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. 3d ago

    The $80,000 Engine: What Equipment Dealers Know About Contractor Operations — Brandon Kyse

    Brandon Kyse started as a framer at fifteen, studied construction management at Cal Poly, spent seven years in solar, and then thirteen years at RDO Equipment — one of the largest John Deere dealers in the world — running divisions up to $400 million. On this episode of Finance at the Jobsite, he sits down with Rishi Srivastava to unpack what he learned from the dealer seat and what it means for the contractors he now works with. Brandon walks through the P&L of a $400 million dealership and explains why the biggest revenue line carries the thinnest margin, why service is where the money is made, and how cutting one service manager can improve the numbers on paper while quietly wrecking the customer experience. He tells the story of an $80,000 engine that telematics flagged a week before it failed — and why the real breakdown was about ownership and communication, not the technology. He also revisits the Sungevity moment of 2009, when a competitor selling solar off Google Maps aerials proved everyone in the market wrong about how customers had to buy, and draws a straight line to how construction and equipment companies are operating today. Topics include: What contractors actually want from dealers (and what dealers keep missing)Why companies outgrow their operating systems long before they outgrow their technologyThe hidden cost of good people compensating for broken handoffsWho your best customer really is — hint: not the biggestCapturing thirty years of technician knowledge before it walks out the doorWhat to change Monday morning if you have telematics and nobody owns the alertsWhy "bring AI into the company" is not an operating objectiveAdvice for contractors mid-ERP implementation: don't blow it up, cut the timeline in halfHow to move a "we've done it this way for forty years" culture — put a cost on the status quoFinance at the Jobsite is hosted by Rishi Srivastava, Co-Founder and CEO of Beiing Human, AI-powered accounts payable automation for construction contractors.

  2. Sep 2

    From 15 Attendees to 300: How Caryl Coronis Rebuilt the CFMA Lone Star Conference

    Caryl Coronis, CPA, CCIFP, has served CFMA at every level — Houston chapter president, co-founder of the resurrected Lone Star Conference, and most recently national chair. But her construction finance career started with a surety agent telling her, "You're going to have to do percent complete," and an invitation to a chapter meeting. In this episode, Caryl joins Rishi Srivastava to talk about what a commercial landscape company taught her about equipment: when one riding mower goes down, four people with push mowers finish the job, and that labor is where the money quietly leaves. Those fundamentals scaled all the way up to cranes at a specialty bridge builder, where shaving one or two points off equipment cost meant real dollars in a thin-margin business. She also shares how three chapter presidents brought back a regional conference that had died at 15 attendees and grew it to roughly 300 — and why sponsors willing to risk their money made it possible. Then the conversation gets candid: navigating owner politics from the finance seat, the family business where Friday decisions got reversed after Sunday dinner, the son who bought a two-seat sports car on the company's dime, and the quiet way tasks stop getting done when one person leaves and nobody plans the handoff. We also cover the CCIFP exam at regional conferences (with a free retake), why the certification still matters when AI models can pass it, the CFMA heavy equipment comparator (hecomparator.com), and Caryl's pitch for why the regionals — at half the cost of national — are the best first step for anyone in year one. Topics covered: Percentage of completion accounting and how CFMA fills the training gapThe real cost of equipment downtime and the repair-vs-replace decisionRebuilding the CFMA Lone Star Conference from 15 to 300 attendeesOffering the CCIFP exam at regional conferencesKeeping the CCIFP relevant in the age of AIOwner politics, family businesses, and being the outsider in the roomWhy handoffs fail and how job descriptions, task lists, and software training fix it"Yes, it integrates" — the ERP bolt-on realityHow to get involved with CFMA at any levelResources mentioned: CFMA Connection Cafe, hecomparator.com, cfma.org (search "regional conferences") Beiing Human will be at the CFMA Carolinas Conference in Greensboro, October 22–23. Stop by the booth. Finance at the Jobsite is hosted by Rishi Srivastava, founder of Beiing Human. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Audible, or watch on YouTube.

  3. Aug 28

    Cut Revenue in Half, Double Your Profit — with Luke Boyenger

    Most contractors will tell you they run at 25%, 30%, even 40% gross margin. Almost none of them are right. In this episode of Finance at the Jobsite, host Rishi Srivastava sits down with Luke Boyenger — former EY auditor turned fractional CFO, running a firm built specifically for construction companies. Luke's family manufacturing business went bankrupt in the 2008 crisis, and the question "what did we get wrong?" sent him back to school at 24. What he found is the same gap he sees in nearly every contractor he talks to today: the finance seat is the last one to get filled. The uncomfortable thesis: revenue in construction doesn't create cash, it consumes it. Luke walks through why some contractors need to cut their business in half to double their profit, why a line of credit and your own cash is a fragile capital structure, why merchant cash advances trap good companies in a spiral, and why "revenue is something you should back your way into" after you've set a profit target. What we get into: Why gross margin is almost always lower than owners think$20M at $250K profit vs. $10M at $1M profit — real contractors who shrank and made more money60–120 day payment terms and why subcontractors are functioning as unpaid banksWhat "capital infrastructure" actually means for a $10–30M subcontractorThe war chest: building 6–12 months of cash before you take distributionsThe five KPIs every construction owner should review monthlyWhy owners who know what to do still don't do itKeeping business and personal finances clean — and why stacked entities and trusts usually backfireChapters00:00 Intro01:00 From the trades to EY to fractional CFO02:56 Where contractors are most confidently wrong04:46 Profitability vs. "happy revenue"06:44 Warning signs you're growing revenue at the expense of profit09:00 Shrinking from $20M to $10M and making more money10:21 Cash flow and capital infrastructure14:10 MCAs, predatory lending, and 120% effective rates15:09 Smarter capital tools before you're under pressure17:20 Subcontractors as the industry's real banks18:10 Operator vs. owner mindset21:00 Managing by financial signals instead of gut feel23:35 Why execution is so hard in construction finance25:38 Weekly, monthly, and quarterly financial disciplines26:35 Invoice terms, late-paying GCs, and how to bid for them29:45 The biggest mistakes limiting $10–50M subcontractors33:40 Separating business and personal finances37:25 One uncomfortable financial truth for construction owners Finance at the Jobsite is hosted by Rishi Srivastava, founder of Beiing Human. New episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and YouTube — just search Finance at the Jobsite.

  4. Aug 17

    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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

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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
    74
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Rishi Srivastava
  • Show Website
    Finance at the Jobsite

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