Today CFO

Call Directions Website Contact the business

Today CFO Where strategy beats the IRS. Today CFO are leaders in the accounting and tax industry by establishing the internet's first Operational Accounting service.

Your traditional accountant works with outdated financials mostly for data entry and compliance, and rarely provides advice or recommendations to better your business. Your Today CFO Operational Accountant is trained to learn your goals then think and act with a proactive approach to protect you and your business. By rolling up our sleeves, we get to understand your business from the inside, on top and underneath in a way your traditional accountant never can. Our clients are highly agile, more competitive, and better equipped to handle rapidly changing economies.

Fade does not arrive at closeout. It shows up around forty percent complete and nobody is looking.Here is one contract, ...
09/16/2026

Fade does not arrive at closeout. It shows up around forty percent complete and nobody is looking.

Here is one contract, four months. Bid at 23.7%. Today it is running 14%.

Nothing dramatic happened. Total estimated cost drifted up $89K across four months.

A little rework, a change order performed and never approved some overtime to hold the schedule. Each one small enough that nobody raised it.

The thing is, this was visible in April. Margin had already dropped four points and the job was only 40% done.

There was still 60% of the work left to manage differently.

By June the job is 70% complete.

You can see the problem clearly now and there is almost nothing left to do about it.

The rest of the cost is already committed. That is the whole argument for a monthly schedule.

Not reporting. Reaction time. A schedule built once a year for the bonding renewal cannot show this, because fade only exist in the comparison.

One snapshot shows you a number. Four snapshots show you a direction.

Two checkpoints worth putting on the calendar: 40% complete and 70% complete.

At 40 you can still change the outcome. At 70 you are documenting it.

Who runs that check on your open jobs, and how often?

Your foreman says the job made money.The P&L says it lost $11,000.They are both looking at real numbers. Only one of the...
09/14/2026

Your foreman says the job made money.

The P&L says it lost $11,000.

They are both looking at real numbers. Only one of them is complete. Here is a job reporting 12.8% margin. Labor, material and subcontract all coded correctly.

Nothing wrong with the entries.

What is missing is on the right. $24,000 on equipment cost and labor burden sitting in an overheard pool, never allocated to any job. It has to land somewhere.

If it does not land on the job that consumed it, it lands on the bottom line and nobody can trace it back.

Real margin on this job is 4.7%

The consequence is not reporting. It is that your bid multiplier gets set from the 12.8% number. So you bid the next one like it earns 12.8, and the crew runs it exactly the way they ran this one.

Where does equipment cost land in your books, the job or the overhead pool?

09/11/2026

The first thing your underwrite reads is not the P&L.

It is the WIP schedule, and specifically three columns: cost to complete, over and under billing, and weather percent complete moved in a direction that makes sense since last quarter.

The P&L tells them what already happened. The WIP tells them weather the contractor knows what is happening right now, Those are different questions and only one of them predicts a claim.

Which is why the annual reconstruction is such a hard submission to defend. A schedule built in Excel over a weekend in February, describing jobs that closed in October, is a historical document it cannot show fade, because fade only appears when you look at the same contract month over month.

The submissions that move limits are the ones where the schedule is a byproduct of the monthly close instead of a project.

The contractor is not producing it for you. He is producing it because he uses it, and you are getting a copy.

Producers, honest question.

What is the one item you end up chasing on nearly every submission?

This WIP schedule balances. It is still wrong. Look at job 3. Costs incurred went from $310K in March to $520K today. Es...
09/09/2026

This WIP schedule balances. It is still wrong. Look at job 3. Costs incurred went from $310K in March to $520K today. Estimated cost to complete never moves off $180K.Nobody revised the estimate. And because percent complete is calculated cost to cost, the schedule is not reporting 74% on a job that is not 74% done. it is reporting how much has been spent and calling it progress. that is fade. It's invisible on a schedule that gets built once a year for the bonding renewal, because fade only exist in the comparison. one snapshot cannot show it. Same contract, month over month, is the only place it appears. The check takes ten minutes and does not require an accountant. Pull your open jobs. For each one, ask your estimator when he last revised cost to complete. If the answer is "at bid," the schedule is not telling you what you think it is. Because by the time this shows up at closeout, the estimate is spent, the crew is on the next job, and there is nothing left to do about it. Job 3 still has $390K to bill and the margin to cover is already gone. When did someone last revise cost to complete on your open work.

09/04/2026

Ask your accountant what they recommended about your accounting method for long-term contracts.
Then listen to the pause.
Most contactors under the revenue threshold have a real choice about how they recognize contract income. Completed contract, percentage of completion, cash, accrual. The choice moves when income lands, sometimes by a full year.
It is worth more than every deduction conversation combined, and it recurs every single year.
If nobody has raised it with you, that is not because your accountant is bad. It's because contract accounting is a specialty and most firms do not carry it.
Here is the part that matters. "I like my accountant" and "my accountant is producing results for me" are two different statements. The first on is about the relationship. The second one is about what showed up this year.
You can like someone and still be leaving the method question on the table.
So ask them. What did you recommend about my method for long-term contracts, and why?
If you get an answer, good. That is one less thing to worry about. If you get a pause, you learned something.
Contractors: has anyone ever brough this up with you?

09/02/2026

The first thing your underwriter reads is not the P&L.
It's the WIP schedule, and specifically three columns: cost to complete, over and under billings, and whether percent complete moved in a direction that makes sense since last quarter.
The P&L tells them what already happened. The WIP tells them whether the contractor knows what is happening right now. Those are different questions and only one of them predicts a claim.
Which is why the annual reconstruction is such a hard submission to defend. A schedule built in Excel over a weekend in February, describing jobs that closed in October, is a historical document. It cannot show fade, because fade only appears when you look at the same contract month over month.
The submissions that move limits are the ones where the schedule is a byproduct of the monthly close instead of a project. The contractor is not producing it for you. He is producing it because he uses it, and you are getting a copy.
Producers, honest question. What is the one item you end up chasing on nearly every submission?

08/31/2026

Ask your accountant what they recommend about your accounting method for long-term contracts. Then listen to the pause. Most contractors under the revenue threshold have a real choice about how they recognize contract income. Completed contract, percentage of completion, cash accrual. The choice moves when income lands sometime by a full year. It is worth more than every deduction conversation combined, and it recurs every single year.
If nobody has raised it with you, that is not because your accountant is bad. It is because contract accounting is a specialty and most firms do not carry it. Here is the part that matters. "I like my accountant" and "my accountant is producing results for me" are two different statements. The first one is about the relationship. The second one is about what showed up this year. You can like someone and still be leaving the method question on the table. So ask it. What did you recommend about my method for long-term contacts, and why?
If you get an answer, good. That is one less thing to worry about.
If you get a pause, you learned something.
Contractors: has anyone every brought this up with you?

08/25/2026

If your accountant doesn't even know what a G702 is odds are they're guessing.

08/17/2026

Construction business owners NEED to hear this. We see all the time that most business don't have their certificate of insurance on file for every 1099 guy that you paid this year. When this happens most of them get treated like employees which will end up with you paying a premium on everything you paid. This is where we step in, we tap below answer a few questions and find out how much you can save today!

08/12/2026

You can work all year but a chunk of what you earned could just disappear and honestly, we see this all the time taxes eating up all your earnings every year. This is why we created the Tax Checklist It's specifically designed to help business owners save thousands. Check the comments below to use our Tax Checklist for FREE.

Address

1400 Broadfield Boulevard
Katy, TX
77084

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm

Telephone

(866) 438-5008

Website

, ,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Today CFO posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Today CFO:

Shortcuts

Share

Category