WHO RUNS YOUR FINANCES

OUTSOURCED FINANCE DEPARTMENT FOR CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES.

QUICK ANSWER

An outsourced finance department replaces the pieces most subcontractors buy separately, a bookkeeper, a controller, a job cost system and a CFO, with one firm that owns the whole chain. SPM does that for commercial subcontractors and self-performing GCs doing $1M to $12M in the United States and Canada, remotely. Books close and bank reconciliations finish by the tenth, job costing follows your estimate, and the owner spends about five hours a month. SPM is not a CPA firm: nobody at SPM is a CPA, and SPM does no tax preparation, audit or review. Keep your CPA for tax and compliance.

Most subcontractors end up with a finance function assembled one hire at a time. A bookkeeper enters the transactions, a CPA files the return, a software vendor sets up job costing, and nobody owns the number that tells the owner whether a job made money. An outsourced finance department puts that whole chain under one firm, so a late close, a wrong cost code or a missed forecast has one place to be fixed. The owner reads a monthly report and makes decisions. That is the whole job.

BY JOSH LUEBKERPublished 2026-09-30Updated 2026-09-30
THE DEFINITION

WHAT IT MEANS.

An outsourced finance department is one firm doing the work a subcontractor's own finance team would do: bookkeeping, month-end close, job costing, WIP reporting, cash forecasting and the CFO decisions that follow, for one monthly fee, plus a one-time onboarding fee to get set up, and a few hours of the owner's month.

A department is a set of jobs, and most subcontractors under $12M cannot fill all of them in house. The work is bookkeeping and reconciliations, a close that finishes early enough to be useful, job costing against the estimate, a WIP schedule the surety and the bank will read, a 13 week cash forecast, and someone senior who turns those numbers into decisions. Hiring for each one means several salaries and no single owner of any number.

Outsourcing the department does not mean giving up the view. The owner still sees every job, every week of cash and every overhead line. What moves off the owner's desk is the entering, the reconciling, the chasing and the building of reports, which is where the hours go. That is the difference between a service that records what happened and one that runs the function.

WHY IT BREAKS WHEN IT IS ASSEMBLED PIECE BY PIECE

WHAT FOUR VENDORS LEAVE OUT.

01

Each vendor owns one plank

The bookkeeper closes the month, the CPA files the return, the software vendor configured the job cost system and the owner watches the bank balance. When a job's margin looks wrong, each of them can show that their piece is correct. Nobody is responsible for the answer.

02

The close comes too late to change anything

If books close in the third week of the following month, the report describes a month that ended twenty days ago. The jobs it covers have already billed, bought more material and started the next phase. A department that finishes reconciliations by the tenth gives the owner numbers while a decision is still open.

03

Job costing is built for the ledger, not for the estimate

Cost codes set up by someone who has never read your estimate cannot be compared with it. The estimate says a job should earn 18 percent and the ledger cannot say why it earned 11. Coding the books to the same structure the estimate uses is what makes the variance readable.

WHAT THE DEPARTMENT DOES

ONE FIRM, THE WHOLE CHAIN.

Books, close and controllership under one owner

Entry, reconciliations and the month-end close sit with the same team that reads the results. When a number looks wrong, the person who can fix the entry and the person who can explain the number are the same person.

Job costing built on your estimating structure

Cost codes follow the way the work is bid, so every job compares its actual cost with its estimate line by line. That comparison is what shows which trades, crews and clients earn the margin you priced.

A monthly meeting that ends in written decisions

The CFO layer is a monthly conversation about what the numbers mean, closed with a short written list of decisions, each with an owner and a date. Reports without decisions are the most common way an outsourced service fails a contractor.

WHAT YOU GET

THE OUTPUTS, NAMED.

Bookkeeping and bank reconciliations, closed by the tenth of each month
Job costing coded to the structure of your estimate, run on ControlQore
A monthly WIP schedule built for how you bill, retainage included
A 13 week rolling cash forecast, rebuilt every week
A monthly meeting that ends in written decisions with an owner and a date
$10.7M+
Client AR Recovered Since 2023
48
Active Trade Specializations
60 DAYS
Average Onboarding Time
PRICING

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 revenueMonthly feeOne-time onboarding
Up to $1M$1,900 to $2,900$1,000
$1M to $3.5M$2,600 to $3,900$1,500
$3.5M to $6.5M$3,800 to $5,700$3,000
$6.5M to $9.5M$5,100 to $7,100$4,500
$9.5M to $12.5M$6,100 to $8,500$6,000
$12.5M to $15.5M$7,400 to $11,000$7,500
$15.5M to $18.5M$9,400 to $13,500$9,000
$18.5M+Quoted individuallyQuoted 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.

Core

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.

Executive

You stop touching the books.

Everything in Core, and we do the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Your office stops answering coding questions and stops fixing a reconciliation that will not balance on the last day of the month.

We do the books. No payroll.

Strategic

Every job shows its margin while it is still open.

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 books, the job costing, and the software. No payroll.

COMMON QUESTIONS

FREQUENTLY ASKED.

It is one firm doing the finance work a contractor's own team would do: bookkeeping, month-end close, job costing, WIP reporting, cash forecasting and CFO advisory, for one monthly fee plus a one-time onboarding fee to get set up. SPM does this remotely for commercial subcontractors and self-performing GCs doing $1M to $12M in the United States and Canada.

An accounting firm's core product is the tax return and the compliance filings. A finance department's core product is a monthly view of job profit and cash that the owner can act on. Many contractors keep a CPA for taxes and add a finance department for the operating side. SPM is not a CPA firm: nobody at SPM is a CPA, and SPM does no tax preparation, audit or review.

The fee is flat, priced on your trailing twelve month revenue, with no hourly billing and no payroll service. ControlQore is included and never billed as a separate line. Every revenue band is on the pricing page, so you can find your row before you talk to anyone.

About five hours a month once the engagement is running, mostly the monthly meeting and answering questions about specific jobs. Onboarding takes 60 days, during which the books are migrated and the job cost structure is built against your estimating.

Yes, for tax preparation and compliance work. SPM works alongside your CPA and produces the monthly numbers the CPA can use at year end.
WHAT THIS TIES INTO
Josh Luebker, SPM The Construction CFO
Josh Luebker
FRACTIONAL CFO · SPM THE CONSTRUCTION CFO

Josh Luebker is a master electrician turned construction CFO, president of SPM The Construction CFO and author of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.

WHO OWNS YOUR NUMBERS TODAY?

Twenty minutes of questions about how your books close, who reads the numbers and where the cash goes. Josh isn't selling and he isn't proposing. If he can help, you'll set a longer second call.

You don't hire a CFO because it's safe, you do it because the real risk isn't having one.
Book a 20 minute call

20 minutes. Nothing gets sold on this call and nothing gets proposed. Josh asks questions to work out whether he can help at all.

OR GET THE SOV AND PAY APPLICATION TEMPLATE. NO CALL NEEDED.