Responsibilities:
- This is a hands-on assignment that combines accounting review with jobsite visits. The primary objective is to improve management’s ability to determine the true revenue, direct costs, labor costs, indirect costs, and profitability of individual construction jobs, and to leave behind processes the company can sustain after the engagement ends.
- Job-cost structure: Review how job numbers are established and used, and evaluate whether revenue and direct and indirect project expenses are consistently assigned to the correct job.
- Direct project costs: Review the treatment of materials, concrete, subcontractors, equipment and rentals, fuel, transportation, disposal, permits, supplies, and other project-specific purchases.
- Overhead classification: Identify costs recorded as overhead that belong on individual jobs, and job costs that should be treated as overhead, and recommend practical improvements to classification consistency.
- Payroll and labor allocation: Review timekeeping and how hours are tied to job numbers, including regular and overtime labor, supervisory and crew leader time, travel, shop or yard time, rework, training, and nonproductive time. Evaluate the fully burdened labor cost methodology and recommend an allocation process that does not create unnecessary burden for field personnel.
- Revenue and profitability: Match contract revenue to the appropriate job, review change orders and additional work, compare estimated versus actual costs, identify variances and margin erosion, and evaluate gross profit by job.
- Management reporting: Recommend job-cost and profitability reports that give management timely, useful information for decision-making.
- Process review: Learn and document current processes, cost codes, and categories before recommending changes. Review how information flows among estimating, sales, project management, field operations, payroll, purchasing, accounts payable, billing and receivables, accounting, and management, and identify duplicated activity, missing controls, inconsistent coding, and unnecessary manual steps.
- Automation opportunities: Identify practical opportunities for technology-supported workflow improvements where beneficial.
- Jobsite and operational review: During the initial phase, visit selected active jobsites to observe crew deployment, time allocation, material receipt and consumption, equipment usage, subcontractor activity, supervision, waste, rework, and other cost-driving activities. Compare field practices with accounting and payroll procedures and recommend improvements that connect field activity to accurate job-cost reporting.
- Deliverables: Expected outputs for the engagement include:
- Initial assessment of current practices, gaps, and priority improvement areas
- Job-cost structure and payroll allocation recommendations
- Workflow recommendations between field operations, the company accountant, project teams, and management
- Management reports or dashboards covering revenue, actual costs, labor, materials, subcontractors, estimated versus actual results, and gross margin
- Practical process documentation the company can continue using
- Concise final findings and recommendations summary with implementation priorities
- Success measures: By the end of the engagement, management should have materially greater confidence in associating revenue and expenses with the correct job, allocating labor accurately, identifying cost overruns earlier, understanding profitability by job, and maintaining consistent cost codes and repeatable job-costing procedures.
Qualifications:
- Required experience: Demonstrated Construction Cost Accounting experience. This is the only required qualification.
- Job costing expertise (preferred): Experience with construction job costing, project accounting, cost-code development, payroll and job allocation, or project profitability analysis.
- Industry background (preferred): Experience with concrete contractors, residential or commercial construction, framing, general contracting, heavy construction, or similar field operations.
- Technical understanding (preferred): Direct versus indirect costs, labor burden, overhead allocation, change orders, project closeout, and estimated-versus-actual cost analysis.
- Process improvement (preferred): Experience reviewing or improving construction accounting processes and field-to-accounting workflows, with exposure to construction ERP or accounting systems, spreadsheets, job-cost reports, or project-controls tools.
- Communication: Ability to communicate effectively with accountants, executives, project managers, supervisors, and field personnel, and willingness to visit active jobsites and translate field observations into practical improvements.
- Certifications (beneficial, not required): CPA, CMA, CCIFP, or similar credentials.
- Ideal profile: Practical, analytical, and collaborative, with comfort operating across both accounting and construction environments. The ideal consultant learns existing processes before recommending changes, traces transactions from field activity through the accounting system, and develops solutions employees can realistically use.
Compensation & Logistics:
- Rate: Negotiable, based on experience and proposed consulting arrangement.
- Commitment: Part-time, approximately 3 months
- Employment type: Independent consulting assignment
- Schedule: Initial on-site phase of approximately 3 days per week for the first 3 weeks (highly negotiable), followed by primarily remote consulting. Periodic in-person return visits, approximately once per month as needed, with timing and frequency negotiable
- Location: Central Indiana, Hybrid (in-person, jobsite visits, and remote work)
- Travel and lodging: Reimbursement negotiable for qualified consultants traveling from outside the local area
- Reporting structure: Works with company leadership and collaborates with the existing company accountant
- Start date: [TBD]
Interested candidates should submit a current resume along with a brief summary of relevant Construction Cost Accounting experience, city and state of residence, availability for the three-month engagement and the initial in-person period, any anticipated travel or lodging requirements, and compensation expectations or preferred consulting-rate structure. All inquiries will be held in strict confidence.
This search is managed exclusively by 5FT View Consulting. The hiring organization will be disclosed to shortlisted candidates under NDA.
