WHEN DO YOU ACTUALLY NEED A CFO?
Most construction companies need CFO-level financial leadership once they cross $1M in revenue, or sooner if AR is aging past 60 days, overhead has never been checked against real financials, or there has been a near miss on payroll. There's no single revenue number that triggers it. What counts is whether the business has outgrown informal financial management.
Once revenue crosses roughly $1M, most subcontractors are running several jobs at the same time, each with its own billing cycle and its own cost structure. That's the complexity that breaks informal tracking, and it breaks without announcing itself. The spreadsheet still opens, the bookkeeper still reconciles, and the bank balance still looks survivable. What's missing is anybody looking forward: what cash is coming, what the overhead rate really is, and which of those jobs is going to close short. The warning signs turn up before the revenue number does.
WHAT IT MEANS.
CFO-level financial leadership is the function that forecasts what's coming rather than reconciling what already happened, which is the line between a CFO and a bookkeeper.
There's no single revenue number that triggers the need for a CFO. It's more about whether the business has outgrown informal financial management: a spreadsheet, gut instinct, and a bookkeeper who reconciles but doesn't forecast. Once revenue crosses roughly $1M, most subcontractors are running multiple jobs at once, each with its own billing cycle and cost structure, which is the complexity informal tracking can't carry.
WHAT USUALLY SHOWS FIRST.
A near miss on payroll, or a scramble to cover a short week
Payroll is the one obligation that can't slip, so a week where you had to move money around to make it's the loudest sign on this list. It usually traces back to something upstream: billing that went out late, a GC paying on his own schedule, or costs running ahead of the pay app. The scramble is the symptom, and the reason it repeats is that nobody is looking at the weeks ahead.
AR aging past 60 or 90 days with no collections process
Money you earned and never collected is the cheapest cash in the business, and it's sitting in somebody else's account. Aging past 60 or 90 days isn't unusual in construction, but aging with nobody assigned to work it every week is a decision rather than an accident. Without a process that runs on a schedule, the oldest invoices stay the oldest invoices.
An overhead rate that has never been checked against real financials
Most owners bid with an overhead rate that came from somewhere years ago and was never tested against what the business really spends. When the rate is short, every job carries a little less than it should, and revenue can grow while margin goes the other direction. This is the item most often sitting underneath MCA debt taken on later to cover a hole that traces back to overhead.
Revenue keeps growing but cash never reflects it
Growth consumes cash before it produces any, so a bigger year can leave the account thinner than the year before it. Running more than 2 or 3 jobs at once with no per-job cost tracking makes it worse, because a job losing money looks the same as a job making money until closeout. That's how a job closes out at a loss nobody saw coming while the WIP schedule was overstating earned revenue for months.
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.
| 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.
