Your best season shouldn't leave you cash-poor.
PE-grade financial leadership for HVAC companies doing $2M–$50M — a monthly system built for seasonal cash swings, install-vs-service margins, and the day a buyer comes calling.
Revenue comes in seasons. Payroll comes every Friday.
HVAC has one of the toughest cash profiles in the trades — and a P&L that hides where the money actually gets made.
Techs decide your year
Labor is your biggest cost and your biggest lever: comp plans, idle hours in the shoulder season, callbacks. Manage it on gut, and the season's profit disappears a truck at a time.
Install hides service
Big install tickets drive the top line at thin margins; service and maintenance carry the profit. One blended margin number hides which one is winning — and which one is bleeding.
Seasonal whiplash
Equipment orders, new hires, and overtime all ramp before the season pays you. Your biggest revenue months and your tightest cash weeks live side by side.
Your CRM and your books don't talk
The dispatch system knows every job; the accounting system knows every dollar — and they're barely connected. That gap is exactly where financial decisions go to die.
We know your business from both sides of the table.
We won't pretend we've brazed a line set. We know HVAC where it decides your future: the economics, the cash cycle, and what buyers will pay for.
We've paid HVAC invoices at national scale
As CFO of a national trades platform, our founder hired, priced, and paid HVAC subcontractors on thousands of jobs across the country. He's seen your pricing, your scopes, and your margins — from the other side of the invoice.
100+ trades businesses evaluated as an acquirer
Our founder has personally met and qualified over 100 potential trades acquisitions. He knows exactly what a healthy HVAC business looks like inside a data room — and what makes buyers walk away or pay up.
Same engine, bigger scale
Trucks, techs, dispatch, seasonal demand, slow-paying customers — the same economic engine as HVAC, scaled from $69M to $245M as an operations CFO. The playbook transfers; only the numbers change.
The monthly rhythm — in your language.
The same five-step system every LeeFO client runs, applied to how an HVAC company actually makes money.
Set targets — by season, crew, and job type
A ground-up budget that splits install from service from maintenance, times hiring to the ramp, and plans the pre-season equipment buy — instead of one annual number that ignores your calendar.
Track actuals — margin by job type, not one blended number
Every month: install margin, service margin, maintenance margin — against target, in dollars. You'll know which work builds the business and which work just keeps the trucks busy.
Forecast cash — 13 weeks out, every week
The equipment order, the overtime run, the shoulder-season trough — all visible a quarter ahead, so you fund the season on your terms instead of the bank's.
Score the Success Signals — owned by your ops team
Four to six numbers scored green, yellow, red every month — typically close rate, install gross margin, agreements sold, billing speed, and collections. Your operations leaders own them, so the financial goals become field behavior.
Act & course-correct — before the season, not after it
Every month ends with an action plan: the pricing move, the comp adjustment, the capacity decision — each with an owner, a deadline, and a dollar value.
The spread is real: average HVAC contractors run mid-single-digit operating margins, while well-run shops hold double digits. On a $10M shop, every recovered margin point is ≈ $100K a year — and a multiple of that at sale.
A right hand for the numbers — so you can run the business.
Your time is the scarcest resource in the company
You're carrying people, culture, customers, sales, and field execution. Nobody handed you a spare ten hours a week to research financial best practices — and there's almost too much conflicting information out there to sort what actually matters. That's the job we take off your plate: we learn your business, bring clarity to the numbers, and calibrate the 4–6 Success Signals that point your operating team at the financial goals.
Cash gets watched at both ends
In project-based trades, payment lags the work — customers, insurance carriers, GCs, and property owners all pay on their schedule, not yours. We keep a cadence on both ends of the business: signed work and sales activity on one side, billing, collections, and cash conversion on the other — so a strong sales month never hides a collections problem.
Buyers are already hunting HVAC companies like yours.
Private equity has spent the last several years rolling up residential HVAC — and well-run shops are commanding the strongest multiples the trade has ever seen. The difference between a premium and a pass is almost never the trucks. It's the numbers: clean books, provable margins, a data stack a buyer can trust. If you can prove you have a diamond, buyers compete — and competition is what drives your price. Even if you never sell, running sale-ready pays you every single year.
Or ask us what buyers look for — we've been one.
Fair questions, straight answers.
Do you actually know the HVAC business?
We know it from the two sides that decide your financial future. As CFO of a national trades platform, our founder hired, priced, and paid HVAC subcontractors on thousands of jobs across the country. And as a buyer, he has personally met and qualified over 100 potential trades acquisitions. We won't tell you how to braze a line set — you know how to run the trucks. We make sure the trucks make money.
How is a fractional CFO different from my bookkeeper or my CPA?
Your bookkeeper records what happened. Your tax CPA reports it to the IRS. Neither one forecasts your cash 13 weeks out, builds your budget from crews and close rates, scores your KPIs monthly with your ops team, or hands you an action plan with owners and deadlines. That forward-looking layer is the fractional CFO's job — and you keep both of them.
What does a fractional CFO cost?
RANGE TBD — Leo to supply One flat monthly fee with a fixed scope — no hourly billing, no surprise invoices. Most engagements run between [$X,XXX] and [$XX,XXX] per month depending on complexity, locations, and scope — a fraction of the $350K+ a full-time CFO costs. We'll scope yours on a free call.
How do you justify the fee?
In dollars you can check. Margin points found and kept — on a $10M shop, one point is about $100K a year. Cost leaks plugged by a new set of eyes. And value built for the day you sell: clean, provable numbers and a transparent data stack typically add to the multiple buyers will pay, because a business that can prove it's a diamond invites confident buyers and competitive bids. In today's environment this isn't a want — it's what staying competitive costs.
My busy season is about to start — is this a bad time?
It's the best time. The 13-week cash flow earns its keep during the ramp — equipment buys, overtime, and receivables all peak together. Getting visibility in place before the season means you finish it with cash in the bank, not just revenue on the books.
Do we need new software?
No. Whatever dispatch or CRM system you run, the real problem is the same everywhere: the operational data and the accounting data don't talk to each other, so nobody can see which work actually makes money. We bridge that gap with the systems you already have — no rip-and-replace.
Finish this season with cash — not just revenue.
A free consultation, then an assessment of your books and pipeline. You'll know your low-hanging fruit, in dollars, before you commit to anything.
Book a Free Consultation