Fractional CFO Services for Excavation Companies
Financial leadership for excavation, site work, and underground utility contractors doing $1M to $15M in revenue. We help you see where the cash goes between the dig and the check, know what every job and every machine really earns, and stop floating municipal work on credit cards.
Talk to a CFO Who Knows the Excavation Business
We'll look at your numbers with you and show you where the money is leaking. Free, no obligation, no pitch.
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Does Any of This Sound Familiar?
None of that means you're bad at business. Excavation is one of the most capital-heavy trades out there. Every machine carries a note, diesel and maintenance never stop, public work pays slowly, and one stuck job or one bad receivable can wipe out a month. A bookkeeper tells you what happened last month. What most excavation owners are missing is someone who looks forward and tells them what to do next.
What Fractional CFO Services Look Like for an Excavation Company
We work alongside you twice a month as your financial partner. We get your numbers right, build the tools you need to plan, and help you make the big calls on bidding, equipment, crews, debt, and cash with real numbers in front of you.
13-Week Cash Flow Forecast
A rolling forecast built from your receivables, payables, payroll, and loan payments, so you see a cash gap weeks before it hits and know when to draw on the line and when to pay it down.
Margins by Type of Work
Real gross margin for site excavation, underground utilities, septic, trucking, and boring work, split between residential, commercial, and municipal customers.
True Equipment Costs
Diesel, maintenance, and depreciation counted as job costs and spread monthly, so you know what each machine really costs to run and what to charge for it.
Billing, Retainage, and Collections
Finished work billed on time, a running list of retainage and slow payers, and receivables you can trust. Unbilled work and stale receivables are the leaks we find most.
Debt and Equipment Decisions
Every loan, line, and card mapped with its rate and payoff terms, plus clear answers on whether to finance, lease, or pay cash for the next machine.
Clean Books You Can Trust
We review your bookkeeper's work, make sure your job software and QuickBooks agree, and set up a monthly close. Every decision starts with numbers that are right.
Case Study: From a 34% Hard-Money Loan to $200K+ in the Bank
This owner bought an established excavation company with an SBA loan and quickly grew it from two crews to four, taking on bigger municipal water and sewer projects. On paper the business was profitable. In the bank, every Wednesday night he was moving every dollar he had into checking so Thursday's payroll would clear.
Municipal projects funded by federal infrastructure grants paid 60 to 90 days out, and every payment application waited on Buy America certifications from suppliers. Receivables climbed to nearly $750,000. To cover the gap, he maxed out a $250,000 line of credit and then took a $150,000 hard-money loan at 34% interest just to make payroll.
"I have a profitable company. It just feels mismanaged financially."
Owner, Midwest excavation companyWhat we did
- Split revenue into commercial excavation, residential excavation, and commercial and residential sewer, water, and septic, so margins could be seen by type of work.
- Moved equipment maintenance, project manager pay, and depreciation into job costs, spread depreciation monthly, and split diesel (a job cost) from gasoline (overhead).
- Mapped every loan with its rate, schedule, and early payoff terms.
- Built a budget and cash flow projection with debt service, tax reserves, and owner pay built in.
- Set up a 15-day monthly close with his bookkeeper.
Revenue also grew by about $900,000 over six months compared with the six before, and his margins improved quarter over quarter. Once the books were reorganized, the real margins also showed that some commercial excavation work was much thinner than the rest, which shaped his plan for the next year. Read the full excavation case study.
"Being able to have a holistic view of my business, understand where money comes in and goes, and know what I need to do from a profitability standpoint to actually have positive cash flow, that's by far the biggest takeaway."
Owner, Midwest excavation companyCase Study: Finding the Real Numbers Behind a Utility Contractor's Books
This owner spends about 90% of his time in the field and was also handling the estimating, billing, and payroll himself. His company does water and sewer mains, emergency repairs, and a fast-growing jack-and-bore business, mostly for commercial and public customers who pay on long terms. He knew the work was there. What he didn't know was what any of it was really making.
"The job costing, that's what's killing us. We don't know how much we're making on these projects or losing."
Owner, utility and trenchless contractorWhat we found in the first few months
- Receivables overstated by roughly $700,000. QuickBooks showed about $1.2 million owed to the company. After going through it line by line, the real number was about $492,000. The rest was duplicates, payments already received, and old balances.
- $24,000 of customer payments sitting in limbo. Payments held by the payment processor since the year before were found and released to the company.
- Credit cards missing from the books. The card that carried most of the company's spending had no activity in QuickBooks. All cards are now connected, categorized, and reconciled.
- Payables that weren't real. The books showed about $109,000 owed to vendors, some of it dating back years. The real figure was under $10,000.
With trustworthy numbers in place, his fractional CFO built an automated 13-week cash flow forecast that updates daily from QuickBooks and tracks every receivable, bill, and loan payment. For a business where one large public job can tie up hundreds of thousands of dollars for months, that forecast is now how he decides when to buy equipment, when to use the line of credit, and when he can afford his next hire. Getting to job-level margins is the next step.
"The biggest thing for us has been just getting our numbers, nailing down all of our costs and our burn. That's taken a huge burden off my shoulders."
Owner, utility and trenchless contractorWant to Know Where Your Excavation Company Actually Stands?
We'll walk through your cash flow, margins, and blind spots on a free call. Just an honest look at your numbers.
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What We Usually Find in the First 30 Days
Every excavation company is different, but the same money leaks show up again and again. These come from excavation and utility contractors we've worked with.
Receivables that aren't really there
Duplicate invoices, payments recorded against the wrong job, and balances nobody will ever pay. We've seen books show $1.2 million in receivables when the real number was under $500,000. You can't plan cash around money that isn't coming.
Finished work that never got billed
When the owner runs the field and the office, billing slips. Small city jobs finished months ago and large jobs running for weeks without an invoice are some of the most common cash leaks we find.
Equipment costs hiding in overhead
Maintenance, depreciation booked once a year, and diesel mixed in with gasoline all make job margins look better than they are. Moving them into job costs shows what each type of work really earns.
Expensive debt covering a timing gap
High-interest loans and maxed credit lines taken out to cover slow municipal payments. Mapping every loan's terms often turns up early payoff options, like the one that saved a client about $36,000 in interest.
Margins nobody has broken out
Site work, utilities, septic, trucking, and boring all carry different margins. When revenue sits in one line on the P&L, the thin work quietly drags down the good work.
The Numbers an Excavation CFO Watches
These are the numbers we put in front of excavation owners every month. Most of them aren't on a standard P&L.
| Number | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Gross margin by type of work | Shows which work to bid harder and which to price up or walk away from. |
| Real receivables and retainage | The money that's actually coming, and when, so you don't plan around phantom cash. |
| Weekly burn | Payroll, fuel, rent, and loan payments per week, so you know how long you can carry a slow-paying job. |
| Equipment cost per machine | Payment, fuel, maintenance, and depreciation, so your rates cover what the iron really costs. |
| Debt service and payoff terms | Every note, line, and card, with rates and early payoff options, so expensive debt goes first. |
| Break-even revenue | What you need to bill each month to cover overhead, debt, and your own pay. |
For a broader look at margins across the trades, see our guides to job costing for contractors and construction cash flow problems, or run your numbers through the free Profit Margin Checkup.
What an Excavation CFO Handles That Your Bookkeeper Can't
Public Works Cash Timing
Payment applications, Buy America paperwork, retainage, and 60 to 120 day terms, all built into your forecast so a big municipal job doesn't sink your cash.
Equipment Buy, Lease, or Finance
Whether the next machine should be financed, leased, or paid for in cash, based on what it does to your working capital.
Bidding From Real Costs
Labor, equipment, fuel, trucking, and small consumables in every bid, checked against what past jobs actually cost.
Prevailing Wage and Labor
The real cost of union and prevailing wage crews on public jobs, and whether the pricing on those jobs covers it.
Lines of Credit and Bank Relationships
Sizing the line to your receivables, preparing the financials your bank asks for, and a plan to pay it down after big collections.
Collections and Bad Debt
Who pays slowly, which balances to chase, and when a write-off or a bond claim makes more sense than another month of waiting.
Excavation Companies We Work With
We've worked with more than 100 construction and home service companies, and over 315 businesses in all. Our excavation clients typically do $1M to $15M in revenue and include:
What Trade Owners Say
"Before CEO Finance Academy we were guessing; now we run the business from a forecast. We raised our bid margins, tightened cash, and turned a messy pipeline into predictable working capital. The program literally paid for itself in months."
"Our fastest win was cleaning up AR and getting a 13-week forecast. Once we could see the weekly cash picture, collections became the priority and we stopped living paycheck to paycheck."
"I thought I needed better marketing or a bigger team. What I needed was financial control. CEO Finance Academy taught me to think like a CFO. We cleaned up cash flow, set aside tax and reserves, and I finally sleep at night knowing payroll and growth are funded."
Our team is based in Salt Lake City and Pittsburgh and works with excavation companies across the United States. Everything runs remotely through video calls, shared dashboards, and access to your accounting system, so you get the same CFO partnership wherever you are. Also see our fractional CFO services for construction companies.
Free Guides for Excavation Owners
- Case study: an excavation company goes from cash crisis to a growth plan
- Free 13-week contractor cash flow forecast template
- Job costing for contractors
- Construction cash flow problems and how to fix them
- Why you can be profitable on paper and never have cash
- How much does a fractional CFO cost?
- More client case studies
Frequently Asked Questions
A fractional CFO gives you senior financial leadership part time. For an excavation company that means a 13-week cash flow forecast built around slow municipal and GC payments, gross margin by type of work (site work, utilities, septic, trucking, boring), equipment costs counted where they belong, clean receivables, and help with decisions on equipment, crews, bidding, and debt. Most of our excavation clients do $1M to $15M in revenue.
Your bookkeeper records what already happened and your CPA files your taxes. A fractional CFO looks forward. We forecast your cash, find which work is profitable, set pricing and sales targets, and sit with you twice a month to make decisions. We also review your bookkeeper's work so the numbers you're deciding on are right.
Our fractional CFO services run $3,500 to $6,000 a month depending on complexity, such as the number of companies, crews, and lines of work and how much cleanup the books need. There is a one-time $6,000 onboarding fee for the first 30 to 60 days, when we audit your books, build your forecast and dashboard, and do a full margin review. A full-time CFO costs $200,000 to $350,000 or more a year.
Usually it's timing. You pay crews, fuel, equipment notes, and materials every week, while municipal and general contractor customers pay in 60 to 120 days and hold retainage even longer. Add unbilled work and receivables that aren't really collectible, and a profitable company can run out of cash. A 13-week cash flow forecast shows the gap before it hits.
It depends on your working capital. Paying cash for a machine can leave you short when a big job is slow to pay, while financing keeps cash available for payroll and fuel. We look at your forecast, your receivables, and the machine's expected use before you decide.
Yes. We work with site work and grading contractors, water and sewer utility contractors, septic installers, trenchless and boring companies, and excavators that run their own trucking. Public works bring their own challenges, like payment applications, Buy America paperwork, prevailing wage, and retainage, and we build those into your forecast.
Yes. We work with whatever job or field software you use alongside QuickBooks. One of the first things we check is whether the two agree, because duplicate invoices and payments recorded in the wrong place can make receivables look far bigger than they are.
We work with excavation companies throughout the United States. CFO calls, dashboards, and reporting all run remotely, so location doesn't limit what we can do for you.
Ready to Keep More of What Your Excavation Company Earns?
Book a free cash flow call. We'll look at your numbers together and show you what a fractional CFO would fix first.
Book My Free Cash Flow Call Or start with the free Profit Margin CheckupFree 30-minute call · No sales pressure · Just an honest look at your numbers
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