For fractional CFOs
You're the advisor. Someone still has to run the function.
You’re sitting with the president on growth, capital, risk, and the next hire. Meanwhile someone has to close the books, run accounts payable, process payroll, chase subcontractor documentation, and build the WIP schedule your entire analysis depends on.
Most advisory firms are too small to staff that, and don't want to be. The result is an advisor spending half their engagement on data cleanup instead of advice.
The function
What we run
Accrual books maintained alongside cash for tax. Job costing that reconciles to the field, with receipts and time captured at source. Monthly WIP with over and under billings identified. Retainage aged by contract. AP with lien waiver control. Payroll coded to classification at the time entry level. Subcontractor compliance maintained continuously.
You get numbers you can work from on the first of the month rather than reconstructing them yourself.
The awkward question
Where the line is, honestly
We do carry an advisory layer: rolling cash forecast against WIP and draw schedules, underbilled position tracked monthly, job fade flagged at 40 and 70 percent complete. It comes out of running the function, not out of a separate strategic engagement.
For a client who already has you, that's reporting, not competition. For a client who has neither, we'd be the only advisor in the room.
We'll tell you which situation we think we're in on the first call rather than three months in. If it's the second and you want the seat, take it. We'd rather run the function under an advisor who trusts us than win a strategy engagement and lose the referral source.
Where the line is
What we don't do
We don't pitch your service to your client. We report into you if that's how you want it structured, including having deliverables come to you rather than to the owner.
No fees either direction
We don't pay for referrals and we don't accept them. Our client rewards program is for contractors referring contractors and does not extend to professional partners.
Who we are
Tom Woolley, Founder
Today CFO is a construction accounting and advisory firm in Houston serving commercial contractors nationally.
Tom Woolley founded the firm after a prior software company exit. Before that he spent nearly six years at Nabors Industries, running job costing and logistics for construction. He traveled internationally to monitor builds, vendor supply chains, inventory, and job profitability in the field.
He holds an MBA rather than a CPA, and the orientation is deliberate: an operator's practice built around the finance function, not a compliance practice that added advisory later. Attest work goes to a CPA firm. Returns are reviewed and signed by credentialed preparers.
Most of our construction clients are commercial contractors. Not construction adjacent, not residential remodelers.
We run the whole function remotely from Houston. Job costing, field receipt capture, accounts payable through Bill.com, and the subcontractor documentation an insurance audit asks for.
We work in QuickBooks Online and Xero, and rebuild the chart of accounts for job-level reporting when it isn't already.
Talk to us about a client
Tell us where the engagement is losing time to data cleanup. We can be specific about what we would take off you and what would stay yours.
Talk to us about a client