the three governance questions aren't answered in writing, financial control runs on the owner remembering to check the numbers, the bookkeeper deciding to start the close, and the PM caring about job margin. Any one of those can be true in a given month and false the next, and nobody notices until a quarter has gone by. Control that depends on memory and initiative is a run of good luck.
The cadence slips, and the system degrades in 90 days
Every SPM engagement starts with a defined governance structure, and within 60 days the cadence is running: books close by the 10th, CEO Report delivered by the 12th, monthly meeting on the 18th. Where the cadence slips, meaning the close pushes to the 20th, the meeting moves or cancels, and action items go untracked, the financial control system degrades back toward what it was before the engagement. That doesn't happen immediately. It happens over 90 to 120 days, which is long enough that nobody connects the slip to the result.
Action items leave the meeting without an owner or a due date
A monthly meeting that produces a list of things to work on and no assignment produces nothing. Joint ownership means no ownership, and "sometime next month" isn't a due date. Items written that way are still open at the next meeting, and by the third meeting nobody brings them up, so the meeting turns into a review of numbers instead of a mechanism that changes them.
FOUR STRUCTURAL CHOICES THAT MAKE THE CADENCE STICK.
Who owns what, what the cadence is, and what the escalation path is when something slips. One page is the target, and it should be readable in a minute. Everyone on the financial team has seen it and agreed to it, which means a new hire can read it and understand who does what and when without asking anybody.
The monthly strategic meeting sits in the calendar as a recurring item for 12 months. It doesn't move for busy periods or travel unless the alternative date is scheduled inside the same week. The meeting is the mechanism that holds the cadence together, so canceling it's not a small thing: the cadence drifts from that month forward.
Every action item out of the monthly meeting gets one owner and one due date. No joint ownership, and no "sometime next month." The owner is written down, the date is set, and completion is confirmed at the next meeting, which is what turns a discussion into a change in the business.
Four questions every quarter. Is the cadence holding, is the monthly close happening on time, are action items being completed, and is the CEO Report being read and acted on? If any answer is no, the quarterly review is the moment to diagnose and correct it, before 90 days of drift has eroded the system.
Financial governance doesn't produce a one-time improvement, it produces a compounding one. Year one installs the system and the financial picture becomes visible. Year two uses that data to improve the estimates, the hiring decisions, and the GC relationship decisions. Year three has enough financial history to support a bonding capacity conversation that wasn't possible before, and the governance structure is what makes each year build on the last.
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. No hourly billing, no payroll, and no add-ons.
Pricing
| 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.
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.
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.
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.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
