Fractional CFO Services for Roofing Companies
Financial leadership for residential, insurance, and commercial roofing contractors doing $1M to $15M in revenue. We help you see where the cash goes between the deposit and the final payment, know your margin on every type of job, and turn a busy storm season into money you actually keep.
Talk to a CFO Who Knows the Roofing 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. Roofing is one of the most cash-hungry trades there is. Materials can be a third or more of every job and get paid up front, insurance work stretches collections out for months, weather sets your calendar, and one big storm year can hide problems that show up the next. A bookkeeper tells you what happened last month. What most roofing owners are missing is someone who looks forward and tells them what to do next.
What Fractional CFO Services Look Like for a Roofing 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 pricing, deposits, crews, equipment, and cash with real numbers in front of you.
Cash Flow Forecast Built Around Your Season
A rolling forecast that maps deposits, material buys, crew and sub payments, insurance checks, and slow winter months, so you see a cash gap months ahead instead of at payroll.
Margins by Type of Job
Real gross margin for retail re-roofs, insurance restoration, commercial, repairs, and add-ons like siding, gutters, and windows. Most owners find one line carrying the company and another quietly losing money.
Deposits and Payment Terms
Deposit and draw schedules that cover your material costs, so customers fund their own jobs instead of your line of credit funding them.
Clean Books You Can Trust
We review your bookkeeper's work, make sure your CRM and QuickBooks agree, clean up customer deposits and job closeouts, and set up a monthly close.
Sales Commissions and Sub Costs
Commissions, subcontractor crews, and material costs counted where they belong, so gross margin shows the true cost of every job and you can price accordingly.
Break-Even and Growth Targets
The revenue you need to cover overhead, your own pay, debt, and reserves, plus what it takes to hit your profit goal. It turns "should we add a crew or a territory?" into a math question.
Case Study: From "QuickBooks Says $75K" to a 36% Margin and $200K in Reserves
This owner built his roofing franchise from zero to over $6 million in three years and was named Franchise of the Year. Inside the business, the numbers told a different story. He had gone through four bookkeepers in three years, customer deposits on the balance sheet had ballooned past $700,000, and his P&L swung by hundreds of thousands of dollars from month to month with no explanation.
"My QuickBooks says our net profit for the year is $75,000 out of $3.6 million in sales. That's not good."
Owner, residential roofing franchiseThe books weren't broken in one dramatic way. They were broken in dozens of small ones. Sales commissions weren't counted as a job cost. Franchise royalties were tangled up with rebates that had changed structure three times. A previous bookkeeper had booked a $349,000 depreciation adjustment with no explanation. And years of completed jobs had never been closed out against their deposits.
What we did
- Audited QuickBooks line by line and reconciled customer deposits job by job.
- Separated materials, sub labor, commissions, and royalties so gross margin showed the real cost of each job, tracked by roofing, siding, gutters, and windows.
- Mapped baseline expenses, which turned up $180,000 a year of marketing spread across a dozen channels.
- Set up a monthly cash allocation routine and funded separate tax and reserve accounts.
- Replaced a $3,000-a-month bookkeeping service with a local bookkeeper at about $500 a month, with us reviewing the work.
- Built a capacity analysis that showed the bottleneck wasn't sales. It was the two supervisors running job sites.
Once the royalty rebates and one-time entries were sorted out, the business was running closer to an 8% net margin, not the 2% QuickBooks suggested. The owner went on to post a record $845,000 sales month and is expanding into new territories. Today he gets a financial summary every Friday and reviews budget versus actual with his CFO twice a month. Read the full roofing franchise case study.
"If that truly is how the CFO thing works, where I can just say, 'Hey, work with the bookkeeper, let me know what your questions are, we'll meet twice a month,' and that's my bookkeeping involvement? Sign me up."
Owner, residential roofing franchiseCase Study: An $8M Roofer Adjusting After the Storm Years
This long-established roofer had grown on insurance work, which made up the large majority of revenue during a run of big storm years. When the storms slowed down, insurance work dropped to a small share of the business and revenue came down with it. The owner pivoted to retail pricing and commercial work, but he was paying for materials and labor long before customers paid, floating jobs on a line of credit, and working from books he couldn't fully trust.
What we found and fixed
- Deposits raised from 25% to 40%. We showed him how much of each job he was financing himself. He changed his deposit policy right after that call.
- A bank balance overstated by about $157,000. The books showed far more cash than the bank account actually held, because the switch to accrual accounting had only been done halfway.
- A $78,000 vendor payment that never went out, held up in the bill-pay app, plus duplicate transactions and a 401(k) contribution missing from the P&L.
- A break-even and profit target. We built the revenue he needs to cover overhead and debt, plus the monthly sales target that hits his profit goal.
- A monthly cash routine he can run in under an hour, with a three-question review of what came in, what went out, and where it goes next.
His gross margin moved from about 27% to about 31% over the year by our calculation, helped by his own shift to retail pricing and higher-grade shingles. Market slowdowns don't fix themselves overnight, and 2025 started as a rebuilding year. The difference is that he can now see exactly where he stands each month. He moved from our coaching program into ongoing fractional CFO services to keep it that way.
"What you put together holds my bookkeeper and accountant's feet to the fire."
Owner, Midwest roofing and exteriors companyWant to Know Where Your Roofing 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 roofing company is different, but the same money leaks show up again and again. These come from roofing and exterior contractors we've worked with.
Customer deposits nobody closed out
When jobs finish but their deposits never get matched to the final invoice, the balance sheet fills up with phantom liabilities. One franchise had over $700,000 in customer deposits on the books, and the real number was closer to $441,000.
Deposits too small to cover materials
A 25% deposit on a job where materials run 35% to 40% means you're financing every roof yourself. Raising deposits is often the fastest cash win available, and customers rarely push back.
Commissions and royalties in the wrong place
When sales commissions or franchise royalties sit in overhead instead of job costs, gross margin looks better than it is and you price jobs too thin. Moving them where they belong tells you what each job really earns.
Books and bank that don't match
We've seen books showing $157,000 more in the bank than actually existed, vendor payments stuck in bill-pay apps, and a bookkeeping service charging $3,000 a month for books the owner still couldn't use.
A good year hiding a bad trend
Storm years can carry a company for a long time. Breaking revenue and margin out by insurance, retail, commercial, and repair work shows you what the business looks like without the storms, before it shows up in the bank account.
Roofing Profit Margin Benchmarks
Here is where roofing companies typically land. Net margin is after overhead and a real salary for the owner.
| Metric | Average | Strong | Best in class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross profit margin | 30% to 35% | 35% to 42% | 42% to 50%+ |
| Net profit margin | 5% to 8% | 8% to 12% | 12% to 15%+ |
| Overhead as % of revenue | 28% to 35% | 22% to 28% | Under 22% |
| Materials as % of revenue | 32% to 40% | 26% to 32% | Under 26% |
Margins also vary a lot by type of work. Residential repair often runs 45% to 55% gross, while insurance restoration lands closer to 30% to 40% and large commercial jobs 20% to 30%. For the full breakdown by job type and revenue size, see our guide to roofing company profit margins, or run your own numbers through the free Profit Margin Checkup.
What a Roofing CFO Handles That Your Bookkeeper Can't
Storm and Seasonal Cash Planning
How much to set aside in the busy months to carry the slow ones, and what happens to your cash if next year brings fewer storms.
Insurance Receivables
Tracking supplements, depreciation holdbacks, and mortgage-company checks, so insurance jobs don't sit unpaid for months unnoticed.
Retail vs. Insurance Pricing
What each kind of job really earns after commissions and materials, and whether your retail pricing covers the overhead the storm work used to.
Crews, Subs, and Supervisors
The real cost of W-2 crews versus subs, and capacity planning that shows whether your next hire should be a salesperson, a crew, or a supervisor.
Equipment, Real Estate, and Debt
Buy or outsource metal fabrication, lease or buy the shop, and a payoff plan for the line of credit and supplier balances.
Commercial Billing
Deposits, progress billing, change orders, and retainage on commercial jobs, so general contractors and property managers don't become your bank.
Roofing Companies We Work With
We've worked with more than 100 construction and home service companies, and over 315 businesses in all. Our roofing clients typically do $1M to $15M in revenue and include:
What Trade Owners Say
"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."
"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."
"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 roofing 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 Roofing Owners
- Roofing company profit margins: 2026 benchmarks
- Roofing working capital: how much you actually need
- Case study: a $6M roofing franchise gets real financial visibility
- Job costing for contractors
- 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 a roofing company that means a cash flow forecast built around deposits, material buys, insurance checks, and the slow season, gross margin by type of job (retail re-roofs, insurance restoration, commercial, repairs, and exteriors), deposit and payment terms that cover your costs, clean books, and help with decisions on crews, territories, equipment, and debt. Most of our roofing 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 jobs are 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, locations, 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.
A strong roofing company runs a 35% to 42% gross margin and an 8% to 12% net margin after overhead and a real owner salary. Best-in-class companies reach 12% to 15% net or more. The average company nets about 5% to 8%. Margins vary by job type: repair work runs higher, while insurance and large commercial jobs run lower.
Enough to cover your materials at minimum. Materials often run 32% to 40% of a roofing job, so a 25% deposit means you're financing part of every roof yourself. Many of our clients collect 40% to 50% up front, and one raised deposits from 25% to 40% with no real pushback from customers.
Yes. We work with retail re-roofing companies, insurance and storm restoration contractors, commercial roofers, franchises, and exterior companies that add siding, gutters, and windows. Insurance work and commercial jobs each bring their own cash challenges, from supplements and depreciation holdbacks to progress billing and retainage, and we build those into your forecast.
Yes. We work with whatever CRM you use alongside QuickBooks. One of the first things we check is whether the two agree, because a bad sync or jobs that never get closed out can leave you with phantom customer deposits and a P&L you can't trust.
We work with roofing 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 Roofing 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