Deliverables to Expect from James Moore’s Fractional Construction CFO Service

Construction companies face financial challenges that demand specialized expertise. From working through the complexities of revenue recognition to precise job costing estimates and ensuring compliance with bonding requirements, there’s no shortage of important financial tasks in a construction business.

Leaders often find that a generic approach to accounting that doesn’t incorporate the unique nuances of the construction industry leads their business to financial challenges. Success demands a more tailored approach to financial leadership. But for many construction businesses, hiring a full-time CFO is out of reach.

At James Moore, our fractional construction CFO services provide executive-level financial leadership specifically designed for construction businesses, without the cost of a full-time CFO. In this overview, we’ll explore the deliverables construction companies can expect to receive when partnering with our professionals. We’ll also outline how these insights and resources can help you run a more profitable business.

Three Tiers of Fractional CFO Support

James Moore’s fractional construction CFO services are structured into three comprehensive tiers, each designed to address different levels of financial management needs. These packages serve as the starting point for every engagement, and our team works with new clients to create unique solutions that are tailored to the precise needs of their businesses.

Foundational Package

The Foundational package provides essential financial oversight for construction companies seeking to establish solid financial practices.

• Financial reporting: Guidance for internal teams on monthly financial statement preparation, ensuring construction-specific accounting requirements are met and reports accurately reflect job progress and profitability.
• Financial review: Monthly management meetings to review financial results and key ratios, translating complex financial data into actionable insights for operational decisions.
• Financial analysis: Basic ratio analysis to identify trends and potential issues before they impact cash flow or project profitability.
• Budgeting: Simple annual budget development that aligns financial projections with operational capabilities and market conditions, giving construction companies a roadmap to financial success.
• Cash flow management: Routine cash flow monitoring that helps companies manage the timing discrepancy between expenses and payments and stay in a strong cash flow position.
• Banking and bonding: Annual lender meetings and financial statement reviews for bonding needs to keep your company well positioned to secure bank financing and level up its bonding capacity.
• Prequalification: Financial statement review for contractor prequalification requirements, ensuring documentation meets the stringent standards required by large commercial clients, government agencies, surety companies and lenders.

This foundational tier is most valuable for smaller construction companies transitioning from basic bookkeeping to more sophisticated financial management. The monthly financial reviews create accountability and help your leadership team understand the company’s financial position.

Strategist Package

The Strategist package includes everything in the Foundational package and layers on deeper analysis, increased levels of support and additional strategy meetings and guidance. This elevates the role of finance in your construction business, transforming the finance function into a resource that provides deeper insights and more proactive guidance.

• Enhanced reporting: Custom schedules and weekly flash reports with key KPIs and cash data, providing real-time visibility into project performance and enabling rapid course correction before monthly financial statements. Our team also works hand in hand with your internal team to guide monthly financial statement preparation.
• Expanded analysis: Profitability analysis by product/service line, revealing which types of projects generate the highest margins and which might be draining resources to better inform strategic bidding decisions.
• Active forecasting: Quarterly re-forecasting to adapt to changing conditions, keeping financial plans relevant in the dynamic construction environment (where project timelines and costs frequently shift).
• Strategic planning: Quarterly strategy sessions to align financial and operational goals, creating coherent growth plans based on financial capacity and market opportunities.
• Cash flow management: Weekly meetings focused on cash flow and accounts receivable aging, proactively preventing payment delays that can cripple operations and identifying opportunities to accelerate collections.
• Banking relations: Ongoing liaison for bank communications, maintaining strong lender relationships and ensuring financial reporting meets loan covenants and credit line requirements.
• Systems improvement: Process improvement recommendations that streamline financial workflows, reducing administrative burdens while improving information accuracy and timeliness.
• Team development: Finance team guidance to build accounting capabilities within the organization, reinforcing proper segregation of duties and financial controls.
• Tax planning: Bi-annual tax planning meetings that leverage construction-specific tax strategies, maximizing available deductions and credits while maintaining compliance.

Construction companies experiencing growth, managing multiple projects simultaneously, or preparing for significant business decisions benefit most from the services included in this package. This approach provides the forward-looking insights needed to make informed decisions about project selection, resource allocation and business development opportunities.

Visionary CFO Package

The Visionary CFO package includes everything in the Foundational and Strategist tiers but also delivers more comprehensive financial leadership that integrates deeply with your company’s existing management team. These incremental leadership solutions include the following services:

• Sophisticated reporting: Custom schedules with oversight of daily and weekly flash reports, creating an executive-level dashboard that connects financial metrics directly to operational activities and provides near real-time decision support.
• Advanced analysis: Cost allocation expertise and pricing strategy development that uncovers hidden costs, properly allocates overhead and establishes competitive yet profitable bidding strategies tailored to specific project types.
• Dynamic forecasting: Monthly rolling forecasts with scenario planning, enabling leadership to anticipate the financial impacts of various growth scenarios and prepare contingency plans for changing market conditions.
• Strategic leadership: Monthly strategy meetings with ongoing advisory support, positioning financial insights at the core of executive decision-making and providing an objective financial perspective on business opportunities.
• Lender negotiations: Direct negotiation with banks for credit lines and loans, securing optimal terms by effectively communicating the company’s financial strengths and presenting financial information in the most favorable light.
• Bonding optimization: Strategic work to improve financial statements and increase bonding capacity, systematically addressing the specific metrics surety providers evaluate and potentially unlocking larger, more profitable projects.
• Prequalification enhancement: Focused effort to improve financial position for stronger prequalification standing with government agencies and prime contractors, opening access to lucrative project opportunities often closed to contractors with weaker financial credentials.
• Systems transformation: Financial system optimization and automation that integrates accounting, project management and operational software, eliminating duplicate data entry and providing seamless information flow from field to financial statements.
• Team building: Finance team hiring, training and management, developing a financial department that operates as a strategic asset rather than just a compliance function.

This premium tier transforms the financial function from a reporting mechanism to a strategic driver of business success. Construction companies facing complex financial challenges, pursuing aggressive growth, or requiring sophisticated financial management benefit from this package the most, receiving the equivalent of an in-house CFO’s expertise without the full-time salary expense.

Additional Specialized Fractional Construction CFO Services

While the three core service packages outlined above provide comprehensive financial leadership, James Moore also offers specialized services that can be added to any tier as and when the need arises:

Mergers & Acquisitions Support

For construction companies considering growth through acquisition or owners planning an exit strategy, M&A support provides critical financial guidance through the complex transaction process. Construction acquisitions involve unique considerations around project backlogs, equipment valuation, employee retention and bonding capacity that require specialized expertise.

James Moore’s team can partner with you to evaluate potential acquisition targets with construction-specific due diligence, determining appropriate valuations based on industry benchmarks and company performance. This process identifies financial risks and liabilities that might not be apparent to operational leaders, allowing for informed decision-making. We can also bring in the expertise of our tax professionals to ensure transactions are structured to optimize tax implications and protect your interests.

Succession Planning Services

Many construction companies face challenging transitions as founding owners approach retirement. The industry’s relationship-driven nature and bonding requirements make ownership transitions particularly complex for contractors. James Moore’s succession planning services are designed to address these unique challenges and provide you with a clear roadmap toward the future.

The team creates financial structures that enable gradual ownership transitions while establishing mechanisms to maintain bonding capacity through leadership changes. This process includes designing compensation structures that retain key employees during transitions and implementing financial systems that will support the business beyond founder involvement. For family-owned construction companies, these services also navigate the delicate balance of family dynamics and business necessities.

Read More: Construction Company Transition Planning: Exploring Your Options

Each of these specialized services complements our core fractional CFO packages, allowing construction companies to customize their financial support to address specific business needs and challenges.

From Numbers to Know-How: How James Moore’s CFO Services Drive Growth

At James Moore, our professionals don’t just bring accounting and finance expertise. We also speak the language of contractors and understand the operational realities behind the numbers. It’s an approach that bridges the gap between financial advisors and construction company owners, translating complex financial data into actionable insights that drive better business decisions.

This industry-specific expertise proves particularly valuable in strategic bidding guidance, where analyzing completed projects against original estimates helps refine bidding strategies to maintain competitiveness while ensuring adequate profit margins. For ambitious, growing businesses navigating bonding, banking and prequalification requirements, this specialized knowledge allows for financial reporting and operations structured to maximize opportunities and minimize constraints.

Want to download a summary of the information in this article? Our fractional construction CFO one sheet summarizes each package discussed in this overview.

Ready to learn more about working with our fractional construction CFOs? Contact an advisor today to start the conversation.

All content provided in this article is for informational purposes only. Matters discussed in this article are subject to change. For up-to-date information on this subject please contact a James Moore professional. James Moore will not be held responsible for any claim, loss, damage or inconvenience caused as a result of any information within these pages or any information accessed through this site.