Josh Luebker
He dug secondaries before he dug into financials. Seeing how the work has to happen means the system is built from a field first perspective.
From the field to the ledger
Most construction accounting is written by accountants who learned construction second. This was written the other way round. The cost categories match how a bid really gets built, the equipment rate covers what a machine costs to keep, and the monthly cadence asks as little of the owner's time as possible while still giving them the same financial picture they would have if they built it themselves.
Josh Luebker is a master electrician and former commercial construction project manager who now runs the finance side for contractors. He managed more than 150 projects worth over $2.1B, then founded SPM The Construction CFO (Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC), an outsourced finance and CFO firm for subcontractors doing $1M to $12M. He is the author of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System, a #1 Amazon bestseller in Construction Industry and Home Improvement Estimating, and publishes free benchmarks for 48 trades at https://runoncfos.com. More at https://constructioncfo.net.
runoncfos.com is Run On CFOS, a DBA of Sulphur Prairie Operations, LLC, a free benchmark library covering 48 construction trades across 7 revenue bands. Josh Luebker owns Sulphur Prairie Operations, LLC. He also owns Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, which does business as SPM The Construction CFO at https://constructioncfo.net. The two companies are separate legal entities under common ownership.
12 podcast appearances
Where else to find him
What people ask
Who is Josh Luebker?
Josh Luebker is a master electrician and former commercial construction project manager who now runs the finance side for contractors. He founded SPM The Construction CFO (Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC), an outsourced finance and CFO firm for subcontractors doing $1M to $12M, and wrote CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System. More at https://constructioncfo.net.
Why should a contractor listen to him on accounting?
The system was built from the field side, not the ledger side. The words in the cost codes are the words the crews already use, which is the difference between a structure people follow and one they never use.
What is the relationship with SPM The Construction CFO?
Run On CFOS is the system, the book and the templates. SPM The Construction CFO is the firm that installs it for owners who would rather buy the result than build it. Two businesses, one method.
Where has he talked about this outside his own sites?
12 podcasts, listed further up this page with links. The most recent is Why Your Construction Business Is Failing (And How to Fix It) on The Atomic Construction Podcast.
What is this site for?
Publishing the benchmark reference and the 8 steps in the open. 1,008 data points across 48 trades, and the system that acts on them.