Fractional CFO for Landscaping Companies

The seasonal cash gap is the single biggest threat to landscaping businesses. A company doing $400K/month in peak season can run a $40K/month deficit in winter — and that's before spring ramp-up costs when payroll starts climbing weeks before revenue catches up. We've seen profitable companies fail in March because nobody modeled the cash runway needed to bridge from November to April. The operators who survive build 3-6 months of reserves during peak season or layer in snow removal contracts.

Design-build and hardscaping projects carry 25-40% net margins on paper — far better than maintenance at 10-15%. But 52% of landscaping contractors miss profitability targets because overhead isn't properly allocated in estimates. Materials, subcontractors, change orders, and crew travel time rarely get tracked back to job-level P&L. One company we analyzed thought their hardscape division was their profit center until we showed them $180K in unallocated labor and equipment costs that turned a 30% margin into 12%.

Labor is 25-50% of revenue — the widest swing of any cost line. But most operators track wages, not loaded labor. Payroll taxes, workers comp, and benefits add 25-35% on top of the hourly rate. A crew at $20/hr really costs $25-27/hr after loading. At 10,000 field hours per year, that $5-7 gap is $50K-70K in untracked costs. Moving from 25% to 40% labor on $1M revenue turns a 14% net profit into a loss.