HOW SPM RUNS CLIENT FINANCE.
SPM operates the full financial control function for commercial subcontractors doing $1M to $12M. Not advisory, not dashboard only, but ownership of the cash, WIP, and reporting functions through a structured monthly and weekly cadence. The monthly cycle drives book close, WIP review, the cash forecast update, and the strategic discussion. The weekly cycle handles billing velocity, AR collections, and cash checkpoints. Annual cycles handle CPA coordination, the surety relationship, and rate review. The owner spends 5 to 10 hours a month on finance instead of 20 to 40, and the work that does happen produces decisions.
Most fractional CFO firms advise. SPM operates. The difference is where the work sits: we own the bookkeeping rather than interpreting somebody else's, we produce the cash forecast rather than commenting on one, and we generate the WIP rather than reviewing a PM's spreadsheet. The advisory layer sits on top of operations we control instead of operations we watch. That's why the recommendations turn into changes, because the same people who make them are the ones who execute them the following week.
WHAT IT MEANS.
The SPM operating model is ownership of the cash, WIP, and reporting functions inside a subcontracting business, run on a fixed monthly, weekly, and annual cadence instead of delivered as advice.
The operating model works because SPM owns both the production layer and the analysis layer. The bookkeeping isn't outsourced to a separate firm whose work we then have to interpret. The WIP isn't produced by a PM who doesn't understand accrual accounting. The cash forecast doesn't live in a spreadsheet nobody updates.
Everything runs through one team using one set of systems. ControlQore carries job costing and WIP, a standardized chart of accounts carries the bookkeeping, and standardized 13 week forecasting carries cash. The structure compounds: every month's work feeds the next month's reporting, every reporting cycle informs the next bid's pricing, and every year's closeout feeds the next year's operating model.
That's what the CFOS framework is in operation, which is a continuously running financial control function that produces the outputs an owner needs to run the business, on the cadence the business needs them, without the owner having to learn accounting.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN NOBODY OWNS THE FUNCTION.
Advice with nobody to execute it
Most fractional CFO firms position themselves as advisory. They meet with the owner, review reports the bookkeeper produced, identify problems, and recommend changes. The owner is then supposed to turn the advice into operational reality, and the space between advice and execution swallows most of the value the engagement was supposed to produce.
The bookkeeper can't produce what the CFO needs
The reports an advisory CFO wants are usually not the reports the existing bookkeeper knows how to build. Job cost detail, a defensible WIP, and an AR aging that ties out require a structure that was never set up. So the CFO works off whatever comes out of the accounting system, which is why the analysis stays general.
The owner has no hours to translate it
The owner is already running a construction company. Turning financial advice into a billing change, a collections routine, and a coding standard is a job by itself, and it's the job that never gets done at 9pm. The owner ends up with smart analysis they can't act on and operations that don't change.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
With SPM running the function, the owner's monthly time is 90 to 120 minutes in the strategic accountability meeting on the Executive tier, 30 to 60 minutes reviewing the dashboard before that meeting, 15 to 30 minutes on AR collection escalations where owner level intervention helps, and 30 to 60 minutes on cash decisions like large vendor payments, capacity additions, and equipment moves. Total is 3 to 5 hours a month for most engagements, and 5 to 10 hours during high activity periods such as a major bid pursuit, year end, or a surety renewal. The rest of the financial control work runs without owner involvement, so the owner stops spending 30 hours a month wrestling with QuickBooks and starts spending 30 hours a month running the business.
WHAT HAPPENS EVERY MONTH, WEEK, AND YEAR.
Prior month transactions get reviewed, classified, and reconciled, including bank accounts, credit cards, and credit lines. Payroll gets booked, though we don't process it. Job cost transactions get validated against the estimates and adjusting entries for accruals, depreciation, and deferred items get posted. Close completes by day 7 of the following month for accrual books and day 10 for the cash basis review.
Project managers update costs-to-complete by project and each one gets validated against schedule progress. Percentage of completion math gets run and billings get reconciled against costs. The WIP schedule is produced and reviewed for anomalies such as margin jumps, billing imbalances, and completion percentages that don't agree with the field, then signed off and integrated into the accrual books.
The 13 week cash forecast gets refreshed with current AR, AP, payroll, and known cash events, and variances against the prior forecast get analyzed. The cash position trend gets updated. The key metrics dashboard gets built, covering working capital, current ratio, days sales outstanding, gross margin by trade and project, overhead absorption rate, and the retention tail, and the briefing goes to the owner before the meeting.
A 60 to 90 minute meeting with the owner, and where applicable the PM lead or operations lead, runs a standing agenda: cash position and forecast trajectory, WIP review highlights, AR and AP attention items, project margin performance, capacity decisions pending, and any surety or banking touchpoints needed. Action items get captured with an owner and a timeline attached. The meeting sets the next month's priorities.
Pay apps due that week get submitted on time, T&M invoices for the prior week go out within 5 days, and anything trending late gets escalated. Receivables aged past terms get reviewed weekly with direct collection action taken, including phone calls, escalations, and prompt pay statute references on public work. The operating cash position gets checked Monday morning, payroll funding gets confirmed for the week, and any tight week gets flagged 2 weeks in advance. New project costs get coded, variances from the estimate get flagged inside the week, and the PM hears about any project trending materially over.
The year end package goes to the CPA in review ready or audit ready quality and their questions get answered without owner involvement. The annual surety meeting gets built, with an updated financial package and a bonding capacity review, and capacity growth requests get worked into the relationship cadence. The lender gets an annual covenant check with an LOC capacity and pricing review. T&M rates get re-validated against current cost to deliver and overhead absorption rates get recalculated off trailing year actuals for the next bid cycle.
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.
PART 6 OF 6, RECORDING SOON.
Never Miss Payroll Without Taking On Debt is a 6 part series on making payroll out of work already performed, without reaching for a line of credit. One of the sessions is this page:
Reading the Red Flags While You Can Still Fix Them
How to keep a pulse on all five without living in the accounting, which is the only way of doing it that survives a busy month.
Not recorded yet. The sessions that are appear on the series page, and this one joins them the day it's recorded. Nothing to sign up for: the page is the notification.
