Fractional and interim CFO for Central Illinois contractors. Principal-led. Numbers before narrative. No hand-holding, no hedging, no excuses.
30-Day Cash & Control Diagnostic · from $4,500Tap any card to see how we fix it. Operators do not fail for lack of grit. They fail because the numbers arrive late, arrive wrong, or never arrive at all. If three of these sound familiar, you already know why you are here.
The P&L says you made money. Payroll says otherwise. Nobody can explain the gap in one sentence.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻13-week rolling cash forecast and a Monday Cash Note. You see Friday's balance on Monday, every week.
TAP TO FLIP BACKBy the time you see last month, this month is half gone and the decisions were already made blind.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻A close calendar with owners and deadlines. Books closed in 10 business days, then faster.
TAP TO FLIP BACKCovenants, borrowing base, a renewal on the calendar. The answers live in three spreadsheets and one person's head.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻A standard lender package, covenant tracking and a forecast your banker can underwrite. We sit in the meeting.
TAP TO FLIP BACKChange orders unbilled, WIP schedule ignored, retainage aging in the dark. The work is done. The money is not.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻WIP schedule rebuilt, change orders billed, retainage chased. Margin tracked by job, every month.
TAP TO FLIP BACKMore revenue, more trucks, more inventory, less money in the bank. Growth without a cash plan is a slow-motion crash.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻Growth tied to a cash plan: working capital needs, financing lined up before you need it.
TAP TO FLIP BACKReconciliations missing, controls on paper only, a surety or lender waiting on statements you cannot defend.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻Reconciliations, schedules and controls built to survive fieldwork. A clean PBC list, delivered early.
TAP TO FLIP BACKThree or more? Stop guessing.
Take the 60-second Chaos ScoreNo one could ride the horse. Then a young Alexander saw what everyone missed: it was afraid of its own shadow.
The story goes that he turned Bucephalus toward the sun, the shadow fell behind, and the most feared warhorse of the ancient world became the one that carried him across an empire.
Your company is that horse. Powerful, valuable and spooked by what it cannot see. We do not break it. We turn it toward the light: real cash, real margins, real controls, so the shadows fall behind you and the business finally runs where you point it.
After Plutarch, Life of Alexander, 6Fixed scope. Fixed fee. Thirty days to find where the cash is leaking, where the controls are failing and what it is worth to fix it. You walk away with the answers whether you hire us again or not.
Pricing scales with entity count and transaction volume. Quoted in writing before work begins. No surprises.
Read-only access to the books, banks and job reports. Interviews with the owner, office and field. We start pulling transactions on day one.
13-week forecast built. Receivables, unbilled and retainage aged and ranked. The first recovered dollars usually surface here.
Job and line profitability rebuilt. Close process and controls tested against what a lender, surety or auditor will ask for.
Written findings, a dollar-valued 90-day plan and a straight answer on what you need: nothing more, a fractional CFO, or an interim seat.
| Opening cash | 412,600 |
| Collections expected | 286,000 |
| Payroll and taxes | (198,400) |
| Vendors due | (141,750) |
| Equipment note | (18,200) |
| Projected Friday cash | 340,250 |
Every engagement is led by the principal. No junior handoffs, no offshore bookkeeping farm, no slide decks dressed up as strategy.
Monthly close you can trust, a weekly cash note, board and lender reporting, budget and forecast, pricing and margin discipline. A seat at your table for a fraction of the cost.
The CFO left, the controller quit, or the deal will not wait. We step in, stabilize the function, hire the permanent team and hand off a machine that runs.
13-week cash control, vendor and lender negotiation, covenant resets and a credible plan your bank can underwrite.
Reconciliations, schedules, controls and a clean PBC package. Walk into fieldwork prepared instead of defensive.
Lines of credit, equipment and CapEx financing, refinancing, acquisitions and the diligence package that gets a yes.
The national firms chase venture-backed startups. We work where Central Illinois actually makes its money.
Your banker, your surety, your auditor, your buyer. Every number below was earned in the CFO seat, inside operating companies, under real pressure.
Forensic billing review and a collections push on a $125M-revenue operator, alongside $75M in CapEx financing secured to grow the fleet.
Rebuilt the reporting package and the lender relationship, then refinanced expensive debt into terms that freed cash for operations.
Tied field progress to billing, chased the change orders nobody had invoiced and put the WIP schedule back in charge.
Built the forecast, the controls and the lender package for a four-state operator, and got the capital in place before growth outran the cash.
Eight consecutive years of clean external audits at two companies simultaneously, Plante Moran at Greenridge Farm and Blackman Kallick at KLC Global Services, sixteen combined audit-years.
The same math we run inside your company, built into this page. Drag the sliders, watch the money move. No email wall, nothing saved, nothing sent.
Estimates for discussion only. Real decisions deserve real books, which is what the Diagnostic is for.
Bucephalus is led by Jorge L. Gonzalez, a CFO who has sat in the chair at contractors, manufacturers, transportation companies, food producers and multi-location operators. Not an advisor watching from the stands. The person who signed the statements and answered for them.
Based in Bloomington-Normal. On site across the region, remote everywhere else.
Home base. On site same week.
Manufacturing and industrial.
Construction, ag and services.
Contractors and distribution.
Ag processing and food.
Everything a full-time CFO does, scaled to what you need: cash forecasting, the monthly close, lender and board reporting, budgeting, pricing, controls and capital decisions. You get senior judgment on a set schedule instead of a full-time executive salary.
Because neither of us should commit before we see the truth. The Diagnostic is fixed in scope and fee, delivers real value on its own and tells both sides exactly what the right engagement looks like. If you continue, the fee is credited toward the retainer.
Your CPA looks backward: tax returns, reviews and audits. A CFO looks forward and sits on your side of the table: cash, margins, pricing, financing and the decisions that change next quarter. Bucephalus is not a CPA firm, and we work well alongside yours.
Yes. We work with your team and your systems, including QuickBooks, Sage, Epicor, Viewpoint, Foundation, NetSuite and the manufacturing MRP platforms. We fix the process before anyone talks about replacing software.
Your engagement has a set cadence, a direct line and agreed response times. For larger engagements, a vetted associate network covers close support and analysis under the principal's direction, so the work never stops.
Yes, and often that is the point. Lender meetings, covenant conversations, renewal packages and refinancing are core work, not extras.
Thirty minutes. No pitch deck. We look at where you are, what is costing you and whether the Diagnostic is worth your money. If it is not, we will tell you.
Tell us a little. You will get a reply within one business day with times. Calls run 11:00 a.m. or later, and after hours works too.