CFMA 2024 Annual Conference & Exhibition

Construction companies face three primary visibility challenges in predicting the timing of job margin: Understanding how work backlog translates into margin, determining if the project is behind in dollars, and having forward visibility in how gross margin will end up for the year. Most construction companies know their work backlog and do not know when exactly it will be earned. To help businesses overcome these obstacles, S-Curve forecasting is a powerful tool that provides margin visibility and timing.

Imagine a construction landscape where your finances aren't just numbers, but a powerful tool guiding each decision. This course will give you small, immediate changes that you can make to immediately generate cash flow from within the finance team. In this session we will cover:

In this interactive session, you’ll experience construction financial data insights from various perspectives. In the first half of this session, a panel of industry experts consisting of a data scientist, banker, CPA, and surety professional will use a real-world scenario to show you how they assess the WIP to make strategic decisions, identify areas of concern, and evaluate the health of construction companies. They will share strategies and tips. Then, it’s your turn to review a real-world scenario with your peers to review the data to identify issues and develop a solution.

In today’s competitive construction environment, ensuring that you have sufficient credit capacity and working capital is paramount to your company’s success. But, what are banks looking for from Borrowers in the E&C Industry today…and how do you keep your lending relationship positive in today’s environment? 1.5 CPE credit in the field of Finance

Answering the question of what projects make better than expected margins and which ones fell short is important. Knowing WHY and preventing repeated failing strategies is even more important. During this session we will discuss the importance behind job performance analysis and the key indicators of which strategies to persue, which to focus improvements on, and which ones to let go. Using data to drive strategic decisions provides fact based decision making in lieu of utilizing gut feel or emotions when defining the future direction of the organization.

The decision to terminate a subcontractor is never made lightly. There is often significant operational and financial impact involved. Depending on why the subcontractor is in the process of default, it is possible to take actions that avoid termination and allow for the completion of the work. In some situations, finishing the scope of work with that subcontractor is not possible, for either performance or customer relationship reasons. Then you must turn your focus toward how to take decisive action to keep your project on track, facilitate the takeover and completion of that scope of work, and mitigate the almost inevitable unfavorable financial consequences that are about to occur. This session will add techniques to your repertoire as you “Choose Your Own Adventure” through the various scenarios a subcontractor default can take.

This critically important session focuses on the areas of business succession, estate planning, and liquidity issues for the privately held business owner in order for the company to successfully transition to the next generation or other successors/buyers. Attention is also given to non-family closely held businesses as techniques are explained that will assist these owners in preserving their assets. Some of the key topics addressed are: buy/sell agreements, importance of proper valuation methodologies and still lower the tax bill, liquidity planning, and family dynamics within a company.
***Special attention will be given to the upcoming major shift in estate tax law and how this will impact business owners and their companies.

Construction Contractors can chose from up to 7 different tax methods, often on the same tax returns. It is essential for construction companies, and those that advise them to be aware of the options, the interaction between the methods, how to elect them, and how to implement them. The session will be an interactive discussion of best practices in the industry.

Are you having ongoing issues with getting true cost to complete numbers on projects? Do you spend a lot of time explaining the WIP to the Operation team, so they start to understand how sandbagging could negatively affect a company's accurate forecast? In this session, I would present items to be considered by management while analyzing the work-in-progress report (WIP), including complex items like mobilization, costs incurred but not reported, contract assets and contract liabilities, and stockpile materials. Learn how job site visits could be your best tool to improve project reporting and accurate projections.

Labor cost management is one of the largest challenges construction companies are faced with. Project overages negatively impact profits and competitiveness, making this issue a key area for most companies to focus on improving. To combat this issue, tracking labor costs in real-time can help identify labor overages early on so action can be taken to minimize further impact. This session will help attendees to understand how impactful labor cost management is on company performance and provide steps that attendees can take to start tracking labor in real-time.

Are you prepared if DOL, ICE, EEOC, OSHA, or NLRB wants to audit your company? Learn about prevailing wage requirements that apply to Federally funded projects. This session provides tips for spotting issues in wage and hour, I-9, E-Verify, NLRB, OSHA, and Davis-Bacon audits. Learn processes to review practices and documentation and implement risk management strategies to protect your company. Learn how Bona Fide Fringe Benefits save on Labor Costs, how compliance regulations differ on State and Federal Projects, and how paying prevailing wage on 179D and 45L projects can boost tax benefits!

Please Note: Session has required prerequisite material. Construction Financial Managers live in a dynamic, ever-changing environment every day. A rock-solid Work-In-Process (WIP) schedule working in concert with effective Project Management is critical to keeping your projects in the Black. In this session, we will share best practices of utilizing your WIP and PM tools together to support your project and leadership teams to lock in the gain and prevent project fade throughout the project lifecycle. Attendees will engage in a series of roundtable discussions to address in interactive case scenarios to put their experience and learning into action.

Once a project is bid and won, the success of the Operations team determines the job’s financial success or failure. Upon developing a detailed understanding of the job, and the considerations of how the bid was put together, you can formulate an expected level of profit for the project. The end result will move, favorably or unfavorably, based on various risk or opportunity factors specific to that project. In this session, participants will explore the importance of identifying and quantifying those risk and opportunity factors considered during the bid phase and at the start of the job in order to provide better oversight and management throughout the job. Risk and opportunity factors can also be used to create a scorecard that helps define project success in a manner that is clear to financial and non-financial team members alike.

For years there has been a lot of talk about the construction labor crisis and how to improve the labor situation. This panel and group discussion will call on the expertise of leaders from workforce development programs in various areas of the country. They will answer questions about what’s working and why. With your peers, explore the options available to your organization.