Four vans is a different business than one
A solo electrician's finances stay simple: rate times hours, minus the truck and the tools. A shop with a crew sells other people's hours, and the profit lives in a narrow gap between the charge-out rate and everything a field hour really costs. Growth also consumes cash before it returns any: another van, another set of tools, more truck stock and a bigger receivables balance all get paid for before the new tech's first invoice clears.
The timing of that cash matters more than the amount. A new tech starts costing wages, WSIB and a van the first Monday; the revenue they generate lands thirty to sixty days later if the work is contract. Hire two techs in the same quarter without modelling that gap and a growing, profitable shop can miss a payroll.
Our Fractional CFO service exists for that jump: owner-level finance for a contractor who is past guessing but nowhere near needing a full-time hire.
Build the charge-out rate from the bottom up
The most common finding when we take on a growing shop is a rate set by watching competitors instead of costs. A field hour has to carry:
- Base wage plus vacation pay
- Employer CPP and EI
- WSIB premiums, at construction rate-class levels that are never a rounding error
- The van: payment, fuel, insurance, repairs
- Tools, consumables and PPE
- The hours that never reach an invoice: travel, quoting, supervising apprentices, warranty callbacks
That last line decides shops' fates. If six of eight paid hours get billed, the rate has to carry all eight. We track labour recovery monthly, per tech, and re-run the rate build whenever wages or premiums move, so pricing follows costs instead of trailing them by a year.
Cash flow when the GC pays in sixty days
Contract growth means financing your customers: progress draws paid on 30-to-60-day terms, a 10% holdback tied up until release, and payroll going out weekly regardless. The working tool is a rolling 13-week cash forecast with the remittance calendar built in, so HST, source deductions and instalments never ambush a payroll week.
The service division is the counterweight. Same-week service cash can carry the shop between draws, which is a reason to protect service capacity even when contract work looks better on paper, and the forecast makes that trade-off visible instead of felt.
Financing gets structured rather than improvised: term loans matched to vans and equipment, an operating line sized to the receivables it carries. Walla Assaf spent years in banking and corporate finance before founding Tauro, so Business Financing Advisory comes with a working sense of what lenders actually weigh, and when a lender wants CPA-prepared statements, a compilation engagement covers it.
WSIB is a cash gate, not just a premium
In Ontario construction, WSIB coverage is mandatory, including for most independent operators, and GCs verify a valid clearance certificate before your crew works or your invoice is paid. A lapsed clearance does not just risk penalties; it freezes your draw. So we treat WSIB standing as a receivables issue: insurable earnings reported accurately, premiums current, clearances confirmed before they are needed, and the classification reviewed as the mix of service and contract work shifts.
What the numbers must answer changes as the shop grows:
| Stage | The question the numbers must answer |
|---|---|
| You and an apprentice | Is the charge-out rate carrying the truck, the tools and the unbilled hours? |
| Two or three vans | Which techs and which job types make money, and which quietly lose it? |
| A crew and an office | Can cash cover weekly payroll through sixty-day terms, and what will the bank need to see? |
The monthly CFO cadence
Each month we sit on the same side of the table and work through margin by job and by stream, labour recovery per tech, receivable aging with the holdback ledger separated out, WSIB and remittance status, and the live decisions: hire or subcontract, buy the next van now or after year-end, take the fit-out contract or protect service capacity. For a shop growing across Mississauga and the GTA, that hour is where the growth stops being luck.
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