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We can support your back-office or we can BE your back-office.
We Professionalize Back-Offices
You decide which functions stay in-house and which get outsourced.
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CONSTRUCTION ACCOUNTANTS
FRACTIONAL CFOS
CAPITAL RAISING DEAL MAKERS
SOFTWARE INTEGRATORS
RENEE SEELEY, DEANNA DeVRIES & ARMANDO CABRERA
USA-BASED FRACTIONAL CONTROLLERS
"Recognize and plan
for the tension your desire to uplevel your Accounting and Finance Department will create with your current employees"
It's Typically the Most Painful Part of
Owning a Growing Business
The people who helped you get going can no longer help you keep growing.
Before you dive in to the Accounting section of our site, we want to warn you of a potential issue. Specifically, taking your Accounting and Finance Department to the next level often requires that the current leader of that department not be allowed to unduly influence or sabotage the effort.
We see this dynamic play out often. Here's the setup: a new Developer, Homebuilder or General Contractor knows how to develop and/or build but doesn't know how to keep his books. So, with his business being new and small, he hires a bookkeeper. It's all he can afford in the beginning.
Time passes. The business grows. Revenues double. Triple. Wow! Times ten! And issues begin to surface. The accounting becomes increasingly complex. It becomes harder and harder for the bookkeeper to turn out timely and accurate financial statements. And the principal begins to ask questions the bookkeeper cannot answer.
In response, the bookkeeper cites and recites a tired list of excuses, played in a loop much like a broken record, as to why things are the way they are ("the guys aren't turning in their credit card receipts" is a common one). And yet the questions keep coming. From the bank. From the insurance company. From the bonding company. And from partners, investors and (worst of all) from customers.
At some point in this process, the principal decides a change needs to be made. And this is where the real tension begins. The bookkeeper has been with the company for years, through thick and thin, fat and lean. But the company now finds itself in a difficult spot; this loyal, dedicated employee is simply no longer qualified to serve as the leader of its Accounting and Finance Department. And replacing, or putting someone in over the top of, him or her is proving to be the most painful part of owning this growing business (this is particularly painful when the incumbent is a trusted friend, a relative or - worst of all - an immediate family member such as a husband, wife, son or daughter).
If anything we've written above sounds familiar to you, rest easy. You're not alone. In fact, this issue is common for a growing business. Fortunately, there's a tried and true rule you should follow once you identify yourself as being in this situation: don't allow the incumbent to unduly influence or sabotage you as you work to take your Accounting and Finance Department to the next level.
This will require that you personally lead the effort and that you personally serve as its main point of contact. Don't make the mistake of (essentially) appointing the incumbent to pick (what he or she will see, rightly or wrongly, as) his or her own replacement. And don't make the mistake of allowing the incumbent to tell you what he or she thinks you do or don't need; instead, dialogue with and get input and opinions from professionals who know how to grow and scale an Accounting and Finance Department to keep pace with the growth and scale of the business that department is intended to serve.
Bottom line: as you work through this process, recognize and plan for the tension your desire to uplevel your Accounting and Finance Department will create. And don't allow the self interests of the incumbent leader of that department to unduly influence or dictate what your business needs.
CONSTRUCTION ACCOUNTANTS
FRACTIONAL CFOS
CAPITAL RAISING DEAL MAKERS
SOFTWARE INTEGRATORS
Every Developer,
Homebuilder or General Contractor needs to learn this difference:
"Financial accounting
reports on yesterday. Managerial accounting predicts tomorrow."
"In Construction Accounting, it's common for Clients to want to know where they'll end up in a job before it's completed, as it's underway, while there's still time to course correct or negotiate a change order"
What's the Difference Between Financial
Accounting vs. Managerial Accounting?
And why is Managerial Accounting dependent on the Financial Accounting being done correctly?
Visualize this: a line in the sand that represents present day. Everything prior to, everything to the left of, the line is history. Everything beyond the line, everything to the right of it, is the future. Simply put, everything to the left of the line is Financial Accounting. And everything to the right the line is Managerial Accounting. In other words:
Financial accounting reports on yesterday; reporting on what has already happened, financial accounting summarizes the past by examining actual financial results. Financial accounting is a science. It's what's so. One plus one equals two. Every time, no exceptions. There's always a right and a wrong answer to financial accounting reports.
Managerial accounting predicts tomorrow; reporting on what has not yet happened, managerial accounting predicts the future by examining the past and, using the information and insights gleaned from it, applying and interpreting forward-looking projections and forecasts. Managerial accounting is an art. It's what could be. What might be. "If we change this it becomes that." Or, more to the point, "you'd be more profitable if you did more of this and less of that." There's seldom a right or wrong answer to managerial accounting reports.
The sad reality for most Developers, Homebuilders and General Contractors
Fact is, most Developers, Homebuilders and General Contractors are doing well, compared to their peers, if they're regularly receiving timely, accurate and meaningful financial accounting reports. We say this because we speak to a lot of people who are active in the Development, Homebuilding and General Contracting spaces. Pretty much each and every day. And the people we speak to tell us what they're receiving and how often. And, truth be told, very few are receiving timely, accurate and meaningful managerial accounting reports (and then there are always those who answer "yes, of course" to the question but who, upon further questioning, make it obvious to us that they're not).
Why is it such a rarity? Why do so many struggle to get this right?
Our understanding of this issue began in 1991 with an Accounting Professor at UT Austin
The year was 1991 and a bright-eyed University of Texas at Austin student named Marco Vargas, who today serves as the Managing Partner of our firm, sat in on the first day of one of his first Accounting courses. He often, still to this day, recalls and recites what he heard that day, the Professor explaining to the class that pretty much everything they'd learn in the course would apply to all accounting assignments except for construction and manufacturing accounting. Those two assignments, the class was told, were specialties; outliers that tended to break the rules. Anyone interested in working in those fields would require additional, specialized training.
Marco's Accounting Professor was correct. In fact, as time has passed the divide his Professor spoke of, essentially the difference between accounting for a flower shop vs. a construction company, has grown worse. As SKUs and barcodes and Warehouse Management Systems (WMSs) and other similar automations have made standard (i.e., comparatively simple) accounting assignments easier to keep straight in real time, construction accounting assignments remain, and will continue to remain, dependent on human intelligence, intervention, analysis and interpretation.
An example: the Actual vs. Budget Report
Here's an excellent example of the issue, one of dozens of such examples unique to our arena. Consider the actual vs. budget report. Let's assume you want to know where you stand, actual vs. budget, in the foundation work you've got underway for a new office building you're constructing. Your actual expenses to date total $650K USD against a budget of $1M USD. Most bookkeepers and accountants would report that, as of the date of the analysis, you're currently under budget by $350K.
Wrong answer.
A report of under by $350K would only be correct if given as a post mortem, following 100% completion of the task in question (this is the "We Can Get It Right In The End" approach). Here, the ask was for a report on a task not yet complete.
In construction accounting, it's common for a Developer, Homebuilder or General Contractor to want to know, same as the question asked above, the answer to this question before the task has been completed, as it's underway. Which raises a short list of additional questions and issues; perhaps, citing one potential issue, the middle of the job falls in a different accounting year than the year it began in.
In fact, in construction accounting, this question cannot be answered correctly unless (a) the accounting system is correctly configured so to be able to answer it, (b) information is being input into that correctly configured system on a day-to-day, invoice-by-invoice, timecard-by-timecard basis, in anticipation of the question being asked mid-task and then, even with all of that, the ability to correctly answer this question mid-task will still require that (c) someone - an actual living, breathing human - add the final, missing component to the equation: specifically, how complete is this task? If it can be stated with certainty that this work is 65% complete then you're actually on budget. If it's less than 65% complete you're over budget; likewise, if it's more than 65% complete you're under budget.
And so we return to the Original Question
We began this section with a question that, although simple to ask, is somewhat complicated to answer. But here are four reasons why Managerial Accounting, to be correct, is dependent on the Financial Accounting being correct:
FIRST, because Construction Accounting, on the whole, is an outlier, a more complicated version of business accounting that requires an additional set of skills and experience that many accountants and bookkeepers simply don't have.
SECOND, because in order for Managerial Accounting reports to be correct (for example, the actual vs budget report discussed above, when delivered mid-way through a job or a task, is an example of a Managerial Accounting report in that its purpose is to predict the future; namely, where will this task finish up?), the Financial Accounting system must be correctly configured in anticipation of the need for it to output correct, up-to-date information that can be morphed into meaningful Managerial Accounting reports.
THIRD, because, even if configured properly, the Financial Accounting system must also be kept up on a day-to-day basis by construction accounting professionals who work in anticipation of the same expectation; namely, that the Financial Accounting system they keep will be routinely and regularly called upon to output historical data and metrics that will be, in turn, relied upon by the Managerial Accounting team to create meaningful, accurate, timely and alert forward-looking projections, estimates and forecasts.
And, FOURTH, because even if all of the above is done correctly, intervention from a knowledgeable human is required to interpret and translate this Financial Accounting data into meaningful Managerial Accounting insights.
Read on to learn more.
CONSTRUCTION ACCOUNTANTS
FRACTIONAL CFOS
CAPITAL RAISING DEAL MAKERS
SOFTWARE INTEGRATORS
"We often see large volume operations - as large as, say, $50 million
per year - struggling mightily to uplevel their accounting from Level 1 to Level 2. It's not easy; in fact, advancing to Level 2 is typically a company's first attempt at doing Managerial Accounting."
The Three Levels to a Set of Books
in Construction Accounting
Where are you?
Whenever we internally discuss an assignment that involves assisting a Developer, Homebuilder or General Contractor resolve issues with its accounting processes and procedures, we classify those assignments as falling into one of three levels; Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3. Each level is discussed in detail below.
However, before we go into the three levels, we should note that there's actually a level that comes before Level 1. Perhaps we should call it Level 0; it's that place where we're told that "Our Company's PL is (generally) right at year end". This is where we commonly find many young, growing Developers, Homebuilders and General Contractors.
Companies at Level 0 have no (or very little) job P&L detail. All of the company's income is posting to a shared income account (or to a collection of shared income accounts) and all of the company's costs and expenses are posting to shared, generalized cost and expense accounts. At year end, companies at Level 0 can view their income in the aggregate, can net that aggregate income against their costs and expenses, once again in the aggregate, and can state, generally with reasonable certainty, whether or not - on the whole - the company made or lost money.
Or can they?
Level 0 companies and the Work in Progress Calculation
The wild card for Level 0 companies is the Work in Progress (the "WIP") calculation. An erroneous WIP calculation (or, worse, no WIP calculation at all) at year end will typically result in a P&L that overstates the profitability of a young, growing company in its infant years. That's because most young, growing companies charge large deposits at the beginning of a job, deposits they typically fail to account for correctly by wrongly including the unearned (i.e., the "not yet earned") portion of these deposits in income. The WIP calculation, when done correctly, sorts this out.
Our phone typically rings, or our email lights up, a few years later, as growth stabilizes, the effects of these early overstatements reverse and losses begin to pile up. On the other end of the phone or computer we typically find an exasperated owner trying to figure out what's happening and why. What seemed relatively straight forward has become difficult for him (or her) to understand.
Level 0 companies need to progress to Level 1 immediately. In our professional opinion, no Developer, Homebuilder or General Contractor can survive, long term, at Level 0.
LEVEL 1:
"Our Job P&Ls are right at the end of each job and our WIP is correct at 12/31"
Level One is what we consider to be the baseline. Each and every Developer, Homebuilder or General Contractor simply must achieve this level of proficiency.
LEVEL 2:
"Our Job P&Ls are, and our WIP is, right on the dates we choose to close our books "
We often see large volume operations - as large as, say, $50 million per year - struggling mightily to uplevel their accounting from Level 1 to Level 2. It's not so easy; in fact, advancing to Level 2 is typically a company's first attempt at doing Managerial Accounting.
LEVEL 3:
"Our Job P&Ls are, and our WIP is, right all the time, in real time."
Here's where every serious Developer, Homebuilder or General Contractor should strive to be. For one simple and compelling reason: this is where your most lethal competitors are. These are the competitors who know precisely how much it costs them to do every aspect of a job and who are estimating, and bidding, accordingly.
But, let's be real here; achieving Level 3 financial statements takes time, training and a commitment from the top down.
Here's the good news: AscendantVG can help you get to Level 3. We can support your back office with trainings and consultation. Or, alternatively, we can BE your back office through a cost effective outsourcing arrangement. Or any combination thereof. The choice is yours as to which functions stay in-house and which functions are outsourced.
Read on for detailed information on outsourcing your back office.
CONSTRUCTION ACCOUNTANTS
FRACTIONAL CFOS
CAPITAL RAISING DEAL MAKERS
SOFTWARE INTEGRATORS
If our Homebuilder Back-Office Operation
were the Back-Office of a Single Homebuilder, that Homebuilder would be the 61st Largest Homebuilder in the USA.*
"74% of the USA's top 200 builders listed 'operational efficiency' as the top business opportunity for 2025. And yet, while much of the efficiency focus is typically placed on procurement and on-site project management, the inefficiencies associated with the back-office are often either not fully understood or are altogether overlooked."
SOURCE: ProBuilder 2025 Survey of Top 200 Builders
Reprinted with permission, copyright retained, all rights reserved by ProBuilder
"There are businesses where outsourcing the back-office makes no sense, and then there are businesses where it makes all the sense in the world.
Small to medium sized Developers, Homebuilders and General Contractors fall in the latter category - these are businesses that are complicated to account for and that require specialized Accounting, Finance and FP&A talent in small (i.e., less than full time) measures on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis. The perfect outsourcing scenario."
Our Developer, Homebuilder and General Contractor clients are constantly seeking ways to optimize operations, cut costs and enhance efficiency.
And rightly so, given strong competition and tight margins. Consider this: 74% of the USA's top 200 builders listed "operational efficiency" as the top business opportunity for 2025. And yet, while much of the efficiency focus is typically placed on procurement and on-site project management, the inefficiencies associated with the back-office are often either not fully understood or are altogether overlooked. As a result, the back-office is often allowed to become an overloaded drain on resources. And, yes, this was the case with some of the most cost conscious clients we now work with on an outsourced basis. It's a common blind spot that should be carefully examined, same as materials and other expenses,
Here are some compelling reasons why you should consider outsourcing your back-office to AscendantVG:
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Professional Capability and Cost Efficiency
One of the most immediate and tangible benefits of outsourcing your back-office to us is a significant increase in professional capability coupled with cost savings.
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A Back-Office that Rivals What the Biggest Boys Enjoy
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Our back-office operations are separated into three teams: Real Estate Developers, Homebuilders and Commercial/Civil General Contractors. Our Homebuilder back-office operation is by far the largest team; in fact, if our Homebuilder back-office operation, at $484 million in collective gross revenues in 2024, were the back-office of a single Homebuilder, that Homebuilder would rank as the 61st largest Homebuilder in the USA.*
(*) According to the 2025 Top 200 Rankings published by ProBuilder.
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This means that our clients enjoy full access to a back-office that's staffed similar to, and has capabilities comparable to, their largest national competitors. For a fraction of the price. This manifests in a multitude of advantages to our clients, such as:
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Reduced Overhead
Maintaining an in-house back-office is a big commitment. It involves substantial fixed costs, including salaries, benefits, office space, utilities, hardware and training. Outsourcing transforms these fixed costs into variable, predictable expenses, freeing up capital that can be reinvested into core business activities or used to mitigate project risks.
Lower Labor Costs
You benefit from our economies of scale and from the fact that we're a fully remote firm that operates in regions with lower labor costs.
Recruitment and Training Expenses Eliminated
The costs associated with recruiting, onboarding and continuously training administrative and accounting, finance and FP&A personnel are considerable. Outsourcing your back-office to AscendantVG eliminates these expenses.
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Enhanced Efficiency and Productivity
Outsourcing allows our Developer, Homebuilder and General Contractor clients to streamline their back-office processes, leading to improved overall efficiency.
Experts vs. Generalists
AscendantVG is built around optimizing administrative processes. Our accounting, finance and FP&A teams have deep expertise in specific back-office functions (e.g., construction accounting, payroll, HR compliance, WIP calculations, AVB analysis, software integration), far exceeding the capabilities of any internal generalist team. This specialization leads to faster, more accurate and compliant operations and, equally essential, brings greater and timely visibility to projects in process.
Processes Optimized
We constantly refine our workflows and leverage best practices to deliver services efficiently. We identify bottlenecks, implement automation and introduce new technologies that an internal generalist team might lack the time or necessary professional background to learn. Or that you might lack the financial resources to deploy on your own.
Free to Focus on Core Competencies
By offloading your back-office to AscendantVG, you and your key personnel can dedicate more time and energy to focusing on where your business makes its money. This refocusing will directly impact project profitability and business expansion.
Scalable
Our Developer, Homebuilder and General Contractor clients commonly experience fluctuations in their workloads. A back-office outsourced to AscendantVG can easily scale services up or down to match project demands, without these demands resulting in you having to urgently hire or lay off personnel.
Specialized Expertise
There are businesses where outsourcing the back-office makes no sense, and then there are businesses where it makes all the sense in the world. Small to medium sized Developers, Homebuilders and General Contractors fall in the latter category - these are businesses that are complicated to account for and that require specialized Accounting, Finance and FP&A talent in small (e.g., less than full time) measures on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis. The perfect outsourcing scenario. Specifically:
Industry-Specific Knowledge
AscendantVG has a deep understanding of requirements unique to the real estate development, homebuilding and general contracting industries; requirements such as progress billing, lien waivers, job costing, percentage-of-completion vs. completed contract accounting and compliance with industry-specific regulations such as ASC 606 (an accounting standard regarding revenue recognition) and state-specific trust accounting requirements. Our expertise reduces errors and ensures financial accuracy.
Compliance and Risk Mitigation
Staying abreast of ever-changing labor laws, tax regulations, and industry-specific compliance requirements can be a full-time job. With your back-office outsourced to AscendantVG, we assume responsibility for keeping ourselves and our staff fully up-to-date, thereby eliminating your risk of penalties, adversarial audits or legal issues.
Data Security
AscendantVG implements robust data security measures and protocols, typically surpassing what you can justify the cost of putting in place yourself and safeguarding sensitive financial and employee information.
Improved Data Reporting and Decision-Making
Accurate and timely financial data is crucial for informed decision-making.
Enhanced Reporting
AscendantVG provides alert, timely, detailed financial reports customized to the unique aspects of your operation, including WIP, job cost analysis, cash flow projections and profitability statements. This granular insight will empower you to make better strategic and operational decisions.
Real-time Visibility
Clients who outsource their back-office to AscendantVG benefit from custom built dashboards and real-time access to key financial metrics, allowing them to monitor performance closely and identify issues proactively.
Strategic Advisory
AscendantVG goes beyond transactional processing. We also provide strategic financial advice, leveraging our broad experience across multiple clients to provide valuable insights into industry trends, financial benchmarks and growth opportunities.
Business Continuity and Reduced Dependence on Individuals
Relying on a single individual or a small internal team for critical back-office functions can create significant vulnerabilities. A back-office outsourced to AscendantVG is removed from dependence on any one person.
Mitigation of Key Person Risk
Along the same lines as above, if your in-house CFO, Controller, or Staff Accountant leaves unexpectedly it can severely disrupt your operation. Outsourcing your back-office to AscendantVG provides built-in redundancy and ensures continuous service delivery, as we employ and cross-train multiple team members, each of whom are capable of handling the tasks, duties and responsibilities associated with keeping your back-office fully staffed, fully operational and running smoothly.
Disaster Recovery
We implement robust business continuity and disaster recovery plans, ensuring that your back-office operations continue without interruption in unforeseen circumstances.
Objective Perspective
With AscendantVG as your external partner, we bring an unbiased, objective perspective to your financial performance and operational efficiency, identifying areas for improvement that might be missed by an internal team too close to the daily operations or unaware of how your operation benchmarks against other similarly situated companies or how other companies have addressed issues same or similar to your own.
The Bottom Line
As you navigate the complexities of finding that "sweet spot" where your company spends a sufficient amount, but never too much, for the sake of having an efficient ,cost effective and competitive back-office, we're confident you'll discover that outsourcing your back-office to AscendantVG is more than just a cost-cutting measure; more importantly, it's a strategic imperative. It will allow you to leverage expert knowledge and optimised, streamlined processes which will thus lead to significant cost efficiencies, enhanced operational productivity, reduced risk and, ultimately, to you finally having the time you need to focus on building and growing your core business.
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Follow the links below to take the first steps toward discovering how a back-office outsourced to AscendantVG will benefit you.​