THREE DIFFERENT SEATS. THREE DIFFERENT JOBS.
A bookkeeper records the past. A controller closes the books and makes the past accurate. A fractional CFO uses what the controller produced to manage what happens next. All three are different functions. Most $1M to $12M subcontractors have a bookkeeper, no controller, and no CFO, and they pay for that hole every single month in cash they can't see coming and jobs they can't tell are losing money.
The most common financial mistake a subcontractor makes is assuming one of these seats covers all three. It doesn't, and the reason is skill rather than hours. Transaction accuracy, accounting judgment, and forward financial strategy are three different muscles, and the person who is excellent at one is usually average at the next. What breaks a business isn't any one seat done badly. It's the work that falls between the seats, where the bookkeeper assumes the CPA owns WIP and the CPA assumes somebody in house owns it.
WHAT IT MEANS.
The three seat financial structure is a bookkeeper who records the past, a controller who closes the books and makes that record accurate, and a CFO who uses the closed books to manage what happens next.
The market rate for each seat tells you how differently they're priced. A construction bookkeeper costs $800 to $2,500 a month for transaction entry. A controller costs $3,000 to $6,000 a month to close the books accurately. The CFO layer is the one that owns the 13 week rolling cash flow forecast, SOV setup and billing cadence, AR aging and collections, overhead rate maintenance and its use in bidding, action on the WIP report, and the monthly accountability meeting with the owner.
Books kept by family are their own case, at any size. A verified fiber client at $2.4M in revenue handled the whole financial function this way, and not carelessly, because subcontractor accounting is genuinely complex. The system change gave the family their evenings back and gave the business its first honest financial picture.
WHAT THE THREE ROLES LOOK LIKE AT YOUR SIZE.
$1M to $3M: a bookkeeper and nothing above it
At this size there's usually one bookkeeper, often part time and often family, doing transaction entry. The controller work, meaning WIP, job costing, and the close, doesn't happen, and neither does the CFO work of forecasting and pricing strategy. The business operates on the bank balance and the owner's gut, which works right up until it doesn't.
$3M to $8M: the missing middle role
This is where the hole in the middle costs the most. There's enough volume that WIP distortion, billing lag, and overhead drift cost real money, and not enough volume to justify a $110K to $160K controller hire. So the work either falls on the owner at 9pm or it doesn't get done at all. This is the hole the Platinum tier was built to fill.
$8M to $12M: all three seats, badly split
At this size all three roles exist somewhere and the question is whether they're properly separated. The common failure is a controller titled person doing bookkeeper work while CFO decisions get made by nobody. Clean architecture at this size is an in house clerk for AP and payroll volume, with outsourced controllership and CFO judgment on top of it.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
That's the all in cost of hiring the middle role. A construction controller costs $85K to $120K in salary, and $110K to $160K all in once taxes, benefits, and recruiting are counted. The Platinum tier delivers the controller layer plus CFO advisory for a fraction of that, and it doesn't resign during bid season or hold the books hostage in one person's head.
That's what a report costs when one person is all three roles. A verified marine client at $25M in revenue handled its entire financial function through one person and a shared Excel file. Reports took 8 to 10 hours and the company stopped when she got sick. Proper role separation made reports instant, and within weeks the company qualified for $5M project and $10M aggregate bonding.
That's the amount of work that should be falling between the three seats. The expensive failure is what nobody picks up: the bookkeeper assumes the CPA handles WIP, the CPA assumes somebody in house does it, and nobody does. The SPM model exists to cover close, controllership, and CFO work as one accountable function with no scope gaps.
HOW THE THREE LAYERS WORK TOGETHER.
The bookkeeper processes daily transactions: bills paid, invoices entered, payroll processed, and bank feeds reconciled. They work in ControlQore alongside SPM, and their job is accuracy and speed. SPM doesn't replace the bookkeeper, SPM coordinates with them, trains them on job cost entry, and holds them to the close by the 10th standard.
Somebody has to own month end close, which means coding correctness, WIP reconciliation, bank recs, and accurate financials before the 10th. On Platinum, a controller we choose handles this. The books close clean, on time, every month, and that's the foundation everything else is built on.
SPM handles everything above the close: cash flow forecasting, billing structure, collections, the overhead rate, job cost alignment to the estimates, and the monthly accountability meeting with the owner. Every SPM engagement includes this layer rather than selling it as an add-on. That's the difference between a firm that reports on your business and a firm that operates the financial function of it.
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. 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.
