You built a business that wins work and keeps guys moving from job to job. The problem is the numbers don't line up. Your P&L says you're making money, your bank account is at $7,500, and you seem to be the only one who notices. Missing payroll is almost never a revenue problem. It's a timing problem, and the money is usually already inside the business: in work performed and not billed, in an overhead rate that was never right, in equipment nobody charged to a job, and in a bid that assumed a cost nobody has checked since. This series is how to find it and how to see it coming. Nothing to enter and nothing to join: every session plays right here.
Just like an apprentice is taught how to build, you need to be taught how money really moves in construction so you can plan.
IF THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR
3AM, DOING PAYROLL MATH IN BED.
Have you ever woken up at 3am doing payroll math in bed, working out who you can pay and who you'll ignore tomorrow? I hear it every week.
Janet is doing the bookkeeping and trying her best, Brad does the taxes and keeps the IRS off your back, and you have a handful of software that promised to fix it. None of it's working.
I hear it every day: I just need X revenue and it will work itself out. Revenue multiplies the problems right along with it.
The first five sessions fix the five most common financial holes in a subcontracting business. The last one teaches you how to keep a pulse on all five and keep them within spec. Every session takes one hole, shows the arithmetic, and points at the tool that closes it. The tools are the same ones SPM installs for clients, and all of them are in the book.
The fastest cash in a construction business is money you've already earned and haven't invoiced.
Why the schedule of values decides your cash position for the whole job, and why it's agreed once and then never revisited
Weighting the early lines: mobilization, submittals, bonds and general conditions are real costs in the first weeks, and a breakdown that spreads them evenly has you funding the front end yourself
Part 1 is recorded and plays now. The remaining 5 are scheduled, and each one appears here the day it's recorded. Nothing to sign up for: the page is the notification.
WHERE TO START
PART ONE, AND HERE IS WHY.
The order is deliberate rather than arbitrary. Part one is first because it's the only one that needs nobody's agreement: billing for work you've already performed is your own invoice, on your own work, and the money is already earned. Every other hole takes a month or a quarter to close. That one can move cash this week.
After that the sequence runs from the outside in. Forecasting so a short week stops being a surprise, then equipment and overhead, which are the two costs most often sitting in the wrong place, then estimating alignment, which is what stops the same mistake being priced into the next job. The last session is the one that keeps the other five closed, because a hole fixed once and never watched reopens on its own.
Fix these five things and in 60 days your business will be working the way you meant it to. Money in the bank, a P&L that matches, and payroll stops being something you think about every week. Onboarding a client to the whole system runs 60 days, which is the same window, and for the same reason: it's how long it takes for a corrected structure to produce a month you can read.
THE BOOK BEHIND THE SERIES
THIS SERIES IS CONTROL, IN ORDER.
The six sessions walk the build order of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System, which Josh wrote: job cost structure, cash forecasting, equipment cost basis, overhead calculation, estimating alignment, and the monthly cadence that holds it together. The series is the short course, with the arithmetic on screen. The book is the whole thing, and every tool used across these sessions comes with it. Buy the book and a QR code inside it gets you every CONTROL template, password protected, at runoncfos.com.
The videos need nothing entered. The workbooks are a separate question and they aren't all free, so here is the whole of it before you click anything.
Schedule of values and pay application, part one. Direct download, no email. The G702 and G703 pair comes with it.
Equipment and vehicle cost basis, part three. Emailed on request. An email address is the only thing asked for.
13 week cash flow forecast, parts two and four. Paid. It carries the overhead calculator that part four uses, and it's the one tool in the series that costs money.
Parts five and six have no workbook. They're structural rather than clerical, and pretending otherwise would sell you a spreadsheet for a problem a spreadsheet doesn't fix.
All of them come with the book. A QR code printed in the book, with a password behind it, opening every CONTROL template as a download at runoncfos.com. At $3.99 on preorder, rising to $9.99 on 5 October, that's the cheapest route to the set by a wide margin.
$10.7M+
Client AR Recovered Since 2023
48
Active Trade Specializations
60 DAYS
Average Onboarding Time
COMMON QUESTIONS
BEFORE YOU START WATCHING.
A six part series on making payroll out of the work you've already done rather than out of a line of credit. The first five sessions fix the five most common financial holes in a subcontracting business. The last one teaches you how to keep a pulse on all five and keep them within spec. It is published in full, there's nothing to enter and nothing to join, and every released session plays on this site.
No. The videos play here with nothing asked for. Two of the workbooks behind the sessions are emailed on request, because a spreadsheet is a different thing from a video, and every link on this page says which of those it's before you click it.
Billing for work already done, seeing a short week while there's still time to do something about it, equipment charged to the job at what it really costs, an overhead rate built from your own numbers, and job costing built against the way you estimate. The first five sessions fix the five most common financial holes in a subcontracting business. The last one teaches you how to keep a pulse on all five and keep them within spec.
I hear it every day: I just need X revenue and it will work itself out. Revenue multiplies the problems right along with it. Every one of the five holes is a percentage or a timing problem, so a bigger business with the same structure leaks the same share of a larger number. That's why the sequence starts with billing rather than with sales.
Fix these five things and in 60 days your business will be working the way you meant it to. Money in the bank, a P&L that matches, and payroll stops being something you think about every week. The first session is the fastest of them, because billing for work already performed needs nobody's agreement: it's your own invoice, on work you've done, that hasn't gone out yet.
No, the sessions stand on their own and each one explains the method. The workbooks save you an afternoon and the arithmetic errors. Two download directly, one comes by email, and the 13 week forecast is paid. Buy the book and a QR code inside it gets you every CONTROL template, password protected, at runoncfos.com.
Commercial subcontractors and self-performing general contractors doing $1M to $12M, where the schedule is full and payroll week is still a question every time it comes around.
Former commercial construction project manager and master electrician. Managed 150+ projects worth more than $2.1B combined, with individual jobs from $50,000 to $300M, including data centers, military bases, hospitals, and high-rises. Now fractional CFO for commercial subcontractors doing $1M to $12M through Sulphur Prairie Management.About Josh | LinkedIn
RATHER TALK ABOUT YOUR OWN NUMBERS?
Twenty minutes, no charge, and no pitch. Bring your last full year and the one number you never feel sure about, and Josh will tell you which of the five holes is costing you the most.
You don't hire a CFO because it's safe, you do it because the real risk isn't having one.
