Fractional CFO for Construction & Trades in Grimsby
Job costing, WIP schedules, bonding support, and covenant compliance for Grimsby contractors — from a Big Four-trained CFO based in Hamilton who serves Grimsby and west Niagara in person and can fix the software feeding your books, too.
What a fractional CFO actually does for a contractor
Construction and trade businesses are unusually hard to run on standard accounting. Revenue is earned over time, cash arrives on a completely different schedule, and a job that looks profitable on the estimate can quietly bleed margin long before anyone sees it in the year-end. Most contractors do not have a finance problem so much as a job-economics blind spot.
In Grimsby and west Niagara, construction and trade businesses face the same job-economics blind spots everywhere — but the local mix of work, lenders, and bonding expectations shapes exactly how those show up. As a fast-growing town on the Hamilton–Niagara seam, many businesses here are hitting the point where ad-hoc finance stops working. I bring the controller-level construction experience to make your WIP, job costing, and covenant reporting hold up here.
What I own for Grimsby construction businesses.
The finance work that actually moves margin and cash in this industry.
01 Job costing that ties out
Real cost capture by job, phase, and cost code — so you know which work makes money while you can still do something about it, not nine months later.
02 WIP schedules lenders trust
Over- and under-billing, percentage complete, and earned revenue laid out in a work-in-progress schedule your surety and bank will actually accept without a fight.
03 Bonding & surety support
Financial statements, working-capital presentation, and backlog reporting structured to grow your bonding capacity rather than cap it.
04 Progress billing & holdback
Progress draws, holdback and retainage tracking, and AR discipline so the gap between work done and cash in the bank stops surprising you.
05 Covenant compliance
Debt and equipment-financing covenants modelled, tracked, and reported before a breach turns into an awkward call with the lender.
Real operating experience — and a local CFO who shows up.
This is my deepest proof point. I was controller of a $50M+ family-office group spanning heavy-civil construction, asphalt production, traffic control, refrigeration, and real estate. That meant WIP and job costing across multiple entities, capital and equipment planning, covenant compliance, banking and debt facilities, and consolidations — the actual machinery of a construction balance sheet, not a generic accounting playbook.
I serve Grimsby and west Niagara in person. For a fast-growing local business, having a CFO who can actually drive over and sit down with you is a genuine advantage. For a Grimsby construction business, that combination — industry depth plus a CFO who will actually walk the jobsite and read your WIP — is rare in this market.
Most fractional CFOs can’t fix the software feeding your books. I can.
Here is the differentiator most fractional CFOs cannot match: the numbers are only as good as the software feeding them. Steel City CFO also runs a financial-systems-architecture practice that connects ServiceTitan, Procore, and Jobber into QuickBooks or Sage. If your job-cost data is unreliable because the field software was never set up to map cleanly to the GL, I can fix the source — not just complain about the output.
That second service line — Financial Systems Architecture — is what makes the CFO work stick on a job-cost business: when the field data is clean at the source, your WIP schedule ties out the first time and the bonding and lender conversations stop being a scramble.
Who you’re actually working with.
Big Four-trained, operator-tested, locally present.
Steel City CFO is led by Kevin Cosgrove. The background spans high-growth SaaS, a $50M+ construction and industrial group, and prior fractional CFO work — delivered in person across Grimsby and west Niagara.
- Series B/C SaaS — independent fractional CFO work for venture-backed software companies (US + Canada): 3-statement models, ARR forecasting, ASC 606, board reporting.
- Controller, $50M+ group — heavy-civil construction, asphalt, and real estate: WIP, covenants, multi-entity consolidation.
- Prior fractional CFO — startups and mid-market firms across Canada: forecasting, lender reporting, finance ops built from scratch.
- Sell-side M&A exit — led the finance workstream on a venture-backed company’s acquisition by a strategic buyer.
Big Four (PwC) trained. Hamilton-based, serving clients across the Golden Horseshoe in person.
Other industries in Grimsby.
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The same industry expertise across the region.
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Transparent pricing.
A fixed-fee start, then a right-sized retainer.
The Diagnostic Audit. A focused review of your finances and the systems feeding them, with quantified findings and a clear recommendation. No retainer, no open meter — you get the map first.
See how the audit worksA right-sized monthly retainer once the foundation is clean: forecasting, reporting, lender and board support, and an operating rhythm you can run the business on. Scope and price scale to your size.
Book a CallLooking for the broader picture? See fractional CFO in Grimsby, fractional CFO for construction, or the full services hub.
Need a fractional CFO for construction in Grimsby?
Book a call. We’ll talk through where your numbers stand and whether the $750 + HST Diagnostic Audit is the right first step.