Firmly Profits

I am a fractional CFO that provides law firm owners with confidence to make strategic financial decisions in their firms. As a former law firm administrator I have the real world firm experience to know how a law firm runs day to day. 

I provide bookkeeping for law firms and small businesses in a way that gives you data to make financial decisions about the future of your firm.

With the mission to reach as many law firm owners as possible and give them financial confidence, I have appeared on many podcasts and pursue other speaking opportunities.

Fractional CFO

Parvey & Cavenago Attorneys, P.A.

Litigation/Trial Paralegal
Firm Administrator

Chief Financial Officer/Florida Registered Paralegal

Dellutri Law Group

Paralegal

As a fractional CFO I use the 10+ years I spent working IN a law firm to help law firm owners gain an in-depth understanding of their firm’s financial picture. 

I am on a mission to help law firm owners become confident in their law firm finances. When firm owners have big financial goals, the first step to reaching those goals is making strategic financial decisions.

I started as a legal assistant and worked my way up through the “law firm ranks”. I know how a law firm runs day to day. When you hire me as your fCFO I bring my financial expertise and my law firm operational experience to our meetings. 

I love working with law firms because they are unique in the small business world. Revenue can be a roller coaster and expenses are unique to law firms. 

I work with law firm owners who are in all different growth phases. This includes.

•	Firms who are hiring their first employees and making the jump from a true solo firm to a firm that has growth in their future. 
•	Firms that are pushing towards their first 7-figure year, hiring associates, and taking their expenses to the next level. 
•	Firms that have reached the big 7-figure milestone and are looking to grow in the coming years. 
•	Firms that are generating revenue but feel overwhelmed with expenses and very little profit. 
•	Firm Owners who are looking for an outside consultant to give them confidence in their finances. 

As a fractional CFO for law firms, I improve financial operations by providing strategic financial guidance, managing cash flow, and analyzing financial data to identify opportunities for growth and improvement.

When we work together you receive my unique consulting style. I believe education never stops. We should always be seeking to learn more about the world around us. From a “consultant” perspective, I believe it is my role to be the educator. I want those I work with to understand the WHY behind why we do what we do.

Understanding the “why” prepares you as a firm owner to continue to make strategic financial decisions in the future.

As we work together guiding your firm into the future, I want to give you the information for you (and your leadership team) to make the best decision. This is not a one size fits all approach.

If you are a law firm owner who is looking to feel more confident in your financial decisions as you reach and exceed growth goals this year we need to talk. Send me a DM or visit my website to schedule a free 30-minute consultation. 

WWW.LNMFinancial.com

Leah Miller, MBA

Michael King

I help fractional CFOs and accountants build multiple 6 and 7-figure advisory firms through coaching and community.

If you run a construction company, growth was supposed to make money stress go away.

Instead, revenue is up, profit is flat, and it still feels like you are one bad month away from a big problem.

Most contractors we work with are:
• Bidding 20 to 25 percent and banking a fraction of that
• Losing sleep over payroll and upcoming draws
• Unsure which jobs are actually making money
• Looking at financials that feel like a foreign language
• Making big decisions based on gut, not clear numbers

At Civil CFO, we provide Fractional CFO services for $10M to $70M contractors.

Our job is simple to say and hard to do - we bridge the gap between bid and bank so you can consistently hit 10 percent plus net profit, with clear cash flow and confidence in every major decision.

What we do for construction companies:
• Build clear forecasts and cash flow plans so you know what is coming before it hits
• Install practical job cost and WIP reporting so you can see which projects are winning or bleeding
• Help you set realistic, data backed profit targets and hold the team accountable to them
• Prepare bank, bonding, and lender ready financial packages
• Sit at the leadership table as your finance partner for growth, exits, or succession

We are not your bookkeeper or tax accountant.

We work alongside them and give you the forward looking financial strategy they cannot provide.

Why this matters:
• More cash in the bank and less time worrying about it
• Cleaner, more profitable jobs
• Reduced debt and stronger balance sheet
• A company that is ready for whatever you want next - growth, sale, or hand off

I founded Civil CFO so construction CEOs did not have to figure this out alone. Our team has worked with contractors across the country to turn financial confusion into a clear plan and disciplined execution.

If you are a contractor between $10M and $70M and you are tired of bidding 25 percent and banking 3, let's talk.

Founder

I help fractional CFOs and accountants start, scale, and optimize their advisory services.

Nic Parish crushed it on stage today at CONEXPO-CON/AGG! 

He talked about how to build a people-first company, particularly about the importance of systematizing that process. 

The thing that stood out the most to me was when Nic asked “if you have a people problem in your company, what are you going to doc about it?” 

Great job Nic.

Founder, Civil CFO | Fractional CFO Firm for $10M–$70M Contractors | We bridge the gap between bid and bank so you can hit 10%+ net profit

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A contractor asked me recently if paying for a Fractional CFO is “worth it.”


I get why owners ask.

You’re already paying for:
➜ a bookkeeper
➜ a controller
➜ a CPA
➜ software
➜ payroll
➜ a mountain of overhead

So adding a fCFO feels like another expense.

But here’s the reality.

We just spoke with a $35M utilities contractor in Portland.

Four guys started the business 20 years ago.

They’re profitable. About 5% net, which is fairly decent I guess.

Now they want to do something big.

Sell the business to their employees through an ESOP in the next 3–5 years.

But the difference between them cashing out at 5% net versus 10% net isn’t small.

It’s likely $10M–$12M difference in what the owners walk away with.

We will help them get there.

So yes… you’ll pay us a monthly fee.

But if that work helps you unlock an extra 5% in net profit AND an additional eight figures of enterprise value over the next few years?

Name a better ROI than that.

This week in Vegas is a who’s who for the dirt world. 

Just got to hang out with Jason Richmond and Luke Eggebraaten and talk dirt!  

Who else do I need to meet this week before I leave?

I heard a savage quote this morning from Denzel Washington: 


Commitment gets you in the game. 
Consistency gets you across the finish line. 

I've been frustrated by the lack of results I've seen in a couple areas of business lately. 

This quote immediately reminded me why I haven't seen those results. 

Let's go.

“We already have a great CPA.”
Here’s why that doesn’t matter:


A CPA is trained to look backward. 
A CFO in construction has to live 12-24 months ahead.

And those are completely different jobs.

Don’t get me wrong.
You need a good CPA.

But when you’re running a $10M–$70M construction company, the real risk isn’t last year’s tax return.

A brand new client recently told me, “Our CPA reviews everything monthly. We’re good.”

When we stepped in, here’s what we found:
1. No cash projections
2. No overhead allocation strategy
3. Backlog reported, but not stress-tested
4. No job cost forecasting beyond historical averages
5. Bonding capacity discussed once a year instead of managed proactively

These aren’t accounting problems.
These are operating system problems.

Their CPA wasn’t bad at their job.
They just weren’t built for that role.

Most CPAs haven’t worked in construction.

They haven’t sat in OAC meetings.
They haven’t worked through pay app timing.
They haven’t navigated bonding conversations.

They’re historians.
At $10M–$70M, you need more than a historian.

There’s nothing wrong with having a CPA.
We work alongside them all the time.

But if your “CFO” is only showing you what already happened, you don’t have a CFO.

You have a report card.

I'm so grateful for the chance to sit with these folks last night and talk about the construction industry. 

We talked about: 
• Where the industry is
• Where the industry is going
• What the biggest risks are right now
• And the biggest opportunities that are ahead

Thanks for the time and perspective Mrs. Sargent, Herb Sargent, and Zack Estes. 

(We also had some world-class guac as well!)

A $40M+ solar contractor came to us with a problem most people don’t realize is even possible.


They had work.
A lot of it.
They had $20M already awarded and another $18M in late-stage negotiation.
So on paper, everything looked great.

But in reality, they were stuck.

Because the year before, they’d lost $3M.
So they couldn’t get additional bonding.
And if you can’t get bonded, you can’t take the work.

That’s when they brought us in.

Our team went to work.

We diagnosed what went wrong.

We built a forward-looking cash flow model so the bank, the auditors, and the bonding company could see exactly what the next 12 months would look like.

And when the bonding company saw a plan backed by real numbers and data, they stepped back up.

That unlocked multiple eight figures of work.
And a boat load of additional profit.

Bonding doesn’t work with hope.

Bonding works with proof.

If you’re a $10M+ contractor and bonding is becoming a ceiling, the answer isn’t “work harder.”

It’s building the financial system that unlocks .

A contractor posted a huge year-over-year revenue jump…
…but the increase was eaten up by the overhead required to produce it.

So yeah, more revenue.
But also…

More payroll.
More trucks.
More subs.
More admin.
More complexity.

Same profit on the P&L.

Womp womp.

That is NOT scaling.

It’s just building a bigger version of the same machine that produces the same amount of profit dollars.

And it’s one of the fastest ways owners end up trapped.

As the company gets more complex, the risk gets higher and the margin for error gets thinner… while the financial reward stays flat.

If revenue grows but net profit doesn’t grow at the same rate or faster, you didn’t get healthier. You got heavier.

The crazy part is that this type of growth feels like success.

Meanwhile, the firm is becoming harder to run, harder to cash flow, and harder to exit.

Healthy growth should do at least one of these:
1. Increase profit faster than revenue
2. Reduce owner dependence
3. Improve cash flow stability
4. Create repeatable systems
5. Expand capacity without proportional headcount

If it doesn’t?

It’s not growth.
It’s just expensive motion.

If you’re a contractor and you’re expecting a big top-line jump this year, this is a metric to watch.

How do you scale a professional services firm from multiple 7 figures to 8 figures? 

I have some ideas but, if I'm being honest, this is new territory for me. 

I'd love to connect with other founders in the professional services world who have successfully breached the $10MM/yr threshold.

Who do I need to know? 

(📷 - selfie of me hiking at a waterfall in the mountains of Utah last weekend)

We had a client come to us through a referral from a former client. They were hanging on by a thread. 


They weren’t just “using” their line of credit.
They had fully maxed it out.
They were borrowing just to cover payroll and keep the doors open.

Most owners assume the solution at that point is to “go sell more.”

But that wasn’t the real problem.

The real problem was cash trapped inside the business.

They were sitting on $2.2M in inventory.
And $700K of it hadn’t moved in five years.

So they were literally burning cash to build inventory… to keep people busy.

The intention was good! 
They wanted to take care of their team.
But financially, it was killing the company.
Pretty soon, no one was going to have a job.

So we did an inventory analysis and made the hard calls.
➜ We helped them sell what could be sold
➜ We reworked the schedule to reduce labor costs

Within 6 months, the entire $250K LOC was paid down.
The client had $500K sitting in the bank.
And hours for employees were increased.

That’s a $750K swing.

“Sell more” isn’t always the answer. 
First, you’ve got to stop the bleeding.

Most contractors don’t have a profitability problem.
You have a Work In Progress problem. 

And in a $10M-$70M construction company, it’s one of the only reports that shows what's actually happening inside your projects. 

WIP shows you, job by job: 
➜ How far along the project really is 
➜ How much you’ve billed 
➜ How much cost you’ve burned 
➜ Whether you’re overbilled or underbilled
➜ Your projected margin based on percent complete

We’ve had clients say, “But the P&L looks fine.” 

To which we say, “Then why are you still cash broke?”

Things we see (on the regular): 

• You’re 60% complete, but only billed 40% of the job 
• Approved change orders that were never recorded
• Labor being applied inconsistently across projects

The estimate says 10%.
Reality says 3%. 

A properly maintained WIP catches these issues early.

When WIP is accurate (and reviewed every month!), you stop discovering that a job lost money after it’s already finished.
 
You see it while there is still time to do something about it.

A few years ago, one of my largest clients was doing everything "right.”

Revenue was climbing.
The team was busy.
Backlog was full.

It looked like momentum.
(“looked like”)

But underneath it, the business was in a dangerous place.

They were saying yes to almost every job.
The focus was on revenue and not gross profit.

If we had done nothing, it would have cost them real money.
Maybe not all at once, but over time.

Because margins were getting tighter.
Labor costs weren’t predictable.
And risk kept piling up in the backlog.

So we made a hard call together.
We took a reset year.

Instead of chasing total revenue, we refocused the entire business around highly profitable work.

That meant saying no to a lot of “good” jobs.

The result?

Revenue was lower for a season.

But profit had improved.
Cash flow stabilized.
And the team got breathing room.

And when growth came back, it came back to a lot more structure.

Sometimes the most expensive move is doing nothing.

And sometimes the smartest decision is stepping back to rebuild the engine before you hit the gas again.

“Can we afford to take this job?”

That’s a loaded question!

It’s about timing.
It’s about cash flow.
It’s about current backlog strain.
Field supervision bandwidth.
Equipment, bonding, and overhead factor in too.

Most contractors look at a new opportunity and ask, “Is it profitable?”

That’s the wrong first question.

A job can look profitable on paper and still create a cash crunch.

Without cash flow forecasting and backlog planning, you’re guessing.

When you can’t confidently say, “Yes, we can take this and here’s why,” or “No, this isn’t the right move right now,” that’s when you’ve outgrown basic bookkeeping.

At $5M, you can (usually) still muscle through.
But at $20M+, that stops working.
            
The clear sign you’re ready for CFO-level planning?
 
When opportunity feels stressful instead of exciting.
 
Growth should feel controlled.

If every new job feels like a gamble, the financial system behind the business hasn’t caught up to the growth yet.

“If I already have a controller, why do I need a fCFO?”


Here’s the simplest way I can explain it.

Think about a hospital.

A hospital can have great nurses.
A great anesthesiologist.
A great support staff.

And all of those people are critical.

But if you need surgery…
You still need a surgeon.
Because it’s a different skill set.

That’s what happens inside a $10M–$70M construction company.

Most of the businesses we work with already have a bookkeeper.

They often have a controller.

Sometimes they even have a small finance team.

But they don’t have the CFO-level skill set required to do financial surgery.

And that CFO skill set isn’t something you learn in a weekend.

It’s built over years, on the job, in the industry.

So no, we’re not coming in to replace your team.

We’re coming in to do the part of the job your team was never trained to do so you can get the profit lift you’ve been looking for.

Michael King speaking on stage with the quote: If I already have a finance team, why do I need a fractional CFO? Founder, Civil CFO — Fractional CFO Firm for $10M–$70M Contractors.

We’re not Finance Jesus.


We’re not a turnaround firm.

If you lost a million dollars last year, have no pipeline, and need someone to come in and “save the business”…

There are people built for that.

That’s not us.

Our sweet spot is much more specific.

We come into a construction company that’s usually doing fine on paper but underperforming in reality.

You’re tired of bidding jobs at 25% gross and somehow only netting 3%.

And you know there’s a better way.

Our job is to help you build the system that takes you from 3% net to 10%+ net consistently.

With the unsexy systems you don’t have time or the mental capacity to install.

You’re a little profitable.
You want to be a lot profitable.
We’ll help you get there.

Michael King speaking on a panel at a business or construction industry event, seated on stage with another speaker. Text overlay reads: “We’re not Finance Jesus.” Graphic highlights Michael King, Founder of Civil CFO, a fractional CFO firm helping construction companies and contractors with financial strategy, cash flow, and business growth.

“Can you train our controller (or bookkeeper) to do what you do?”


We get this question a lot. 

There’s a solid bookkeeper or controller who has grown with the company… and the owner hopes we can level them up into a CFO.

And almost always, the answer is the same.

At $10M–$70M, running the finance function isn’t an on-the-job training exercise.

It’s a career built over 15–20 years inside construction finance.

It’s forecasting cash across multiple projects.

Managing WIP and over/under billings.

Navigating bank and bonding conversations.

Helping the owner make forward-looking decisions, not just reporting what already happened.

We’re happy to develop a strong controller.

We integrate bookkeepers into our systems all the time.

But there’s a difference between strengthening your team…

And asking someone to step into a role they haven’t spent a career preparing for.

That gap is usually bigger than owners realize.

Michael King, founder of Civil CFO, speaking about financial leadership for $10M–$70M construction and contracting companies. Text overlay emphasizes that running a finance department requires experienced CFO-level expertise, not on-the-job training. Image represents fractional CFO services, financial strategy, and scalable finance systems for contractors.

Most contractors don’t call us because something is broken.

They call because growth is starting to outpace the financial structure behind it.
And almost every first conversation includes this line:

“We’ve got a bookkeeper. She’s been with us forever. I’m not looking to replace her.”

And we’re fine with that, because we’re not bookkeepers.

But at $10M–$70M, problems don’t get solved by spreadsheets.

They get solved by a real operating system.

Ran by someone who has spent 15–20 years inside construction finance and knows how to forecast, not just report.

Civil CFO brings more than a calculator.

We build the numbers into a story the owner, the bank, and the bonding company can trust, then help execute the plan month by month.

At this stage, you don’t need someone to “do the books”.  

You need someone who can turn the books into decisions.

Michael King, Founder of Civil CFO, a fractional CFO firm serving $10M–$70M construction contractors, with the quote: At $10M–$70M, problems don't get solved by spreadsheets. Construction financial strategy, job costing, cash flow, and CFO services for contractors ready to scale profitably.

At some point, you’re the bottleneck.


We had a new client come to us.
He wasn’t sure what the problem was. 

He had a strong backlog and reputation. 
But was stuck at the same revenue for 3 years. 

It took one meeting to identify the issue: 
Every financial decision still ran through him.

He was invoicing. 
Reconciling.
Tracking loans.
Trying to make sense of cash. 
All on his own. 

The issue wasn’t the math or his skill in the ERP. 

He was acting as bookkeeper, controller, and CFO at the same time.

That works at $3M. 
It breaks well before $30M.

The business finances become more complex. 

More jobs, more crews, more moving cash.

At that stage, financial strategy can’t live in one person’s head.

When we stepped in, the biggest change wasn’t reorganization.

It was removing the owner as the sole owner of the numbers.

Because when one person carries all the financial weight alone, growth slows. 

Not from lack of effort, but from lack of data, context, and support around decision-making.

Michael King, Founder of Civil CFO, a fractional CFO firm serving $10M–$70M construction contractors, speaking on stage with the quote: If you're still using QuickBooks at $10M+, you're taking a huge risk. Construction accounting, financial systems, CFO advisory, and profit improvement for growing contractors ready to move beyond basic bookkeeping tools.

Most fractional CFO firms sell the same thing. 


“Clarity.”
“Visibility.”
“Strategic insight.”
“Trusted advisor.”

Cool.

But construction doesn’t need another finance buzzword.

Construction needs a finance team that understands how this industry works.

Here’s what makes Civil CFO different:
1. Our fCFOs are W-2, not random contractors.
➜ You’re not getting a rotating cast of freelancers.
➜ You’re getting a team that’s trained the same way, held to the same high standards, and built to be consistent across every client.

2. We only hire people who’ve worked as an actual CFO in construction.
➜ Not “finance people who think they can figure it out.”
➜ Not someone who was a bookkeeper last year and rebranded as a fCFO this year.

3. We don’t show up and wing it. We run a system.
➜ Every client goes through a real onboarding process.
➜ We do a deep dive. We meet your team. We assess what’s actually happening in the business. Then we build a prioritized 30/60/90-day + 12-month roadmap.

4. We don’t just report the past. We help you see the future.
➜ Most contractors already have bookkeeping.
➜ What they’re missing is forward-looking leadership through forecasting, job-cost truth, WIP, and storytelling to banks and bonding companies.

You won’t find another partner like Civil CFO.

And if you’re a CFO in the construction industry looking to make a move, DM me. 

We’re hiring and I’d love to chat with you. 

Fair warning though, the bar is high.

Finance team standing together in an office. Text overlay reads: “Construction doesn’t need another finance buzzword. Construction needs a finance team that understands how this industry works.” Graphic features Michael King of Civil CFO, a fractional CFO firm for contractors.

Last day at ConExpo! 

Had a chance to have a coffee and a great convo with Cody Epp this morning. 

Anyone else I need to see before I leave this afternoon?

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Leah Miller, MBA

Michael King

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