Busy trucks don't guarantee a healthy bank account.
PE-grade financial leadership for plumbing companies doing $2M–$50M — a monthly system built for mixed cash cycles, high job volume, and the day a buyer comes calling.
High volume hides a lot of small leaks.
Plumbing runs on speed and volume — which is exactly why small pricing, billing, and productivity gaps compound into big money.
Plumbers decide your year
Licensed labor is scarce and expensive. Billed hours per truck per day is the number that runs your business — and most owners have never seen it measured.
Service pays today, projects pay someday
Service calls collect fast; remodel, repipe, and new-construction work rides a builder's payment schedule. One blended view hides which side is feeding the bank account — and which is draining it.
Small tickets, compounding leaks
At thousands of jobs a year, a mispriced service item or an unbilled part isn't a rounding error — it's the same leak multiplied three thousand times. Volume punishes sloppy pricing faster than any other trade.
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 sweated a joint. We know plumbing where it decides your future: the economics, the cash cycle, and what buyers will pay for.
We've paid plumbing invoices at national scale
As CFO of a national trades platform, our founder hired, priced, and paid plumbing 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.
Plumbing businesses, evaluated as an acquirer
Our founder has personally met and qualified over 100 potential trades acquisitions — plumbing companies prominent among them. He knows what a healthy plumbing business looks like inside a data room, and what makes buyers pay up.
Same engine, bigger scale
Trucks, techs, dispatch, demanding customers, slow-paying builders — the same economic engine as plumbing, 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 a plumbing company actually makes money.
Set targets — by service line, crew, and truck
A ground-up budget that splits service from remodel from new-construction work, prices each line on today's costs, and plans truck and hiring additions against real capacity — not gut feel.
Track actuals — margin by line of work, not one blended number
Every month: service margin, project margin, and billed hours per truck — against target, in dollars. You'll know which work builds the business and which just keeps the trucks moving.
Forecast cash — 13 weeks out, every week
Builder receivables, supplier terms, payroll, and truck payments — all visible a quarter ahead, so a slow-paying GC never becomes a Friday-payroll surprise.
Score the Success Signals — owned by your ops team
Four to six numbers scored green, yellow, red every month — typically close rate, billed hours per truck-day, gross margin by line, billing speed, and collections. Your operations leaders own them, so financial goals become field behavior.
Act & course-correct — every single month
Every month ends with an action plan: the price-book update, the comp adjustment, the collections push — each with an owner, a deadline, and a dollar value.
The spread is real: average plumbing 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 plumbing companies like yours.
Private equity has been rolling up residential plumbing alongside HVAC — and well-run shops are commanding the strongest multiples the trade has 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 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 plumbing 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 plumbing subcontractors on thousands of jobs across the country. And as a buyer, he has personally met and qualified over 100 potential trades acquisitions — plumbing businesses prominent among them. 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?
One flat monthly fee with a fixed scope — no hourly billing, no surprise invoices. Most engagements run in a predictable monthly range 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.
We're slammed — busy is good, right?
Busy is only good if it converts to cash. Plenty of plumbing shops set revenue records while the bank account flatlines — the money leaks out through pricing, unbilled work, and slow collections. The assessment finds exactly where, in dollars, usually within the first weeks.
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.
Turn busy trucks into a growing bank account.
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