Ask a construction owner about their biggest worry and you will rarely hear "financial management." You will hear about labor shortages, backlog, a difficult general contractor, or a job that went sideways. Yet behind almost every one of those problems sits a financial process that either caught the issue early or did not.
That is the case for paying attention to Virginia's Construction Conference 2026, which runs October 18 to 20 at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center in Roanoke, Virginia.
Hosted by the Blue Ridge and Central Virginia chapters of the Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA), the event will bring together CFOs, controllers, CPAs, sureties, bankers, and attorneys who spend their days inside contractors' numbers.
Their agenda is, in effect, a forecast of the issues that will land on owners' desks over the next 12 months.
Here are six trends from this year's program that owners should be watching, and why they matter.
For years, many contractors treated accounting as a scorekeeping function. Jobs were bid, built, and billed, and finance reported the results after the fact. That model is breaking down. Margins are thinner, tax rules keep shifting, and technology now surfaces problems faster than a monthly close ever could.
The outcomes finance teams manage are owner-level outcomes: bonding capacity, credit lines, tax exposure, and the ability to hire and keep good people. When those slip, it is the owner who feels it first.
The conference organizers see it the same way. Monday's program doubles as a Leadership Track, and the Monday-only registration was built specifically for presidents, VPs, owners, and company leaders.
The message is hard to miss: the conversation in the finance room is one that the owners need to be part of.
One of the most persistent frustrations in construction is a company that looks profitable on paper but never seems to have enough cash. Samantha Lake of ProNovos Financial Intelligence will take that problem head on in "From WIP to Working Capital: Improving Cash Flow Visibility."
She will argue that the root cause is rarely missing data. It is delayed visibility and disconnected processes, often WIP schedules and forecasts living in separate spreadsheets, so problems only surface after they have already hit the bank account.
The shift Lake will describe is treating work-in-progress reporting as a forward-looking planning tool rather than a month-end accounting requirement. For owners, the question is simple: is your WIP being used to anticipate cash gaps, or just to explain them?
Two related sessions reinforce the point. Stacy Shiflet of Blauch Brothers will lead a Sunday workshop on building financial literacy across an organization, covering WIP, cash flow, and financial statements so that project teams understand the numbers they influence.
A tuesday breakout session on lien waivers will tackle a surprisingly common bottleneck, where the wrong form submitted at the wrong time can stall a routine payment for weeks.
If there is one session that Construction Owners should circle, it may be Julie Brown's "How Project Management Behavior Shapes a Contractor's Financial Strength." Brown, of Faulconer Construction, will connect everyday project management habits to the numbers lenders and sureties use to judge a company.
Brown's case is simple: what happens on the jobsite shows up in the WIP schedule. Accurate forecasts, tight cost control, timely change orders, and clean documentation keep WIP steady. Steady WIP means predictable margins, more reliable cash flow, and fewer concerns for lenders and sureties. When WIP swings from month to month, the effect runs the other way, and it can quietly cap the amount of work a contractor is able to take on.
That makes project management behavior a strategic issue, not just an operational one. A project manager who logs change orders late or lets cost coding slide is not only creating extra work for accounting. That PM may be shrinking the company's bonding capacity.
Brown's session will also look at how finance and operations can build shared accountability, which in practice requires leadership from the top.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made significant permanent and temporary changes to federal tax law, and one year later, contractors are still sorting out what it means for them. In "One Year After the OBBB Act," Peter Mills of YHB CPAs & Consultants will review the provisions most relevant to construction companies, the Treasury and IRS guidance issued so far, the areas still waiting on clarification, and key effective and sunset dates.
The line between permanent and temporary provisions matters to owners in particular, because many planning opportunities come with a deadline. Decisions on equipment purchases, entity structure, and the timing of income can look very different depending on which provisions expire and when.
Policy shows up elsewhere on the agenda as well. Spencer Wiegard will deliver a legislative update over Monday lunch, presented by Atlantic Union Bank. Earlier that morning, John Lewis of Lewis Wealth Partners will present an economic update covering policy trends, 2026 tax law changes for individuals and businesses, and how the midterm election outlook could shape decisions that ripple through the broader economy.
For Construction Owners whose personal and business finances are often closely linked, that combination is especially relevant.
Artificial intelligence dominates construction conversations, but many contractors are still stuck in the experimentation phase. Kathryn Schnheider of Forvis Mazars aims to change that with "The Contractor's AI Playbook," an interactive session focused on moving from pilots to measurable business value.
Her session will cover finding high-value use cases in finance and operations, setting practical policies and controls, and managing the workforce change that comes with adoption.
The governance piece deserves an owner's attention. Questions about what data AI tools can access, who approves new tools, and how their output gets checked are ultimately questions of risk and accountability.
Christian Burger's closing session, "IT Trends in Construction," will zoom out further. He will describe a software market crowded with overlapping products, new AI features, and steady consolidation as larger vendors absorb smaller ones. His focus will be on how contractors can evaluate their current systems, prioritize changes, and actually see a return on technology spending.
Ken Jones of Business Information Group will add a practical layer with a session on dashboard design that favors reports built around decisions rather than data dumps.
Labor is the industry's most talked-about constraint, and this year's agenda treats it as a financial issue as much as a people issue. In "The Psychology of Pay," Kevin Monaghan of Intuitive Compensation Group will argue that how a company pays can matter more than how much it pays. He will draw on more than a decade of designing compensation packages for ownership, including tactics borrowed from private equity and ways to build delayed gratification into pay structures to improve retention.
Laura Jansen of ADP will follow with "Constructing a Multi-Generational Workforce," which looks at managing Baby Boomers, Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z on the same crews and in the same offices. Her session will cover tailoring management styles and compensation plans by generation, with particular attention to attracting and keeping Gen Z workers, who tend to value coaching, feedback, and technology on the job.
For Construction Owners, the takeaway is that turnover belongs on the balance sheet conversation. Every experienced employee who leaves takes knowledge, productivity, and recruiting dollars out the door.
Two sessions will focus on expenses that typically need an owner's signature. Billy Robinson of Brown Edwards will cover equipment and fleet cost management, from calculating true total cost of ownership versus leasing to data-driven preventive maintenance, telematics, and right-sizing fleets. For equipment-heavy contractors, small gains in utilization and replacement timing add up quickly.
Brant Somma of MarshMMA will lead a Sunday workshop on captive insurance, starting from the reality that property and casualty premiums are typically among a contractor's five largest expenses.
Attendees will use their own data to test whether a captive program, including a group captive, could make sense for their company.
Construction Owners do not need to become accountants to act on these trends. They do need to ask better questions. A few worth raising with a CFO or controller this quarter:
Virginias Construction Conference 2026 will take place October 18 to 20 at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center. Owners who cannot commit to the full program can register for the Monday-only Leadership Track for $175. Full conference registration is $350 for CFMA members and $450 for non-members. Details and registration are available on the CFMA Blue Ridge Chapter website.
Construction Owners will be on site in Roanoke with speaker interviews, session recaps, and practical takeaways for owners
Want to hear these conversations firsthand? The Monday-only Leadership Track was built for owners, presidents, and company leaders, and registration is just $175. Full conference registration is $350 for CFMA members and $450 for non-members. Click here to Register
