The amount of data used in baseball to find the best outcomes is nearly endless, but it’s how teams use data that makes the biggest difference. The best information wins — and it does in construction too.

How do you make the best use of the information you have? By making sure you have the right experts on your team. In baseball, that’s a great bench coach. In business, it’s a Fractional CFO.

A bench coach gives the manager advice before, during, and after the game and helps make decisions with stats and data. They’re always looking for details to give the team an edge and refining strategies to secure wins.

Just like a bench coach, a Fractional CFO makes sure that you, as the company’s leader, have the information you need to make the best decisions — and develops the strategies that will help you win.

The consequences of not knowing your business’s numbers

To create more wins for your construction business, a Fractional CFO will help you focus on three key functions:

• Estimate (Strategy)
• Execute (Playbook and practice)
• Evaluate (Reviewing video and adjusting)

This isn’t a three-step process. These fundamentals work in a cycle, always being refined and adjusted in response to each other — but only if you’ve connected them through the right systems and processes.

Estimate

Standardizing how you estimate the cost of jobs is vital to everything else you’ll do. Your accounting depends on it. Without standard measurements, you can’t track your expenses correctly, and you’ll always be guessing about where you stand. 

Accurate estimates also guide and inform your strategy, including how to competitively bid on jobs and how to forecast working capital. With solid estimates, you can understand your backlog and capacity for more work in the months ahead. A Fractional CFO knows how to bring all your data, systems and people together to see the big picture and drive strategy through your estimating process.

Execute

This is how your team puts your strategies to work every day, and that requires having the right systems in place. Many companies I’ve worked with had been spending enormous amounts of time on admin work because their systems weren’t integrated. One was able to cut payroll processing time by 50% just by integrating their labor tracking and accounting systems.

Your estimating software, project management and accounting systems should all be connected to open up communication and give everyone the real-time information they need to do their jobs well. A Fractional CFO will use their experience across many types of companies to implement and connect technologies that make it easier and faster to get the information you need.

The accurate, complete financial data you’ll get from connected systems and sound financial practices also helps you secure funds from lenders and satisfy the requirements of bonding companies. Neither of those entities wants to deal with a company that can’t keep their numbers straight.

Evaluate

With the real-time information you get from proper execution, you can evaluate where you stand more often. For many companies, month-end reports do the trick. But in construction, you’re likely doing payroll weekly, so that’s how often you should be evaluating your numbers. You’re creating the data every week — use it to your advantage.

For instance, instead of realizing you’re over-budget on a job at the end of the month, you can figure that out sooner and fix it faster. All because you’ve standardized your cost codes, set up the right systems to execute, and regularly evaluate progress. Like a bench coach recommending changes to save a game, a Fractional CFO knows how to look at the results you’re getting and tweak your strategies to improve operations and profitability.

The best information wins the game

When you add a Fractional CFO to your team, you’re bringing in someone to help you create the best strategies for the long haul, give you the stats you need to win, and examine which plays are working and which aren’t. (Watch me white board these concepts.)

With a Fractional CFO by your side, you’ll get the confidence in your numbers you’re looking for — leading to better decisions, smart shifts and smoother operations in your construction business. 

If you’re in Kansas City or St. Joseph, one of the experienced financial leaders at Crown CFO can help you be the bench coach you need to succeed and grow. Contact Kerry George at kerry@crowncfo.com to bring a trusted, expert Fractional CFO to your business.