Chaos to clarity.
Fractional and interim CFO for contractors. Based in Central Illinois, serving operators nationwide. Principal-led. Numbers before narrative. No hand-holding, no hedging, no excuses.
30-Day Cash & Control Diagnostic · from $4,500Read these. Then prove us wrong.
You are not short on effort. You are short on truth, on time.
Tap 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.
Profitable on paper. Broke on Friday.
The P&L says you made money. Payroll says otherwise. Nobody can explain the gap in one sentence.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻Here is how we kill it.
13-week rolling cash forecast and a Monday Cash Note. You see a Friday forecast on Monday, every week.
TAP TO FLIP BACKThe books close in weeks, if at all.
By the time you see last month, this month is half gone and the decisions were already made blind.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻Here is how we kill it.
A close calendar with owners and deadlines. A target of 10 business days, then faster.
TAP TO FLIP BACKYour banker is asking harder questions.
Covenants, borrowing base, a renewal on the calendar. The answers live in three spreadsheets and one person's head.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻Here is how we kill it.
A standard lender package, covenant tracking and a forecast your banker can underwrite. We sit in the meeting.
TAP TO FLIP BACKJobs win the bid and lose the margin.
Change orders unbilled, WIP schedule ignored, retainage aging in the dark. The work is done. The money is not.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻Here is how we kill it.
WIP schedule rebuilt, change orders billed, retainage chased. Margin tracked by job, every month.
TAP TO FLIP BACKGrowth is eating your cash alive.
More revenue, more trucks, more inventory, less money in the bank. Growth without a cash plan is a slow-motion crash.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻Here is how we kill it.
Growth tied to a cash plan: working capital needs, financing lined up before you need it.
TAP TO FLIP BACKThe audit is coming and nobody is ready.
Reconciliations missing, controls on paper only, a surety or lender waiting on statements you cannot defend.
TAP FOR THE FIX ↻Here is how we kill it.
Reconciliations, schedules and controls built to survive fieldwork. A clean PBC list (the documents your auditor asks for), 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, 6
The 30-Day Cash & Control Diagnostic.
Fixed 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.
- 13-week cash flow forecast, built from your bank activity, not your hopes
- Cash leak map: receivables, unbilled work, retainage, inventory and payables
- Job or product line margin truth table, ranked best to worst
- Month-end close assessment with a target close calendar
- Internal controls gap list, rated by exposure
- Bank and surety readiness review: covenants, borrowing base, reporting package
- 90-day action plan with dollar values attached to every line
- Executive readout with you and, if you want, your banker in the room
Pricing scales with entity count and transaction volume. Quoted in writing before work begins. No surprises.
Get under the hood.
Read-only access to the books, banks and job reports. Interviews with the owner, office and field. We start pulling transactions on day one.
Follow the money.
13-week forecast built. Receivables, unbilled and retainage aged and ranked. The first recovered dollars usually surface here.
Find the bleeding.
Job and line profitability rebuilt. Close process and controls tested against what a lender, surety or auditor will ask for.
Hand you the truth.
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.
Monday Cash Note · Week 7
The one page you read before 9:00 a.m.| 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 |
Illustrative figures only.
A CFO in the seat. Without the full-time salary.
Every engagement is led by the principal. No junior handoffs, no offshore bookkeeping farm, no slide decks dressed up as strategy.
Fractional CFO
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.
Interim CFO
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.
Turnaround & Lender Relations
13-week cash control, vendor and lender negotiation, covenant resets and a credible plan your bank can underwrite.
Audit Readiness
Reconciliations, schedules, controls and a clean PBC package. Walk into fieldwork prepared instead of defensive.
Capital Events
Lines of credit, equipment and CapEx financing, refinancing, acquisitions and the diligence package lenders and buyers expect.
Built for companies that make, move, build and grow things.
The national firms chase venture-backed startups. We work where operators actually make their money, from Central Illinois to anywhere in the country.
Construction & Electrical
- WIP schedules that hold up to a surety
- Over and under billing control
- Retainage and change-order recovery
- Job costing that matches the field
Manufacturing
- Standard cost and margin by product
- Inventory accuracy and turns
- Capacity and CapEx decisions
- MRP and ERP data you can trust
Food Production
- Yield and waste economics
- Co-packer and customer profitability
- Commodity cost exposure
- Audit and lender-ready statements
Transportation
- Revenue per mile and per lane
- Unbilled and accessorial recovery
- Fleet financing and replacement
- Fuel and driver cost control
Auto Services & Ag
- Multi-location profitability
- Floor plan and debt cost reduction
- Seasonal cash planning for ag
- Equipment and land financing
Results that survive the most consequential reader in the room.
Your banker, your surety, your auditor, your buyer. Every number below was earned in the CFO seat, inside operating companies, under real pressure.
Found $1.3M the leasing company had already earned and never collected.
Forensic billing review and a collections push at a $125M-revenue truck leasing company, alongside $75M in CapEx financing secured to grow its fleet.
Cut the logistics company's cost of borrowing by as much as 80%.
Rebuilt the reporting package and the lender relationship, then refinanced the logistics company's expensive debt into terms that freed cash for operations.
Freed $7.5M of trapped equity at the auto services company.
Restructured the auto services company's debt from 10% to 15% down to 4% to 6% effective interest and eliminated the owners' personal guarantees.
Secured a $10M line of credit to fund the solar company's growth.
Built the forecast, the controls and the lender package for a four-state solar installer, and got the capital in place before growth outran the cash.
References from past CEOs, lenders and auditors available on request.
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.
Run your own numbers. Right now.
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.
One operator. Twenty-six years. Fifteen CFO seats.
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.
- 01Numbers before narrative. If it cannot be reconciled, it does not get said.
- 02Cash first, always. Profit is an opinion. The bank balance is not.
- 03Built for the hardest reader. Every schedule is made to survive a lender, a surety and an auditor.
- 04Straight answers. You will hear the truth early, even when it is expensive.
Central Illinois. In person when it matters.
Based in Bloomington-Normal. On site across Central Illinois, and serving operators nationwide by video and secure file share.
Bloomington-Normal
Home base. On site same week.
Peoria
Manufacturing and industrial.
Champaign-Urbana
Construction, ag and services.
Springfield
Contractors and distribution.
Decatur
Ag processing and food.
Questions owners actually ask.
What does a fractional CFO actually do?
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.
Why start with the Diagnostic instead of a retainer?
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.
How is this different from my outside CPA?
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 public accounting firm, and we work well alongside your CPA.
Do you work with my existing bookkeeper and software?
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.
What if you are unavailable when I need you?
Your engagement has a set cadence, a direct line and agreed response times. The principal leads every engagement. On larger engagements, vetted associates support close work and analysis under his direction, so the work never stops.
Do you work outside Central Illinois?
Yes. Bucephalus is based in Bloomington-Normal and serves operators nationwide. The close, the 13-week cash forecast, WIP schedules and lender packages run on your cloud systems, a secure file share and video calls. On-site visits are scheduled when the work calls for them.
Will you talk to my bank?
Yes, and often that is the point. Lender meetings, covenant conversations, renewal packages and refinancing are core work, not extras.
Stop riding blind.
Turn toward the sun.
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.