FINANCIAL CONTROL FOR SUBCONTRACTORS.
Financial control for a subcontractor means owning job costing, cash forecasting, and your real overhead rate, so you can answer the two questions that count: are we making money, and will we have cash next month. It's the layer above bookkeeping. Bookkeeping records what already happened, and financial control uses those records to manage the business going forward.
The test is simple. Ask your project manager where the money is going on a job right now. If you get a live answer in 30 seconds, you have financial control. If the answer is ask accounting, wait for a report, and rework a spreadsheet, you have bookkeeping and a hope. Most subcontractors have clean enough books and still fly blind, because nobody turns the data into decisions about pricing, cash, and hiring. That's how a busy, profitable looking business ends up with no cash without seeing it coming.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Financial control for a subcontractor is owning job costing, cash forecasting, and your real overhead rate, so you can answer the only two questions that count: are we making money, and will we have cash next month.
If you have a bookkeeper and a CPA and still can't say which jobs make money or where cash will be in eight weeks, financial control is the piece you're missing. Clean books are backward looking by design. Somebody has to read them forward, and that's a different job with a different output.
WHERE THE BLIND SPOTS ARE.
You can't say which jobs make money
The books are clean and the work is coded to the customer rather than to cost codes that mirror the estimate. So the P&L totals are right and nobody can point at a single job and say what it earned. By the time the year closes, the job that lost money is finished and there's nothing left to do about it.
The overhead rate is a guess
Most bids use a round 10 percent for overhead because that's the number somebody used years ago. The real figure is every fixed cost divided by revenue, and it's rarely 10 percent. A civil contractor with 30 percent overhead against a 29 percent gross margin was losing 1 percent on every job and had no idea, because the books were clean and nobody was reading them forward.
Nobody can say where cash will be in eight weeks
Cash gets managed off the bank balance and the AR aging, which both report today rather than eight weeks out. A 13 week rolling forecast is what turns cash into a plan instead of a surprise. Without it, the line of credit draw happens the week payroll is at risk rather than the month before.
A bookkeeper and a CPA don't add up to control
Bookkeeping codes transactions and reconciles accounts, looking backward at what already happened. A CPA files taxes once a year. Neither one tells you whether your overhead rate is right, which jobs are losing money, or where cash will be in eight weeks, so you can have both and still have no control.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
A civil contractor had 30 percent overhead against a 29 percent gross margin, which is a 1 percent loss on every job before a single crew rolls out. Once the real overhead was calculated and the bids were rebuilt, that same business turned the unseen loss into 11 percent net profit. Same crews, same trade, and the same work, with a different bid structure underneath it.
INSTALLED ONCE, THEN USED MONTHLY.
Every dollar gets tracked to the project on cost codes that match how you bid the work. Actual versus estimated then compares apples to apples, so you know which jobs make money while you can still do something about it. The estimate and the books speak the same language.
Every fixed cost divided by revenue, calculated honestly instead of guessed at 10 percent. The figure goes back into the bid template so the next job is priced against what it costs to operate your business. It gets recalculated as the business grows, because the rate moves as you add people and equipment.
A rolling forecast that reports shortfalls before they reach payroll. Cash becomes a plan you make in advance instead of a scramble on Thursday afternoon. Line of credit draws get decided weeks ahead of the week they're needed.
Books get closed by the tenth, cost to complete gets updated on every job, and a monthly WIP schedule and CEO report go out. Then a monthly review works through the numbers that predict what's coming. The install takes 60 days, and the cadence is what keeps it accurate after that.
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.
