Plumbing
Service-vs-install profitability is usually misaligned: install margins look higher on paper, but service is where the recurring cash flow lives. We help right-size the balance and price accordingly.
Specialty trades
Fractional CFO Services for Specialty Contractors
Strategic finance for plumbing, HVAC, electrical, landscaping, and roofing contractors.
The trades make up most of our client book. We understand the specific financial realities of specialty contracting, and the levers that actually move the number.
Specialty trades run differently
A specialty contracting business isn't just a small GC.
Specialty trades have their own shape. You're running a mobile workforce. You've got service revenue and install revenue with totally different margin profiles. Your parts markup is a lever. Your technician utilization is the number that actually decides profitability, and almost nobody tracks it right.
A generic fractional CFO sees your P&L as a services business and walks away. A construction-focused fractional CFO that gets the service model sees where the real money is hiding, and where it's leaking.
What we solve
The financial realities of a specialty trade business
- Technician utilization: the single biggest driver of profitability, and the hardest to measure
- Service vs. install profitability split: most shops have these blended when they should be separate
- Parts margin strategy and inventory carrying costs
- Warranty claims and callback costs eating margin on otherwise-profitable jobs
- Recurring service revenue modeling: the real economics of maintenance agreements
- Scheduling and dispatch efficiency: the gap between scheduled hours and billable hours
- Multi-truck and mobile workforce operations: how to scale without losing job costing accuracy
- Seasonal and demand-based cash flow planning
By trade
Same playbook, tuned to the trade you run
Every specialty has its own mix of levers. Here's where the money usually is in each.
HVAC
Seasonality, maintenance plan economics, and equipment financing for bigger install jobs are the three levers that decide an HVAC company's financial health. All three are tunable.
Electrical
Job costing is make-or-break. Wire and material prices swing, change orders pile up, and margin leaks happen on the material side. Tight job costing is the difference between a profitable shop and a busy one.
Landscaping
Seasonal peaks, labor planning, and the structural question of recurring maintenance contracts versus one-off installs. The answer shapes the entire financial model.
Roofing
Insurance work, storm-chasing cash flow cycles, and crew capacity planning during peak damage seasons. Cash management discipline is what separates roofers that survive slow years from the ones that don't.
How we help specialty contractors
CFO work that's sized to a specialty shop
We set up correct job costing for your specific trade, separate service and install P&Ls so you can see what's actually happening on each side, build a utilization tracker that your dispatcher will actually use, and put a cash flow forecast in place that accounts for seasonality and the specific collection patterns of your trade.
On the strategic side: pricing strategy by service type, crew and truck capacity planning, parts margin optimization, and recurring-service model design if that's a lane you want to grow.
Related
General contractors & builders
If you're a GC or builder rather than a specialty shop, our construction page covers the core engagement model: WIP, retainage, bonding, and job costing.
See construction servicesFlagship service
Fractional CFO for specialty contractors
Monthly CFO work designed for specialty trade businesses: utilization, service-vs-install, cash flow, and growth planning.
See fractional CFO servicesFrequently asked questions
Common questions, honestly answered
Probably not, if you're growing. Most two-truck shops are about to become three-truck shops, and the decisions around that (hiring, financing, pricing, dispatch structure) are exactly where a fractional CFO pays for itself. At this stage it's about setting up the foundation before the scaling happens.
Utilization is the percentage of your technicians' paid hours that are actually billable. Most shops run 40-60% utilization without realizing it; they're paying for an eight-hour day and billing four. Every point of utilization is direct margin, which is why it's the single biggest lever in the trades.
Yes. These tools hold the operating data; our job is making sure it flows into the accounting system so your financials actually reflect reality. We integrate with the major field service management tools routinely.
Maintenance agreements should be deferred revenue on the balance sheet, not booked as income on day one. Most shops have this wrong, which makes both profitability and cash flow look very different from reality. Getting it right is table stakes for the financial picture you actually need to run the business.
All the trades. We have hands-on experience across plumbing, HVAC, electrical, landscaping, roofing, and other specialty work. The business models differ, but the core CFO work (utilization, job costing, cash flow, pricing) applies across all of them.
Let's talk about your shop
Ready to run the trade business by the numbers?
A free 30-minute call. Tell us about your shop and what's nagging at you. We'll give you a real read on whether we're the right fit.