Commercial Contractors
Finance built for bonded commercial work
Bonding capacity decides what you can bid. Retainage decides whether you can carry it. We run the work-in-progress schedule, the cash forecast, and the tax position that sit behind both, so the constraint on your next job is your capability rather than your paperwork.
Where commercial work is different
The problems that only show up on bonded work
A contractor carrying retainage, progress billing, and a surety relationship is not running a bigger service business. The constraints are different, and so is the reporting that keeps them visible.
Bonding capacity caps the business
Your surety decides how much work you can carry, reading your WIP schedule, your working capital, and your equity. When that picture is stale or badly presented, the ceiling arrives earlier than it should and you leave bids on the table.
Over- and under-billing hide the truth
Underbillings are work you have performed and not invoiced. Overbillings are cash you are holding against work still to do. Read the wrong way, a profitable month looks like a crisis, or a loss stays invisible until closeout.
Retainage ties up the margin
Five or ten percent of every contract sits with someone else until the job closes, sometimes long after. It is your profit, and it is not in your account, which is how a busy year and a cash squeeze happen at the same time.
The wrong method costs real money
Percentage-of-completion, completed-contract, and the exceptions between them change when you pay tax on a long job. Inheriting a method chosen years ago at a different size can accelerate tax or bring look-back interest later.
Compliance failures reach the contract
Certified payroll, prevailing wage determinations, and subcontractor classification are not bookkeeping details on public work. Getting them wrong brings back-pay liability and can put your eligibility for the next contract at risk.
How the engagement works
Advisory is the product. Compliance is the substrate underneath it.
One engagement rather than a set of tiers. The advisory layer is what you are buying, and the compliance work runs underneath it so the numbers it depends on are right.
Every month
- Work-in-progress schedule with over- and under-billing by contract
- Cash forecast built on your draw schedule and retainage, not on last year
- Contract-level margin against the estimate, while the job can still move
- Review of the month with the person who prepared it
Every quarter
- Bonding capacity review, and what would move it before the next renewal
- Working capital and equity position as your surety reads them
- Tax position against the method elections available to you
- The decisions in front of you, modelled before you have to make them
Not the product, and not an upsell. It runs underneath every engagement because the advisory work is only as good as the books beneath it.
- Job-cost accounting tied to your contracts, not a generic chart of accounts
- Percentage-of-completion revenue recognition and retainage tracking
- Certified payroll and prevailing wage where the contract calls for it
- Subcontractor compliance: W-9s, lien waivers, insurance certificates, 1099s
- AP, AR, and bank reconciliation on a close calendar you can plan around
- Financial statements formatted the way a surety and a lender expect to read them
Tax
- Method election reviewed against contract size and your revenue, since the wrong method costs real money on a long job
- Look-back where completed contracts require it
- Equipment timing planned against income, before year end rather than at filing
- Entity structure and owner compensation, documented to survive an exam
- Multi-state exposure as work crosses lines
What decides how deep the advisory layer goes
What an engagement costs is decided by your contract volume, how many entities and payroll states you carry, and how much of the compliance substrate sits with us rather than in-house. We scope it against your actual numbers and put it in writing before you commit. There is no rate card, because there is no version of this work that is the same for two contractors.
Scope your engagementSome contractors are not ready for the advisory layer and need the substrate on its own. That engagement exists, and it works best as a bridge to the full engagement rather than as a destination. If that is the honest answer for where you are, we will say so.
The work in detail
Where each part of it goes deeper
WIP and bonding capacity
Over- and under-billing, the schedule your surety actually reads, and what moves your capacity before the next renewal.
Subcontractor compliance
Certified payroll, prevailing wage, lien waivers, insurance certificates, and the classification exposure that surfaces at audit.
CFO advisory
Cash forecasting on draws and retainage, contract margin against estimate, and the decisions modelled before you commit.
Construction tax
Method election, look-back, equipment timing, entity structure, and multi-state exposure as the work crosses lines.
For surety agents and advisors
If you are an agent looking at a contractor whose submission will not support the capacity he is asking for, there is a page written for you rather than for him.
What we do with that contractorNot carrying bonded work yet?
If you are running service and install work with a crew rather than bidding bonded contracts, the trades engagement is built for that, and it is a different shape. It is organised around four stages, by the size of your payroll. If you are not sure which side you are on, six questions will tell you.
Questions
What contractors ask before they move
What does a construction CFO do that my accountant does not?
Your accountant reports what happened. The advisory layer is forward-looking: a work-in-progress schedule that shows over- and under-billing while a job can still be corrected, a cash forecast built on your actual draw and retainage schedule, and contract margin measured against the estimate rather than discovered at closeout. The compliance work still happens underneath, but it is the substrate rather than the product.
How does WIP reporting affect bonding capacity?
A surety reads your work-in-progress schedule, your working capital, and your equity to decide how much work you can carry. Underbillings look like money you have spent but not invoiced, and they weaken the picture. A clean, current WIP schedule presented the way an underwriter expects to read it is often the difference between the capacity you have and the capacity you need for the next bid.
Which revenue recognition method should a commercial contractor use?
It depends on contract length, your average contract size, and your revenue, and the thresholds move. Choosing wrong can accelerate tax on jobs you have not finished or leave you filing look-back interest later. It is worth deciding deliberately with your actual contract mix in front of you rather than inheriting whatever method was set up years ago.
Do you handle certified payroll and prevailing wage?
Yes. Public and government-funded work carries certified payroll reporting and wage determinations that vary by trade and locality. Getting it wrong brings back-pay liability and can put future contract eligibility at risk, so it runs as part of the compliance substrate rather than as a service you have to remember to ask for.
We are growing out of our current setup. When is the right time to move?
The usual signals are a first bonded or bid project, retainage appearing on contracts, progress billing or AIA, prevailing wage work, a second entity, or a second payroll state. Any one of those changes what your books have to do. If you are seeing them for the first time, the honest answer may be that you are between stages, and we will tell you that rather than sell you the larger engagement.
Find out what your bonding position actually looks like
Bring your current WIP schedule and your last two years of statements. We will tell you what a surety sees, what is holding your capacity down, and what the work to fix it looks like. If we are not the right fit, we will say that too.
Talk through your position