A profitable builder can be losing money on half its jobs. Our Chartered Accountants run job costing, progress claims, retentions, work in progress and weekly cashflow by project, so the company result and the jobs finally agree.
For builders who have outgrown a bookkeeper and are not ready for a finance manager at $155,000. Typically $2,500 to $6,000 a month, $3,000 to $8,000 where the CFO work is heavier.
Company-level bookkeeping is how profitable builders lose money on half their work without seeing it. Variations done and never claimed, subcontractor invoices coded to the wrong job, a WIP schedule guessed at tax time. Bills, timesheets and subcontractor invoices are coded to jobs weekly, and the monthly pack shows margin by job.
A claim submitted three days late on a monthly cycle pushes a large receipt into the following month, which is how payroll ends up on the overdraft while the work is good. Construction accounts for more external administrations than any other Australian industry, at 27 per cent of the total in 2023-24 on ASIC's data. The 13-week forecast is built from claims, retentions, subcontractors and payroll.
The layer a bookkeeper is not providing: whether percentage complete is honest, whether a variation has been claimed, whether retention that is due has been invoiced, and whether the company result still ties to the jobs. Banks and sureties ask for the WIP schedule first, so it has to survive a question.
Every bill, timesheet, subcontractor invoice, plant charge and site overhead coded to a job in Xero, weekly. Not monthly, because a job file that is six weeks behind is useless at the moment a claim is due.
The ledger is Xero. A job management tool can feed it, and Buildxact, Fergus or a spreadsheet is fine provided everything lands in Xero against the right job. Where the job system is the only real record and Xero has been a dumping ground, making the two agree is the first job.
Clients typically get job-level margin they can act on within the first two closes.
A claims calendar so submission dates are not missed, tied directly to the cashflow forecast, and a retention register so release dates get invoiced rather than remembered.
In our experience the leakage is usually already sitting there when we arrive: work done and not claimed, variations approved and never billed, retentions due and not invoiced. The first sixty days of an engagement is when that becomes visible, and it is often the largest single item we find.
Clients typically identify unclaimed work and unbilled retentions in the first two months.
A monthly WIP schedule showing under-claim and over-claim per job, prepared from a reconciled ledger rather than estimated. Done badly, WIP makes a struggling job look profitable and a well-claimed job look worse than it is.
This is the number banks and sureties ask for first, and it is the one most likely to be challenged, so it is reviewed by a CA-qualified senior looking at whether percentage complete is defensible rather than convenient.
Clients typically get their first credible WIP schedule within two months, with the prior position restated where it was wrong.
A 13-week rolling forecast built from the claim schedule, retention releases, subcontractor payment runs and payroll, updated weekly against actuals rather than modelled once and left.
Construction is the industry where a forecast built on average receipts is most misleading, because the receipts are lumpy by design. Building it from the claim calendar is the difference between a forecast and a chart.
Clients typically get four to eight weeks of warning on a cash pinch instead of finding out in the week it happens.
Payroll on the relevant award, including allowances, casuals, apprentices and site conditions that generic payroll setups get wrong. Superannuation under Payday Super on weekly and fortnightly cycles means up to 52 super events a year rather than four.
Portable long service leave levies apply in some states and industries, and they accrue quietly. We track them where the scheme applies rather than discovering them at an audit.
Clients typically get award coverage and allowance treatment reviewed in writing in the first month.
Activity statements prepared and lodged under registered BAS Agent 26298194 from a reconciled file. Where the group runs a land entity, a building entity and a plant entity, intercompany plant hire and recharges have to agree on both sides, and payroll tax grouping often applies even where each entity sits under the threshold alone.
The monthly pack pulls it together: job margins, WIP, cash, debtors and retentions receivable, on a stated date.
Clients typically move from a company-only P&L to a pack that shows where the money actually is.
Our experts will discuss your business, your finance pain points, and the services we can offer
We take your requirements and send a fixed proposal with pricing options within 24 hours. Free, no obligation
We will schedule a kick off meeting, give access to our online communication and project management tools
Deliverables start in week one and we take the function off your plate, so you get time back to run your business the way you want
30 minutes with our team.
We'll review your current finance setup, compare the full cost of an internal hire against our embedded team, and show you exactly what your finance function should cost at your stage of growth.
You'll leave with a clear view of what's working, what's missing, and where you'd save.
No lock-in contracts. 30-day money-back guarantee.
Prefer to book directly? Grab a time here.
Most builders we take on sit between $2,500 and $6,000 per month for the complete function, driven by job count, claim volume, payroll headcount and how many entities are in the group. Heavier fractional CFO work, including lender and surety reporting, runs $3,000 to $8,000. Catch-up of a neglected job file is scoped separately.
Do not compare that to a $400 bookkeeper. Compare it to a construction-literate finance manager at $155,000 to $185,000 fully loaded plus $20,000 to $30,000 in recruitment, or to the cost of one unclaimed variation and one late claim. Market context is in our fractional CFO guide for construction companies.
Job costing is the point of the engagement. Bills, timesheets and subcontractor invoices are coded to jobs in Xero every week, and the monthly pack shows margin by job rather than only a company P&L.
Company-only bookkeeping is how profitable builders lose money on half their work without seeing it, because a strong job averages out a bad one and the total looks acceptable. The mechanics are in bookkeeping for trades and construction, and you can pressure-test a single job in the project profitability calculator for builders.
Work in progress recognises revenue as a job progresses rather than only when you invoice, showing whether each job is under-claimed or over-claimed against the work actually done.
Done badly it makes a struggling job look profitable and a well-claimed job look worse than it is. It is also the first thing a bank or a surety asks for, and the number most likely to be challenged, which is why percentage complete gets reviewed by a Chartered Accountant rather than accepted from the site. We produce it monthly from a reconciled ledger.
Work in progress recognises revenue as a job progresses rather than only when you invoice, showing whether each job is under-claimed or over-claimed against the work actually done.
Done badly it makes a struggling job look profitable and a well-claimed job look worse than it is. It is also the first thing a bank or a surety asks for, and the number most likely to be challenged, which is why percentage complete gets reviewed by a Chartered Accountant rather than accepted from the site. We produce it monthly from a reconciled ledger.
Work in progress recognises revenue as a job progresses rather than only when you invoice, showing whether each job is under-claimed or over-claimed against the work actually done.
Done badly it makes a struggling job look profitable and a well-claimed job look worse than it is. It is also the first thing a bank or a surety asks for, and the number most likely to be challenged, which is why percentage complete gets reviewed by a Chartered Accountant rather than accepted from the site. We produce it monthly from a reconciled ledger.
No. The taxable payments annual report is a registered tax agent service and we are a registered BAS Agent, not a registered tax agent.
What we do is keep subcontractor payments coded and documented so the report is straightforward, and our independent tax agent partner lodges it under an engagement they hold with you directly. If a provider tells you they will lodge your TPAR, check their registration on the Tax Practitioners Board public register before relying on it.
No. The taxable payments annual report is a registered tax agent service and we are a registered BAS Agent, not a registered tax agent.
What we do is keep subcontractor payments coded and documented so the report is straightforward, and our independent tax agent partner lodges it under an engagement they hold with you directly. If a provider tells you they will lodge your TPAR, check their registration on the Tax Practitioners Board public register before relying on it.
