01
Job / Project Profitability
Which jobs, projects, customers and service lines actually create margin — and which ones only look busy.
Financial Operating Partner for Owner-Led Businesses
You have a bookkeeper.
You have a CPA.
What you don't have is someone in the room when the decision actually gets made.
That's the Third Seat. That's what we do.
Your financial team tells you what happened.
We help you decide what happens next.
Seat One
Bookkeeper
- Records the transactions.
- Reconciles the accounts.
- Keeps the books current.
“What happened?”
Seat Two
CPA
- Handles tax strategy.
- Compliance.
- Year-end reporting.
“Are we accounting for it correctly?”
Seat Three
Third Seat
- Connects the numbers to operations.
- Finds where margin is being made or lost.
- Helps the owner decide what to do next.
“What does this mean — and what do we do about it?”
Sound Familiar?
The books can be right while the business is still making the wrong decisions.
You know your revenue. You don't know your margin.
Top-line growth says nothing about which jobs, projects or service lines actually paid for themselves.
You're busy — but can't tell what's actually profitable.
The calendar is full. Labor overruns, callbacks, scope creep and overhead quietly eat what's left.
Payroll gets made. Cash still feels tight.
Accounting profit and the cash the business actually needs are two different numbers. Most owners only see one.
Some of your services quietly lose money.
Certain work consumes far more labor and overhead than the price reflects. Nobody notices until it's a habit.
Your team grew faster than the economics behind it.
Headcount gets added one person at a time, without knowing the revenue and gross profit required to carry them.
Pricing still relies too much on instinct.
Last year's price, the competitor's price and a gut feel. None of those tell you what the work costs to deliver.
Financial statements tell you what happened. Operators need to know why it happened — and what to do next.
Not Another Accounting Firm
We turn financial information into operating decisions.
Third Seat sits between the financial statements and the day-to-day decisions that determine whether the business actually creates cash and margin.
02
Pricing & Margin
What the work really costs to deliver, and what pricing has to be to produce the margin you want.
03
Labor & Capacity
Payroll, staffing, utilization and productivity connected back to revenue and gross profit.
04
Cash Flow
Where cash is going, what's coming, and which decisions will create pressure before the bank account tells you.
05
Forecasting
Practical forecasts an owner can actually use to make hiring, purchasing and growth decisions.
06
Owner Compensation
Business economics separated from owner lifestyle, so you know what the company can responsibly distribute.
07
Decision Support
- Hiring someone?
- Buying equipment?
- Opening another location?
- Taking on debt?
- Changing pricing?
Third Seat models the economics before the decision gets made, not after the quarter closes.
How It Works
From financial reporting to a real seat at the table.
01
Diagnostic
Pull the real numbers apart. Job costing. Revenue. Labor. Overhead. Service-line economics. Owner compensation. Cash flow. Then say plainly where the business is making money and where it's losing it.
02
Priority Action Plan
Not every problem deserves equal attention. Findings get ranked by financial impact, down to the handful of decisions most likely to move the business.
03
Ongoing Operating Partner
Stay involved. Review performance. Pressure-test decisions. Update forecasts. Catch problems early. Keep management accountable to what was decided.
Less “meet with the CFO once a month.” More “there's an experienced financial operator sitting at the table with us.”
Built for businesses where the work has to make money
If you make money one job, project, contract or crew at a time, the economics matter.
Third Seat is built for owner-led companies whose profit depends on what happens underneath each unit of work — the crew, the truck roll, the contract, the engagement. If the cost to deliver moves job to job, averages will mislead you.
- Trades & Contractors
- Field Services
- Construction
- Professional Services
- Agencies
- Project-Based Businesses
- Multi-Service Businesses
- And other businesses where job, project or service-line profitability decides the year.
Outside Finance Help vs. Third Seat
A title isn't the point.
Better decisions are.
Most outside financial help stops at reporting, budgeting and review. Useful, but it ends where the operating questions begin. Third Seat goes further into the operating model itself.
The spreadsheet isn't the work.
The decision is.
- What are you selling?
- What does it really cost to deliver?
- Which work creates margin?
- Which work destroys it?
- What should labor cost?
- When should you hire?
- When should you raise prices?
- Can you afford the next truck, person, location or investment?
- What happens to cash if you do?
Why Third Seat Exists
Business owners don't need another report. They need someone who can help them read the business.
There's usually a gap between the people who maintain the financial records and the people running the company. The records are accurate. The decisions still get made on instinct.
Third Seat exists to close that gap. The work combines financial discipline with practical operating experience — how jobs get sold, staffed, delivered and paid for.
We care less about producing an impressive financial package and more about answering five questions:
- Where are we making money?
- Where are we losing it?
- What's causing it?
- What should we change?
- What happens if we do?
From the Third Seat
All writingMargin
Revenue is not margin.
A record year on the top line can hide a worse year underneath it. Where the two numbers separate, and why owners usually find out late.
Read
Cash
Why profitable companies still run out of cash.
Profit is an opinion about timing. Payroll is not. What sits between the two on a growing job-based business.
Read
Labor
The employee you hired isn't really costing you their salary.
Burden, unbilled hours, ramp time and supervision. What a new hire actually has to produce to pay for itself.
Read
Questions
Before you book a call.
Ready to see what your numbers aren't telling you?
Book a diagnostic call and we'll talk through what a deeper operating review could surface in your business.