Bookkeeper, accountant or CFO: which one does your building business actually need?
Most builders have a bookkeeper and an accountant and assume that covers "the finance side". It covers two of the three jobs. The bookkeeper records what happened. The accountant reports on it and keeps you compliant. Nobody is looking forward - at next quarter's cash, at the margin on the job you are pricing this week, at whether the business can carry a third concurrent project. That is the CFO's job, and in most building businesses under $20M it is not being done by anyone.
What does a bookkeeper do for a construction business?
A bookkeeper keeps the ledger true. Invoices in, bills in, bank reconciled, payroll and super run, BAS prepared. In construction there is a fourth thing that separates a good bookkeeper from a general one: every cost is coded to a job and a cost code, not just to an expense account. If your bookkeeper is not doing that, nothing downstream - job costing, WIP, margin tracking - can work, because the raw material is not there.
What they are not doing is interpreting. A bookkeeper will tell you the subcontractor account is $180,000 this month. They will not tell you that it is $40,000 over the budget for the stage you are at on the Brighton job.
In Australia, a competent construction bookkeeper runs roughly $60-$90 an hour, or $1,500-$4,000 a month for a builder turning over $5M-$15M, depending on volume and how much of the job-coding you are prepared to do yourself.
What does an accountant do that a bookkeeper does not?
Your accountant turns the ledger into statements and keeps you out of trouble with the ATO. Annual financials, tax returns, tax planning, structuring, and the accounting judgement calls - depreciation, revenue recognition, what sits in the balance sheet and where.
For a builder the important part is what they are usually not engaged to do. Most accounting engagements are annual. They see your numbers once, months after the year has closed, and they see the whole business blended together. That is the right lens for tax. It is the wrong lens for running jobs, because the question that matters mid-year - is this specific project making money right now? - is invisible in a business-wide P&L.
An accountant is also not typically forecasting. They can tell you what your cash was. Very few are engaged to tell you what it will be in week nine.
Expect $130-$180 an hour for a tax agent or public-practice accountant, or a fixed annual fee that for a $5M-$20M builder commonly lands between $8,000 and $25,000 depending on entities and complexity.
What does a CFO do, and why is it a different job?
A CFO looks forward and makes decisions with you. In a building business that means:
A rolling 13-week cash flow, so you know whether the week of the 14th is covered before it arrives
Monthly job-level margin and WIP reporting, so a job that is going wrong is caught in week four, not at final accounts
Pricing and tender review - what margin the next job actually needs, given the overhead it has to carry
Capacity decisions: can the balance sheet carry another concurrent project, and what does the bank or surety need to see if not
Bank, bond and home-warranty eligibility management, so the facility is arranged before the contract that needs it - see what a lender actually looks at before backing a builder
A management pack you can read in five minutes, and someone across the table who will tell you what it means
None of that is bookkeeping and very little of it is accounting. It is management. In a large builder it is done by a salaried CFO or finance director. In a $3M-$20M builder it usually is not done at all, because a full-time CFO costs $250,000-$350,000 all-in and the business cannot justify one.
That is the gap a fractional CFO fills: the same function, a fixed number of days a month, typically $3,000-$8,000 a month in Australia for construction.
The three roles side by side
Bookkeeper. Looks at this week's transactions. Core question: is it recorded correctly? Daily or weekly cadence. Construction specifics: job and cost-code coding, retentions, subbie payments. Typical Australian cost: $60-$90 an hour, or $1,500-$4,000 a month. Does not replace the other two.
Accountant. Looks at last year's results. Core question: is it compliant and tax-efficient? Annual cadence, plus BAS. Construction specifics: revenue recognition, WIP adjustment at year end, structuring. Typical Australian cost: $130-$180 an hour, or $8,000-$25,000 a year. Does not replace the other two.
CFO (fractional). Looks at next quarter's decisions. Core question: is it making money, and will we have the cash? Fortnightly or monthly cadence. Construction specifics: live job margin, 13-week cash, claims timing, bank and bond readiness. Typical Australian cost: $3,000-$8,000 a month. Does not replace the other two - relies on both.
The last point is the one to notice. A CFO does not replace your bookkeeper or your accountant. A CFO relies on the bookkeeper's job coding being right and on the accountant's year-end being clean, and works alongside both. If someone offers to be all three for one fee, one of the three jobs is not being done properly.
Five signs your building business has outgrown bookkeeper-plus-accountant
You find out a job lost money after it finished. That is the defining symptom. Bookkeeping recorded every cost correctly and the accountant reported the loss accurately - and nobody was watching the margin while it could still be fixed.
You are managing cash on the bank balance. If "are we OK for payroll?" is answered by opening the banking app rather than a forecast, no one is doing the forward view.
Turnover has passed roughly $3M-$5M. Below that the owner can hold the numbers in their head. Above it, with three or more concurrent jobs, they cannot, and the business starts running on feel.
A bank, surety or home-warranty insurer has asked for something you could not produce quickly. A current WIP schedule, a cash flow forecast, a net tangible asset position. Those are CFO outputs; nobody else in the setup is producing them.
You are pricing the next job from the last job's rate, not from what this one needs to carry. Overhead has grown; the tender margin has not. That gap is where the 18% tender becomes a 6% job.
Two or more of those and the question is not whether you need the function, it is how to get it without a $300,000 hire.
What should each role cost as a share of revenue?
A rough, honest yardstick for a builder at $5M-$20M: total finance function - bookkeeping, accounting and CFO together - should sit around 1%-2% of revenue. A $10M builder spending $100,000-$200,000 a year across all three is in the normal range, and the CFO component is usually the piece that pays for itself first, because it is the only one that changes decisions rather than recording them.
If you want a rough figure on what the missing piece is currently costing you in margin, unclaimed variations and slow cash, the value calculator takes about two minutes.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a CFO if I already have an accountant?
If your accountant is engaged annually for financials and tax - which most are - then no one is doing monthly job-margin reporting, cash flow forecasting or pricing review. Those are CFO tasks, not accounting tasks. Many builders solve it by engaging a fractional CFO who works alongside the existing accountant rather than replacing them.
Can a bookkeeper do job costing for a builder?
A good construction bookkeeper codes every cost to a job and cost code, which is the raw material for job costing. Interpreting it - comparing cost to date against budget for the stage reached and forecasting the margin - is a CFO or finance-manager task. The bookkeeper builds the dataset; someone else has to read it.
What is the difference between a virtual CFO and a fractional CFO?
In practice the terms are used interchangeably in Australia. Both mean a senior finance professional engaged part-time on a fixed monthly basis. "Virtual" emphasises remote delivery; "fractional" emphasises the share of a full-time role. What matters more than the label is whether the person has run construction finance before - job costing, WIP, claims and retentions behave unlike any other industry.
At what turnover does a builder need a CFO?
Most building businesses feel the gap between $3M and $5M turnover, or once they are running three or more concurrent jobs. Below that the owner can usually hold the numbers personally. Above it the business needs a forward view - cash, margin, capacity - that neither the bookkeeper nor the annual accountant is engaged to provide.
How much does a fractional CFO cost compared with a full-time one?
A full-time construction CFO costs $250,000-$350,000 a year all-in. A fractional CFO for a construction business typically runs $3,000-$8,000 a month, or $36,000-$96,000 a year, for a fixed number of days a month and the same scope of decisions. The full cost guide sets out what drives the number.
Find out which piece is missing
Book a free 30-minute strategy session. Bring your last management pack and your live job list, and we will tell you plainly which of the three roles is not being covered - including "you're fine as you are" if that is the answer. Or read how our fractional CFO service works, or call 1300 886 347.
This article is general information about financial management, not financial or tax advice. Fee ranges are indicative Australian market figures and vary by provider and scope.
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