What a finance function in this sector actually needs.
Jobs look profitable until the final account, when retention is disputed, variations were never priced, and the margin that was bid has quietly gone. Meanwhile the surety has held the bonding limit flat for two years because the WIP schedule it receives is not one it can rely on, and nobody has asked why.
We rebuild costing at the job level with a defensible basis for percentage of completion — cost-to-cost, or units where that is more honest — and we make the estimate that won the job the benchmark it is measured against every month. Variations get priced when they are instructed, not argued about at the final account.
Retention and holdback are tracked as the receivable they actually are, with a release date against each one, because on most contractors this is the single largest pot of unrecognized cash on the balance sheet.
Then the surety relationship: a WIP schedule they can rely on, delivered on a rhythm, with the same numbers in it as your management accounts. Bonding capacity moves when the surety trusts the reporting, not when the revenue grows.
What you can do afterwards that you cannot do now.
Know a job’s real margin while there is still time to do something about it.
Give your surety a schedule they will lend against.
Collect retention on a date rather than eventually.
Matched to the sector, not the postcode.
With a named controller alongside them, a named backup on every seat, and the specialist bench behind both — all inside one fixed monthly fee.
Nobody needs all of it at once.
The diagnostic decides which two or three matter first in your business, and you keep that assessment either way.
Your sector is one conversation away from a written answer. Start with what is actually going on.
One hour on your business, with the CFO who would hold the seat rather than a salesperson. Nothing to prepare and nothing to sign. A written note back within two working days saying what we heard and what we would look at first.