YOU GREW THE BUSINESS. THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM DIDN'T.
Most subcontractors grow from $1M to $5M on instinct, a bookkeeper, and a year-end CPA. It works at $1M because the owner can hold the whole business in their head. By $3M to $5M there are 4 to 8 concurrent jobs, 15 to 30 crew members, and equipment across multiple sites. The informal system can't keep up. Cash gets unpredictable, margins vanish on jobs that felt fine, the bookkeeper can't tell you why, and the CPA finds out at tax time.
This isn't a revenue problem. Plenty of $5M subcontractors are making more money than $8M ones. What separates them is whether the financial system grew with the business or got left behind at $1M. At $1M the owner is the system, and that works fine. By $3M to $5M there are too many jobs active at once, too many pay cycles, and too much cash timing for one person's memory to hold. Informal systems have a capacity ceiling, and growth is what finds it.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Outgrowing your financial systems means the bookkeeper, spreadsheet, and year-end CPA that worked at $1M stop working as the business scales.
There are six tells, and they come in groups rather than one at a time. Cash surprises you despite growing revenue. You can't tell which jobs made money before they close. Overhead is a guess. You pay a bookkeeper but don't trust the numbers. Major financial decisions feel like coin flips. The line of credit keeps rising instead of going back down. Three or more of those present at once means the system hasn't kept pace with the business.
Two of those deserve their own sentence. Whether you buy the skid steer or rent it for the next three jobs, whether you can afford to add a superintendent, and whether you take the $2M project that starts in six weeks when your current work isn't billing yet are all cash forecast and working capital questions, and without those two instruments every one of them is a coin flip with a lot of money at stake. The line of credit is the other one. It was supposed to be a bridge you draw in slow weeks and pay back in busy ones, so when it rises month after month it's telling you that operations are being funded out of the LOC and not out of receivables.
THE SIGNS THE SYSTEM GOT LEFT BEHIND.
Cash surprises you more than once a quarter
Revenue is up, work is coming in, and you won that big job. But the bank account doesn't reflect any of it, and you keep getting surprised by how little cash is there on a given Friday. That is a billing lag and cash forecasting problem. The revenue is fine. The work is there. The money is just 45 days behind it.
You can't tell which jobs made money before they close
You find out at year end, when the CPA puts the numbers together, that three of your biggest projects lost money. By then there's nothing to do about it. Live job costing shows you during the job, in time to catch the labor overrun, bill the change order, or adjust the billing. Without it you're managing by feel and finding out too late.
Your overhead is a guess
Most subcontractors who grew past $3M haven't recalculated their overhead rate since they set it years ago. Revenue grew, headcount grew, trucks multiplied, and software subscriptions added up. But the overhead rate in the bids is still the old number, and the distance between what's being bid and what's being spent on overhead is where margin disappears, silently and consistently, on every job.
You pay a bookkeeper but don't trust the numbers
The bookkeeper is doing their job. Transactions are in the system and reports exist. But when you look at the P&L something doesn't add up, so you make decisions off the bank balance instead of the financials, because the financials don't feel right. That is a job cost setup problem, and the bookkeeper is doing what the setup allows.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
A verified concrete client doing $4.9M was netting 3.3 percent. A verified erosion control client doing $5.2M was netting $24K, having outgrown single-number accounting years before anybody noticed, and per site costing took that same business to $1.1M net. A verified civil client found $779K of balance sheet improvement in 90 days. None of those three had a revenue problem.
A verified civil client grew from $500K to $5M in two years, and by November was awake at 3am with two maxed LOCs, an SBA loan, and his house on the line. A cash forecast, rebuilt billing, and scheduled collections produced $310K of recovered AR in 30 days. Both LOCs and the SBA loan cleared in 90 days, and a $750K facility was approved on clean books. That business is now projecting $12M with a $300K cash floor.
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.
