INTERIOR: THE TI FLOAT

Landlord to tenant to contractor, after the work is done. You bill the tenant. The tenant submits a draw package (paid invoices, lien waivers, completion proof) to the landlord. Reimbursement comes 30 to 60 days later, or at certificate of occupancy on tighter deals. Build the draw package as the work happens, and negotiate staged releases before you sign. The float is real and someone is paying for it.

Interior contractors at $1M to $5M net 6 percent on average, rising to 13 percent by $25M to $50M; the CFOS net profit target is 10 percent before taxes at $1M to $5M, since the target is the trade average plus 3.5 points and never below 10. The money goes to TI-float holding cost nobody priced, work-letter scope seams, and building rules you find out about mid-project when you should have known on bid day. Every net profit figure here is gross margin minus overhead, stated before taxes, the same basis CFMA reports net income on.

Walk the building rules before you bid: freight elevator windows, after-hours requirements, noise curfews, protection standards, approved vendors. Each one costs production and has a price. Specialists price them as line items. Generalists find out about them on the tenant's schedule.

Three tiers, and which one you are in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. On Core we build your plan every month and your team does the work: job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a monthly meeting that ends in decisions, while your bookkeeper keeps doing the books. On Strategic we build the plan, track it and adjust it every month: our team does the bookkeeping and the bank reconciliations, and the job costing and WIP software is set up and managed for you, on your own online software or ours. On Platinum we manage the money side for you every week: our team handles your bills and receivables the way an in-house controller would, and you approve every payment. We don't do payroll.

Sixty days. We migrate your books back to the start of your last taxable year and build your job costing structure from scratch, and on Strategic and Platinum we set up the job costing and WIP software too. You're fully up and working in two months. The onboarding fee is one time, the same for every tier, and set by your revenue band.