Fractional Controller for Construction Companies
Construction controllers for the month-end close, WIP schedule, job cost, AIA billing, retainage and surety-ready financial statements.
Construction Controllers
Every Number a Contractor Reports Rests on the Cost to Complete.
Revenue, gross profit, over- and under-billings and the balance sheet your surety underwrites all move with that number. The controller is the person who makes it defensible, job by job, every month.
A fractional controller from Vessel runs the close on construction terms, owns job cost and the WIP schedule, keeps billing, retainage and lien waivers reconciled, and produces statements a surety and a bank can underwrite. It is controller-level work, scaled to the size of the business and supported by staff accounting where the volume calls for it.
We work with general contractors and specialty contractors across commercial, civil, residential and trade work. The Controllers on our vetted bench have run finance inside contractors, so fade, retention and pay apps are familiar ground from the start.
How can we help?
What’s going on in your business and where would you like help?
An Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Company for two consecutive years.
When to Bring One In
These Are the Signs the Business Has Outgrown Its Bookkeeper.
Most contractors reach this point during a growth year, when the field is busiest and the office has the least time to fix anything.
The owner builds the WIP schedule.
It lives in a spreadsheet only one person understands, it gets rebuilt from scratch at year end, and the numbers change when the CPA asks questions.
Job cost and the general ledger disagree.
The job cost report says one margin and the financial statements say another, and nobody in the office can explain the difference line by line.
The surety asks for more than the office can produce.
A larger bond program means CPA-reviewed or audited statements, a WIP schedule that ties to them, and interim financials on a schedule. The current process delivers them late or not at all.
Change orders get performed before they get billed.
Extra work is approved in the field, papered weeks later, and some of it never reaches a pay app. The margin leaks out one job at a time.
The close finishes when it finishes.
Financials arrive late in the following month, after the decisions they should have informed. Leadership bids the next job off last quarter's numbers.
The controller left.
The knowledge of how the jobs were set up, how retainage was tracked and how the WIP was built walked out the door. We cover that gap and rebuild the documentation behind it.
What the Controller Owns
A Construction Controller Owns Six Things Every Month.
The month-end close, on construction terms
Cutoff on subcontractor pay apps and supplier invoices, accruals for committed costs that have not been billed yet, equipment and overhead allocated to jobs, and a close calendar the project managers know and keep.
The WIP schedule and percentage of completion
Contract value, approved and pending change orders, cost to date, estimated cost to complete and earned revenue for every open job, with over- and under-billings posted to the balance sheet and gross profit fade tracked month over month.
Job cost integrity
A cost code structure the field can use, labor burden that includes payroll taxes, benefits and workers' comp, committed costs from open subcontracts and purchase orders, and a job cost ledger that reconciles to the general ledger every month.
Billing, retainage and cash
AIA G702/G703 pay applications and schedules of values, retainage receivable and payable tracked by job, change orders moved from the field to the invoice, and a rolling cash forecast built around owner and GC payment cycles.
Lien waivers and subcontractor compliance
Conditional and unconditional waivers exchanged with every payment, certificates of insurance current before anyone mobilizes, and certified payroll on prevailing wage work, weekly on federal Davis-Bacon jobs, with the fringe calculations that go with it.
The surety and bank package
Interim financials and the WIP schedule on the calendar your surety expects, covenant compliance for the bank, and year-end books prepared so the CPA review or audit goes quickly and the opinion arrives on time.
The Close
The Close Runs in This Order for a Reason.
Each step depends on the one before it. A WIP schedule built on an incomplete cutoff produces a confident, wrong answer.
Cut off costs and capture commitments.
Subcontractor pay apps, supplier invoices, payroll and equipment charges posted to the right jobs, with accruals for work performed and not yet billed to us.
Reconcile job cost to the general ledger.
Every dollar of cost on the job cost report appears in the financial statements, and every difference has an explanation.
Review cost to complete with the project managers.
Job by job, with the estimate, the schedule and the open change orders in front of everyone. This is where fade is caught while there is still time to act on it.
Build the WIP schedule and book the adjustment.
Earned revenue by the cost-to-cost method, over- and under-billings posted, and gross profit compared with last month's estimate for every open job.
Reconcile billings, retainage and waivers.
Pay apps agree to the schedule of values, retainage agrees by job, and the lien waiver log matches the payments that went out.
Deliver one package to leadership, the bank and the surety.
Financial statements, the WIP schedule, job margins, cash forecast and covenant calculations, telling the same story to every reader.
Where It Goes Wrong
Most WIP Problems Start With the Cost to Complete.
Percentage of completion rewards optimism. If the estimated cost to complete is too low, the job looks further along and more profitable than it is, and the business recognizes profit it has not earned.
The correction arrives late in the job as fade: gross profit that was reported in earlier months comes back out when the true cost surfaces. By then it lands in a single month, on a job that may already be closed out, and it lands on the surety's desk as a surprise.
Under-billings deserve the same scrutiny. A surety reads a growing under-billed balance as unapproved change orders, billing that has fallen behind the work, or cost overruns not yet recognized. Sometimes it is timing. The controller's job is to know which, job by job, before the surety asks.
The fix is a monthly discipline: an honest cost-to-complete review with the people running the work, and a WIP schedule that shows fade as soon as it starts.
Book and Tax
Book and Tax Can Use Different Revenue Methods.
For the financial statements a surety and bank read, GAAP revenue on most construction contracts is recognized over time under ASC 606, typically measured by the cost-to-cost input method that drives the WIP schedule.
Tax can follow a different method. Section 460 generally requires the percentage-of-completion method for long-term contracts, but the small construction contract exception in Section 460(e)(1)(B) covers contracts expected to be completed within two years by a contractor that meets the Section 448(c) gross receipts test. For tax years beginning in 2026, that test is average annual gross receipts of $32 million or less over the prior three years. Contractors under the threshold may be able to use the completed-contract or another permitted method for tax.
The method is your CPA's call. Keeping both sets of numbers straight, so the tax method never leaks into the statements the surety underwrites, is the controller's.
Controller, CFO, CPA, Bookkeeper
Each Role Answers a Different Question About the Business.
Were the transactions recorded?
Enters bills, runs payroll, deposits checks and reconciles the bank. Essential work, and it stops before job cost, WIP and cutoff.
Are the numbers right, and on time?
Owns the close, job cost, the WIP schedule, billing and retainage, and the reporting package. Supervises the bookkeeper and staff accountants and answers for the accuracy of what leaves the building.
What should the business do next?
Bonding strategy, bank relationships, bid pricing and overhead recovery, backlog and growth planning. The CFO depends on the controller's numbers to make those calls.
Do the statements hold up to independent review?
Tax returns, the review or audit, and the accounting method elections. The CPA reviews the finance function from outside once a year.
Many contractors between $5 million and $40 million in revenue need controller-level work before they can justify a full-time controller. A fractional controller covers that gap.
Construction Case Studies
Contractors Grew Faster Than Their Back Offices, and Here Is What Changed.
Electrical Contractor
The Field Was Ready. The Books Weren't.
A $6M electrical contractor with a strong pipeline and unprepared accounting. Financial infrastructure modernization enabled an $18M+ growth trajectory.
Underground Utility & Civil
Revenue Tripled in Twelve Months. The Back Office Didn't.
An $8M utility contractor tripled revenue while accounting stayed manual. The bench caught the back office up with the field.
Electrical Contractor
Strong in the Field. Blind in the Back Office.
A $12.5M electrical contractor with a strong reputation, a growing portfolio, and an owner doing the CFO work the business had no CFO to do.
Commercial Construction
Built to $110M. The Finance Function Never Got the Memo.
A commercial contractor scaled to $110M without the finance function evolving with it. A CFO Power Team aligned operations with the growth trajectory.
"I thought high-level, strategic financial insights were a 'nice to have' — but now after working with a Vessel Advisors CFO and Controller, I couldn't put a price on it. It's been excessively valuable."
Adam Beamish
President, Mark Beamish Waterproofing
"Vessel doesn't just agree with me; they provide the honest, expert guidance I need to make informed decisions. They have operated as a natural extension of our team, and the confidence I now have in our numbers is a total game-changer."
Matt Lovingier
President, JMH Engineering & Construction
Systems
We Work in the Construction Systems You Already Run.
Sage, Viewpoint, Foundation, Procore and QuickBooks Enterprise. The controller works in the platform you have and configures the parts that are licensed and unused before anyone discusses replacing it.
The most common gap sits between systems: project management in one place, accounting in another, and a spreadsheet carrying cost to complete in between. Closing that gap usually means a cost code structure both sides share and a monthly reconciliation, rather than new software.
Common Questions
Contractors Ask These Questions Before They Bring In a Controller.
What does a fractional controller do for a construction company?
A fractional controller runs the month-end close, owns job cost and the WIP schedule, keeps billing, retainage and lien waivers reconciled, and produces the financial package leadership, the bank and the surety rely on. It is the same work a full-time construction controller does, delivered part time and scaled to the size of the business.
When does a contractor need a controller instead of a bookkeeper?
When the WIP schedule, job cost and the financial statements need to agree every month. The usual triggers are a larger bond program, a bank asking for reviewed or audited statements, job cost that no longer ties to the ledger, a growth year the office cannot keep up with, or a controller departure.
Can a fractional controller prepare the WIP schedule for our surety?
Yes. The controller builds the WIP schedule monthly from the cost-to-complete review with your project managers, ties it to the financial statements, and delivers it with interim financials on the schedule your surety expects. At year end, the controller prepares the books so the CPA review or audit goes quickly.
What is the difference between a construction controller and a construction CFO?
The controller makes sure the numbers are right and on time: the close, job cost, WIP, billing and reporting. The CFO uses those numbers to make forward-looking decisions about bonding, banking, bid pricing and growth. Many contractors need the controller first. We deploy either role, or both together.
Do you work with specialty and trade contractors as well as general contractors?
Yes. We work with general contractors and with specialty contractors, including electrical, mechanical, civil and utility, and other trades. Specialty contractors carry their own controller priorities: labor burden, cash tied to GC payment cycles, and change orders that have to reach the invoice.
How does an engagement start?
Some contractors know they need a controller and start there. Others start with the Financial Discovery Assessment, which shows where the finance function stands across systems, processes and people and recommends the team the business needs, whether that is a controller, a CFO, staff accounting or a combination.
Our Proprietary Diagnostic
The Financial Discovery Assessment shows you what’s working, what’s missing, and the plan to get where the business needs to go.
Every Assessment applies the same structured examination — accounting systems and technology, processes and procedures, team members and team structure, and team-member will-skill — refined across hundreds of engagements in businesses that look like yours.
The output is the Financial Heat Map System: dollarized findings, hidden inefficiencies, and a sequenced plan. It’s presented at the Executive Action Meeting, where your stakeholders review findings and recommendations in non-clinical, non-technical language they can act on.
We’ve walked into hundreds of businesses at the stage yours is in now. We know where to look. We know how to fix what we find.
Prefer to call? 866-324-4473