Finance at the Jobsite

Rishi Srivastava
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Management
  • Updated Weekly

Running finance in construction isn’t easy — and we’re here to make it easier. On the Finance at the Jobsite Podcast, host Rishi Srivastava talks with top CFOs, owners, controllers, Ops and IT experts about what’s working, what’s broken, and what’s next. If you care about cash flow, automation, and smarter financial decision-making in construction, this show is for you.

  1. 1d ago

    Beyond the P&L: What Construction CFOs Really Need to Watch | Josh Bohlke

    What actually tells you whether a construction company is healthy? For Josh Bohlke, CFO of Columbia River Electric Maintenance, the answer goes far beyond the P&L. After moving from commercial banking into the CFO seat at a $30–40 million electrical contractor, Josh saw firsthand how different construction finance looks from inside the business. In this episode of Finance at the Jobsite, we dig into WIP, backlog, gross profit, job costing, working capital, ERP data quality, automation, and the changing role of the construction CFO. Josh explains why WIP is more art than science, why contractors need to understand their balance sheet, and how bad ERP data—from stale POs to unclosed jobs—can quietly distort decision-making. We also discuss: Why backlog and gross profit are two of the most important construction KPIsHow labor hours, installed quantities, and cost should be used together to evaluate job performanceWhy analyzing the business entirely through the P&L can be dangerousWhen it may be worth reconverting or cleaning up your construction ERPLessons from rebuilding a Spectrum ERP environmentWhy clean data can help identify job fade weeks instead of months laterWhere automation works well in construction—and where human judgment is still criticalThe opportunity to automate AP, credit-card coding, and vendor statement reconciliationProcore, Spectrum, integrations, and the reality of “software fatigue”Why building your own software with AI may work for small workflows but create security and maintenance risks for mission-critical systemsHow AI could shift finance teams away from building spreadsheets and dashboards toward interpreting data and making strategic decisionsWhy the CFO's job requires not only financial expertise, but tact when delivering difficult messages to ownershipA practical conversation about what it really takes to run the finance function inside a growing construction company—and how that job may change as AI becomes part of the back office. #ConstructionFinance #ConstructionCFO #ConstructionAccounting #JobCosting #WIP #ConstructionTechnology #ConstructionERP #APAutomation #ArtificialIntelligence #ConstructionAI #Procore #ViewpointSpectrum #CashFlow #WorkingCapital #FinanceLeadership #ElectricalContractor #FinanceAtTheJobsite

  2. Aug 10

    From the Foxhole to the Ledger: Fixing Broken Books and Surviving Family Business Politics | Matt Hunter, CPA

    Matt Hunter, CPA didn't take a straight line into construction finance. He was out on his own at 16, sitting in a classroom at North Georgia Military College when the second plane hit on 9/11, and deployed to Afghanistan within weeks. Twenty-one years later he retired as an Army major in military intelligence — and only came to accounting in his thirties. In this episode of Finance at the Jobsite, Rishi and Matt get into the parts of the CFO seat most people won't say out loud. What we cover: Digging out of ~$1.2M in unpaid payroll tax at a packaging company — the cash-out refi, getting the IRS to abate roughly $400K in penalties, and losing a banking relationship over a tax lien mid-COVIDCleaning up 36 months of financials at a copier business and adding close to $1M to the sale priceThe first things Matt checks when he inherits broken books (hint: it starts with the balance sheet, not the P&L)What it actually takes to stand up a finance function from scratch — and why the best money an owner can spend is on the best bookkeeper they can findOwners who have never once logged into their ERP, and the 20,000 inventory items that should have been 1,000The politics of family-owned construction: supervising the owner's spouse, intercompany billings in Vista, and why the hardest part of these jobs is rarely the numbersFinding out he was being replaced from an email to a recruiter he was accidentally copied on — two months after a glowing reviewMental health, bravado, and job loss in construction and the military — told honestly, without the polishEarning credibility in ego-heavy rooms: know your numbers, get out of the office, and take care of peopleRed flags and the questions to ask before you sign with a founder-led construction companyMatt is currently looking for his next CFO role in commercial construction or manufacturing, open to relocating within a half day's drive of Atlanta. If you're hiring — or know someone who is — reach him at mrhcpa1706@gmail.com or on LinkedIn. Finance at the Jobsite is hosted by Rishi Srivastava and brought to you by Beiing Human. #FinanceAtTheJobsite #ConstructionFinance #ConstructionAccounting #CFO #ConstructionCFO #CPA #FamilyBusiness #JobCosting #ERP #Vista #ViewpointVista #ConstructionIndustry #Leadership #VeteranLeadership #MentalHealthInConstruction #APAutomation #Controller #ConstructionManagement #BeiingHuman

  3. Aug 3

    Agents as Labor, Not Software: Kris Lengieza on Construction's Next Budget Fight

    Construction companies don't blink at a $500,000 backhoe. They agonize over a $50,000 software line item. Kris Lengieza, Field COO at Procore Technologies, thinks that mental model is about to break — and that the shift starts when CFOs stop treating AI agents as IT spend and start treating them as labor. Rishi and Kris get into the CFO conversation that made it click: "I trust my PMs to hire day laborers out of their project budget. Why shouldn't they have the same autonomy to fund AI agents?" In this episode: Why the construction CFO role is shifting from bookkeeping to capital deployment, IT, and M&AAutomation vs. augmentation — and what each actually means for a mid-size GCThe productivity math: 35% of a field day spent on low-value work, 20% just hunting for answersAgents across systems, not just inside one — ERP, SharePoint, Procore, and 150+ connectorsCost control and guardrails: how one agent run turned into a $700 bill, and why "hardened" agents matterWhether AI spend belongs in project cost or the IT budget (and why construction's 1–2% tech spend is misleading)Robots as tools vs. full autonomy — Dusty Robotics, DroneDeploy, Bedrock Robotics, and what 2031 looks likeThe "Trish" story: a project admin whose role was elevated, not eliminatedWhy 76% of digital transformations fail, and how to survive an ERP migrationWhat makes a construction tech startup defensible in the SaaSpocalypse: proprietary data and deep domain expertiseKris's 2030 prediction: the same number of humans, one project engineer, and a hundred agentsKris spent 20 years in the field — Whiting-Turner, Weitz, Stiles — before moving to Procore, where he's led global partnerships, technology evangelism, and now the Field COO role. Lehigh civil engineering grad, LEED AP, ENR Southeast Top 20 Under 40. "The agents aren't coming. They're here." #ConstructionFinance #ConstructionTech #AIinConstruction #CFO #Procore #ConstructionManagement #AIAgents #DigitalTransformation #ConstructionIndustry #FinanceAtTheJobsite #ConstructionRobotics #ConstructionAccounting #FutureOfWork #ContechPodcast #BuiltEnvironment

  4. Jul 23

    Prove You're Best in Class Contractor: Inside CFMA's Financial Benchmarker — Arleen Barningham & Rhett Ennis

    Every contractor says they're best in class — but until you put your numbers on paper, you haven't proven it. In this episode of Finance at the Jobsite, Rishi sits down with Arleen Barningham, Product & Data Analytics Manager at CFMA, and Rhett Ennis, CPA, Shareholder at CBIZ CPAs and Pacific Northwest Construction Practice Group Leader, to break down CFMA's Financial Benchmarker — the tool that lets construction companies see how they really stack up against their peers. We get into what the benchmarker is and the question it was built to answer 30 years ago, why contractors are so often surprised the first time they see their "report card," and how to choose a fair peer group. Rhett shares the metrics he finds most diagnostic (working capital, equity, AR turnover, and the underrated gross profit per FTE), which widely watched ratios get misread most often, and why the real breakthrough happens when owners see their results visually instead of in raw numbers. Arleen walks through the data-collection grind — why a survey can take a CPA four to five hours — and the modernization push to pull data straight from ERP systems via API, plus how CFMA protects the confidentiality of sensitive financials. Whether you're a CFO, controller, or contractor who's never benchmarked before, this one is a challenge to stop guessing and start proving it. 📩 Never miss an episode — join 500+ construction finance and ops leaders getting practical insights in their inbox: https://beiinghuman.com/newsletter-signup/ #Construction #ConstructionFinance #CFMA #Benchmarking #JobCosting #WorkingCapital #CFO #Contractors #ConstructionAccounting #ConstructionTech #FinanceAtTheJobsite #ConstructionManagement

  5. Jul 13

    Why Project Managers Hate Coding Invoices — and What It Costs You | Tanmaya Kala (TK), Co-Founder & COO, MeltPlan

    Tanmaya "TK" Kala spent 13 years at DPR Construction rising to Project Executive on billion-dollar healthcare projects — including OSHPD hospital builds where clients demanded actual-cost documentation down to the square foot of drywall. Now he's Co-Founder & COO of MeltPlan, building AI tools for pre-construction. In this episode of Finance at the Jobsite, TK breaks down why the finance–operations gap exists on nearly every project: why coding invoices is "a chore" that gets deprioritized, how he blocked Friday afternoons just to get billing done, and why the accounting system — not the PM platform — is still the real source of truth. He shares stories from the field, including a subcontractor emailing certified payroll with exposed Social Security numbers, and explains why billing becomes a last-minute scramble when everyone waits until the deadline to maximize cash flow. We also cover: lump sum vs. cost plus contracts and what each means for financial workload, why only 2% of projects hit cost, time, and benefits, material tracking in a post-COVID supply chain, and TK's vision for AI making project managers reviewers instead of doers — plus his 95% accuracy threshold for when AI automation actually pays off. Chapters:00:41 – TK's journey: from structural engineering to Project Executive at DPR11:05 – The finance vs. operations gap21:32 – Real jobsite finance stories: Friday invoice coding, billing scrambles, and a payroll PII scare30:10 – Cost tracking: lump sum vs. cost plus, and why material tracking is art and science40:17 – Technology in construction and the founding of MeltPlan47:35 – The future of construction finance: AI as first-pass coder, PM as reviewer

  6. Jul 6

    AI Agents in Construction Finance: What Actually Works (and Where They Break)

    Everyone says AI agents are about to run your back office unattended. The research — and a day in the life of a construction finance software founder — says something more useful and a lot more specific. In this solo episode of Finance at the Jobsite, host Rishi Srivastava (founder of Beiing Human) gives the honest version of where AI agents genuinely help in construction accounting and where they fall on their face. No slideware — these are tools he runs every day, backed by two pieces of research: Meta's GAIA-2 benchmark and CFAgentBench https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.22000 , a new paper from his team testing agents on CFO-grade work. What you'll learn: Why the best AI agent completes only ~42% of everyday tasks start-to-finish — and why "on a clock" is where they fail hardest. The plan-act-observe-feedback loop that makes an agent auditable and trustworthy. Live look at two workflows that work today: creating a Viewpoint Vista job from an award email, and automating a dreaded ERP data migration. Why reliability collapses from ~66% (one try) to ~38% (five times in a row) — and why you should demand the "five in a row" number, not the demo number. How MCP ("USB-C for AI") is dissolving vendor lock-in and turning your finance systems into places agents can act, not just read. Why human-in-the-loop isn't a weakness — it's the architecture that survives an audit. Real questions from CFOs, controllers, and ERP partners throughout, plus where this is all headed in the next year. Whether you're running the numbers, leading the team, or designing the systems that keep projects moving — this is your place to learn what's working, what's broken, and what's next in construction finance. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Audible, or watch on YouTube — just search Finance at the Jobsite.

  7. Jun 29

    Building a Modern Construction Finance Stack — with Rory Carlson, CCIFP (Adjustable Concrete Construction)

    What does a modern construction finance stack actually look like — and in what order should you build it? Rishi Srivastava sits down with Rory Carlson, CCIFP, VP of Accounting & Finance at Adjustable Concrete Construction (and a CFMA 2022 Rising Star), for a practical walk through 15+ years of construction finance. Rory shares the lessons behind two successful expense-management implementations, why ERP integration and construction focus are non-negotiable when vetting AP tools, and how to actually weigh credit card rebates (Corpay) against zero-cost expense apps (Finvari) using a simple Excel ROI model. He also gets candid on the ACH-vs-outsourced-payments tradeoff (control vs. risk vs. automation), how he once turned payments into a six-figure profit center, and why FP&A is the next frontier — but only after payroll, expense, and AP are automated and the books close on time. If you're a controller trying to convince an owner in the $5–25M range that expense and AP automation is worth it, this one's for you. In this episode: The biggest shifts in jobsite finance over 15 yearsGC vs. subcontractor: how the finance function differsWhy expense management is the easiest first winFinvari vs. Corpay: rebates, per-user cost, and real ROICoding expenses at the point of purchase vs. chasing receiptsACH vs. outsourced payments: control, risk, and liabilityThe three things that actually matter in an AP automation toolFP&A: budget vs. actual, 13-week cash forecasting, and scenario planningThe exact order of operations for building a finance stack from scratchFinance at the Jobsite is brought to you by Beiing Human. Hashtags #FinanceAtTheJobsite #ConstructionFinance #ConstructionAccounting #CFMA #CCIFP #APAutomation #ExpenseManagement #ConstructionTech #FPandA #Controller #CFO #Subcontractor #GeneralContractor #CashForecasting #ConstructionIndustry #BeiingHuman #AccountsPayable #ERP #Viewpoint #ConstructionPodcast

  8. Jun 24

    Fixing Healthcare: A CFO's Playbook for Reclaiming $1,000–$4,000 Per Employee — with Donovan Pyle

    How does a professional drummer who toured with Heart and mixed for U2 end up becoming the Validation Institute's 2025 Benefits Advisor of the Year? In this episode, Rishi sits down with Donovan Pyle — CEO of Health Compass Consulting and author of Fixing Healthcare — to expose why healthcare has become the fastest-growing financial risk on construction P&Ls, and what CFOs can actually do about it. US employers spent $1.3 trillion on healthcare in 2024 — and roughly 25% of it, about $4,000 per employee per year, was pure waste. For a 100-person contractor running 2–3% net margins, that waste eats jobs. Donovan breaks down the hidden machinery: why legacy brokers get paid more when your costs go up, why most PBM contracts say the vendor has no obligation to act in your interest, and why "healthcare just goes up every year" is a story the industry tells to keep you out of the room. Inside the conversation: The structural conflict of interest baked into the broker model (and why it's technically a prohibited transaction under federal law)The Johnson & Johnson case: a $10,000/month drug that cost $78 in cashHow a teachers union saved $3.6M by replacing one PBM — and how Blue Wave turned a 34% increase into a cost reductionThe fiduciary storm under the Consolidated Appropriations Act, and the personal liability CFOs don't know they carryThe Rosen Hotels playbook: $500M+ saved since 1991 with zero-deductible, value-based plan designA Monday-morning action plan: pull your contracts, demand 408 compensation disclosures, and build a strategy instead of buying a planWhether you're a construction CFO, HR leader, or any executive tired of watching your second-largest expense erode your margin, this is a roadmap for taking back control. Learn more about Donovan's work at healthcompassconsulting.com and fixinghealthcare.com. #FixingHealthcare #ConstructionCFO #EmployeeBenefits #HealthcareCosts #FiduciaryDuty #CFMA #FinanceAtTheJobsite

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Running finance in construction isn’t easy — and we’re here to make it easier. On the Finance at the Jobsite Podcast, host Rishi Srivastava talks with top CFOs, owners, controllers, Ops and IT experts about what’s working, what’s broken, and what’s next. If you care about cash flow, automation, and smarter financial decision-making in construction, this show is for you.

Information

  • Creator
    Rishi Srivastava
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    71
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Rishi Srivastava
  • Show Website
    Finance at the Jobsite

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