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Jameco Construction CFO

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Jameco Construction CFO

Construction Industry Accountancy & Advisory
Pay less tax | Build wealth | Grow with confidence
Built by James Wheeler
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We're a team of specialist accountants and advisors that work exclusively with UK construction businesses with annual revenues of up to £5 million. Directors who've outgrown their high street accountant but can't justify a full-time finance team. We handle the day-to-day compliance through our Virtual Finance Department, provide financial leadership through our Virtual CFO service, and make sure you're keeping more of what you earn through our Strategic Tax Advisory. We're part of the Jameco Group, founded by James Wheeler in 2017, and we work with construction businesses across the UK from our HQ in Maidstone, Kent. If you'd like to chat about your business, head to the website to book a discovery call.

28/10/2026

Your VAT record now decides whether your construction company keeps CIS gross payment status.

VAT went into the compliance test in April 2024, the twelve-month check you passed when you applied, and HMRC keeps re-running it while you hold the status.

Across those twelve months they'll overlook up to three late VAT returns, each no more than 28 days late, and up to three late VAT payments, each within 14 days of the due date. Past that, the status can be removed, putting you back on the 20% deduction from the labour element of everything you invoice.

The only way a failure outside those limits gets set aside is a reasonable excuse, and that's down to the compliance officer's discretion. Once it's gone, you usually can't reapply for twelve months.

The companies I see getting caught out the most are the ones that are not taking VAT seriously. The PAYE, the corporation tax and the CIS all get watched closely because they have always had the gross status compliance checks on them, but VAT was not part of those checks, so a return going in a few days late or a payment waiting a few weeks when cash is tight never used to put the status at risk. Obviously that has changed now.

Not sure if your compliance is being kept up to date? Book a discovery call.

24/10/2026

We work exclusively with UK construction businesses up to £5M turnover: directors who've outgrown their generalist accountant but can't justify a full-time finance hire.

The problem is your accountant is dealing with a landlord one day, a marketing agency the next, and an e-commerce business the day after. They can't specialise in construction because they're spread across everything else.

We have one expert team, three services.

Virtual Finance Department covering bookkeeping, CIS, payroll and year-end accounts.

Virtual CFO providing management reporting, cash flow forecasting and regular board meetings.

And Strategic Tax Advisory, planning your tax through the year instead of reacting to a bill at the end of it.

We take on a limited number of new clients each year to make sure we can deliver the level of service we've built our reputation on.

If that sounds like something your business could benefit from, book a discovery call and we'll have a chat.

24/10/2026

Switching accountants sounds like a lot of work. Here is what the first month actually looks like.

Week one, the discovery call and the handover request to your current accountant, which we send and you approve.

Week two, we review your position and identify anything urgent.

Week three, the systems are set up and the routine begins.

Week four-12, the first figures are in front of you with a plan for the year.

We handle the handover. You carry on running the business.

23/10/2026

The cash in your bank account is a poor guide to what you can pay yourself as a dividend.

It's holding subcontractor payments still to go out, CIS and VAT owed to HMRC, and your corporation tax bill. It can look healthy while a large part of the balance belongs to other stakeholders, and construction directors get caught more than most because so much of their cash is committed before it's theirs.

The profit you can draw a dividend from is your distributable reserves: the accumulated profit left after tax, less any losses. Not the bank balance, and not this year's income on its own.

Get it wrong and the dividend is unlawful. You have to repay it, you're assumed to have known, and it gets reclassified as an overdrawn director's loan, with a section 455 charge and a benefit in kind potentially on top.

The figure you need before declaring a dividend comes from up-to-date management reporting. Don't have it to hand? Book a discovery call.

22/10/2026

Our leadership team:

James Wheeler, Founder and Managing Director, started his career in financial markets before retraining as an accountant and tax advisor, launching Jameco Group in 2017 and building the practice around construction since 2021.

Claira Louise, Client Finance Director, is a chartered certified accountant with over ten years in construction across both industry and practice. Between them, the compliance, the reporting and the advisory are covered.

Head to the website to find out more about our leadership team.

21/10/2026

By the time your construction company's annual accounts are filed, some of the information in them can be nearly two years old.

A twelve-month accounting period plus a nine-month filing deadline means the first month's work is being reported twenty-one months after it happened, and even the most recent month is nine months old.

That year-end reporting still needs preparing for Companies House and HMRC. What it was never designed to do is tell you how the business is performing during the year.

Management reporting does exactly that, monthly or quarterly: what profit you're making, the margin on current work, where the cash position is heading, whether the director's loan needs watching, and what tax bills are building up. Information you can actually act on.

When construction companies come to us, the filings are usually up to date, but the director's questions about performance can't be answered until this is being produced. And it only earns its keep when someone runs through it with you and maps out the next steps.

Looking to put regular reporting in place? Book a discovery call.

20/10/2026

The four types of business we work with.

Main contractors managing projects from start to finish.

Specialist subcontractors across commercial and residential work.

Facilities and maintenance providers.

And construction professionals, from quantity surveyors and project managers to architects and consultancies.

Different businesses, the same industry, and the same need for a finance partner who understands it.

19/10/2026

Is CIS being deducted from your materials, not just your labour? If your invoices don't split the two, it will be. CIS should only ever come off your labour, so anything deducted from your materials is cash you'll wait months to get back.

Keeping CIS off your materials comes down to one thing: itemise the invoice. Labour on one line, materials on another, and be ready to show the receipts if the contractor asks, because they're required to check the figures are genuine. Do that, and the deduction only ever touches the labour. Bill the whole job as a single lump and the contractor can't tell which part is which, so they'll apply CIS to all of it, materials included.

The common mistake is the mark-up, because it's the cost of the materials that's excluded, not what you charged for them. If you bought materials for £500 and billed them at £650, only the £500 comes off before the deduction, and the £150 mark-up is treated as labour with CIS applied. So itemise every invoice you send.

Plenty of the subcontractors we take on had been overpaying CIS on their materials for years before they came to us, simply because their invoices weren't split and their previous accountant wasn't a construction specialist.

19/10/2026

Seven areas we review as part of Strategic Tax Advisory.

Tax forecasting. Remuneration planning. Pension planning. Profit extraction. Business structure review. Capital allowances. Exit planning.

Each one has a window, and most of those windows close at the year end. When was the last time your accountant raised any of them with you?

16/10/2026

Nearly every enquiry I receive from construction directors says they want an in-person relationship with their accountant. If you've had poor service before, whether in person or remote, it had nothing to do with where they were based. A poor accountant is a poor accountant.

What you should actually be looking for is an accountant who specialises in your industry and offers fantastic customer service, and it's very unlikely you'd be popping into a local office once a week anyway. I can't hire the best construction tax experts all within one county.

The way we work: catch-ups over Google Meet, a Calendly link to book a call at any point, on-demand Loom videos for reports, signing and updates that you watch when it suits you, a phone call for quick queries, and email support with a 24-hour response time, five days a week. We barely have any local clients anymore and it doesn't matter.

Looking for that kind of relationship? Book a discovery call.

Address

The Business Terrace, Maidstone House, King Street
Maidstone
ME156AW

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

https://www.jamecoconstructioncfo.com/

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