Outsourced CFO & Accounting Services in Denver
Financial leadership built for the energy capital of the Rockies. Expert outsourced finance for energy companies, construction firms, healthcare practices, and cannabis operators navigating commodity volatility, Colorado's regulatory environment, and the financial complexity of one of America's fastest-growing metros.
The Denver Business Landscape
Denver occupies a position in the American economy that no other city can replicate. It is the only major metro that straddles traditional oil and gas operations and the clean energy revolution with equal credibility, housing the headquarters of both drilling companies and solar developers on the same downtown blocks. The Denver-Julesburg Basin and nearby Piceance Basin have produced hydrocarbons for decades, while Colorado's renewable energy standards and the state's wind and solar resources have attracted clean energy investment that has grown exponentially. This dual identity extends beyond energy: Denver is simultaneously a legacy Western city with deep roots in ranching, mining, and natural resources and a modern tech hub that has attracted operations from Google, Amazon, Oracle, and hundreds of mid-size software companies.
The numbers reflect a metro in sustained expansion. The Denver metro area's population has grown by nearly 20% over the past decade, pushing past three million residents. That growth has driven a construction boom that shows no signs of slowing—cranes dot the skyline from RiNo to the Denver Tech Center, and residential development stretches south to Castle Rock and north to Longmont. UCHealth, SCL Health (now Intermountain Health), and Denver Health anchor a healthcare sector that has expanded rapidly to serve the influx. Colorado's mature cannabis industry generates over $1.5 billion in annual sales, and the ancillary services ecosystem around it—compliance consultants, security companies, real estate investors, technology platforms—adds billions more.
For business owners managing $5M to $50M in revenue, Denver is a city of enormous opportunity that comes with equally significant financial complexity. The energy industry brings commodity price volatility that can swing revenue by 40% in a single year. Construction companies must navigate Colorado's unique mechanic's lien laws and a labor market where competition for skilled trades has pushed wages to record levels. Cannabis operators face the most punitive tax treatment in American business. And every company operating in Colorado confronts a tax structure that is far more complex than the state's moderate flat income tax rate would suggest. The companies that thrive here are the ones whose financial operations are built for this specific set of challenges.
Energy Capital
Of the Rockies
Oil, gas, solar & wind
3M+ Population
Metro Area
Nearly 20% growth in a decade
$1.5B+ Cannabis
Annual Sales
Most mature market in the U.S.
Energy Industry Finance: Straddling Two Worlds
Denver's energy sector is defined by a tension that creates both opportunity and financial complexity. Traditional oil and gas companies—exploration and production firms, midstream pipeline operators, oilfield service companies, and equipment manufacturers—operate in an industry where revenue is fundamentally tied to commodity prices. When WTI crude trades above $75, Denver's energy companies are flush with cash, hiring aggressively, and investing in growth. When prices drop below $50, those same companies are cutting costs, deferring projects, and managing covenant compliance on credit facilities sized for better times. This cyclicality has defined Denver's energy economy for generations, and managing through it requires financial leadership that can build liquidity during booms and preserve viability during busts.
The clean energy side of Denver's economy operates on entirely different financial dynamics. Solar installation companies, wind farm developers, energy storage companies, and renewable energy consultants generate revenue that is driven by policy incentives, utility procurement cycles, and long-term power purchase agreements rather than spot commodity prices. The Inflation Reduction Act has reshaped the economics of renewable energy development through expanded Production Tax Credits, Investment Tax Credits, and new transferability provisions that allow tax credits to be sold to third parties. Understanding how these credits affect project economics, how to structure entities to maximize credit capture, and how to model project returns under different policy scenarios requires financial expertise that is fundamentally different from traditional energy accounting.
For Denver companies that work across both traditional and renewable energy—and many do, as the engineering, construction, and logistics capabilities transfer naturally—the financial management challenge is maintaining two distinct financial frameworks within a single business. The risk profiles are different, the revenue recognition rules are different, and the capital requirements are different. A finance team that can model both accurately, report on them transparently, and help business owners allocate capital between traditional and renewable operations based on risk-adjusted returns provides a strategic advantage that goes far beyond compliance.
Construction on the Front Range: Growth, Lien Laws, and Labor Pressure
Denver's construction industry has been running at capacity for years, driven by population growth, corporate expansion, and infrastructure investment that shows no signs of abating. The metro area has added tens of thousands of residential units, millions of square feet of commercial space, and major infrastructure projects including the I-70 mountain corridor improvements and RTD FasTracks transit expansion. Hensel Phelps, PCL Construction, and JE Dunn are among the large general contractors operating in the market, but the bulk of the work is performed by mid-size contractors and specialty trades that form the backbone of Front Range construction.
Colorado's mechanic's lien laws create specific financial management requirements that contractors from other states often underestimate. Colorado requires that subcontractors and suppliers file a Notice of Intent to file a lien before the lien itself can be perfected, and the deadlines for filing are strict. From the general contractor's perspective, managing lien waivers from subcontractors at each draw is essential to protect the project owner (and by extension, the GC's relationship with that owner). From the subcontractor's perspective, failing to file the Notice of Intent on time means forfeiting lien rights that may be the only leverage available when a GC delays payment. A finance team that builds lien compliance tracking into the accounts receivable and payable processes prevents the expensive mistakes that cost Colorado construction companies millions in lost collections every year.
Labor costs compound the financial pressure. Denver's construction labor market is among the tightest in the country, with skilled trades commanding wage premiums that have climbed 25% to 40% over the past five years. The competition for electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, and heavy equipment operators comes not just from other construction companies but from the energy sector and the cannabis industry, both of which employ many of the same trades. For a construction company bidding work that will be performed over 12 to 18 months, labor cost escalation represents a real risk that must be modeled into project budgets. A finance team that tracks labor cost trends, builds escalation assumptions into estimates, and monitors actual versus budgeted labor costs throughout project execution gives contractors the visibility to adjust before thin margins disappear entirely.
Cannabis Accounting: The 280E Problem
Colorado legalized recreational cannabis in 2012, making it one of the first states to do so, and the Denver metro area has become the most mature cannabis market in the United States. Over 500 licensed dispensaries, cultivators, and manufacturers operate in the state, generating more than $1.5 billion in annual sales. The industry has consolidated significantly since its early years, with multi-location operators like LivWell, Native Roots, and Green Solution building portfolios of dispensaries and cultivation facilities across the Front Range. But even as the industry has matured operationally, the financial management challenges remain among the most extreme in American business.
Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code is the root of the problem. Because cannabis remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law, cannabis companies cannot deduct ordinary and necessary business expenses from their federal tax returns. The only deduction available is cost of goods sold. For a dispensary with 25% gross margins, this means paying federal income tax on 75% of gross profit—not net profit after operating expenses. Effective federal tax rates for cannabis companies routinely exceed 60% to 70%, which is unlike any other legal industry in the country. Managing this tax burden requires aggressive COGS optimization: ensuring that every cost that can legitimately be classified as cost of goods sold under IRS guidelines is properly captured and documented.
Banking limitations add another layer of financial complexity. While cannabis banking has improved significantly since the early days of legalization, many operators still face restrictions on banking services, higher fees from the financial institutions that do serve the industry, and limitations on payment processing that force a heavier reliance on cash transactions. Managing large cash volumes increases security costs, complicates accounting, and creates audit trail challenges that the IRS scrutinizes carefully. A finance team that specializes in cannabis accounting can build the systems to manage cash handling, optimize COGS classification, and produce the documentation that protects the company during the tax audits that cannabis businesses attract at disproportionate rates. For a growing cannabis operator, this is not optional expertise—it is the difference between a viable business and one that is slowly consumed by its own tax liability.
Healthcare Growth Along the Front Range
Denver's healthcare sector has expanded rapidly to serve a metro population that has grown by hundreds of thousands over the past decade. UCHealth, which operates out of the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, has become one of the largest health systems in the region. Intermountain Health (formerly SCL Health) merged with the Utah-based system to create a multi-state healthcare network with a significant Denver presence. Denver Health, National Jewish Health, and Children's Hospital Colorado round out the institutional landscape. But the growth is not limited to hospital systems—independent physician practices, behavioral health providers, dental groups, surgical centers, and medical device companies have all expanded to serve a population that is younger and faster-growing than the national average.
Colorado's healthcare market has several characteristics that affect financial management for growing practices. The state expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, and nearly 1.5 million Coloradans are enrolled in Medicaid or CHP+. For practices that serve this population, Medicaid reimbursement rates—which are significantly lower than commercial rates—affect revenue per encounter and must be factored into capacity planning and payer mix optimization. Colorado's Division of Insurance has also been active in regulating surprise billing and network adequacy, which affects how practices negotiate with commercial insurers and structure their out-of-network policies.
For healthcare businesses managing $5M to $30M in revenue, the financial management imperative is revenue cycle excellence combined with expansion modeling. Every practice has a payer mix that determines its revenue per encounter, and small shifts in that mix—losing a favorable commercial contract, gaining Medicaid patients as the surrounding neighborhood changes—can have outsized effects on profitability. Multi-location practices need site-level financial reporting that accounts for different payer mixes, different staffing models, and different overhead structures at each location. Provider compensation design that aligns incentives with practice economics—productivity-based models, quality bonuses, overhead allocation to individual providers—requires modeling that most practices do not have the internal finance resources to develop. An outsourced finance team with healthcare experience builds these capabilities without the cost of a full-time healthcare CFO, which at Denver salary levels represents a significant investment.
Colorado's Tax Landscape: Deceptively Complex
Colorado's flat state income tax rate of 4.4% gives the impression of simplicity, but that impression evaporates quickly once you begin operating a business here. Colorado has one of the most decentralized tax systems in the country, with over 700 taxing jurisdictions that each set their own sales tax rates, bases, and exemption rules. Denver, Aurora, Lakewood, and dozens of other municipalities are home-rule cities that administer their own sales and use taxes independently of the state, which means a business selling taxable goods or services across the metro area may need to register with, file returns for, and remit taxes to ten or more separate jurisdictions. The rates and rules differ between jurisdictions, and not all products that are taxable in one city are taxable in another.
The TABOR Amendment compounds the complexity. Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights limits how much state and local governments can collect and spend, which has led to a patchwork of special district taxes, enterprise exemptions, and voter-approved overrides that vary from one part of the metro to another. Enterprise zone credits offer valuable incentives for businesses in designated areas—including parts of Adams County and areas along the I-70 corridor—but claiming them requires documentation and tracking that many companies neglect. The Retail Delivery Fee, which took effect in 2023 and applies a per-delivery charge on retail deliveries, added yet another compliance obligation for e-commerce and retail businesses.
For growing Denver businesses, the tax compliance burden is manageable with proper systems but costly when it is not. A company that fails to register in a home-rule city where it has nexus faces back taxes, penalties, and interest. A company that does not claim available enterprise zone credits or R&D tax credits (Colorado offers a state-level credit on top of the federal credit) overpays its taxes. And a company expanding across the Front Range—opening a second location in Boulder or a warehouse in Commerce City—must navigate a new set of tax obligations at each site. A finance team that builds Colorado's tax complexity into its compliance processes from the start, rather than discovering obligations after they have become delinquent, keeps the company compliant while capturing every available credit and deduction.
What Growing Denver Businesses Need from a Finance Partner
Denver's economy rewards companies that can manage complexity while moving fast. The energy company that navigates commodity cycles without overleveraging during booms captures market share from competitors who collapse during busts. The construction company with precise job costing and lien compliance wins more profitable work and avoids the collection disasters that thin margins cannot absorb. The cannabis operator with optimized COGS classification and airtight documentation survives 280E while competitors bleed cash to the IRS. In every case, the competitive advantage comes from financial discipline that is specific to Denver's business environment.
A finance partner serving Denver businesses needs to understand that this city operates at the intersection of multiple economic forces that do not exist together anywhere else. Energy volatility, construction labor shortages, cannabis tax complexity, healthcare expansion, and Colorado's fragmented tax system all converge on the same business community. A generalist accounting firm that treats Denver like any other mid-size market will miss the industry-specific challenges and opportunities that determine whether a business scales successfully or hits a ceiling imposed by its own financial infrastructure limitations.
The best Denver businesses recognize that financial leadership pays for itself many times over. The energy company with scenario-based forecasting makes better investment decisions. The construction company with accurate labor cost tracking bids more profitably. The healthcare practice with payer-level analytics collects more revenue per encounter. The cannabis company with proper COGS optimization retains thousands more per month after taxes. These are not theoretical benefits—they are measurable financial outcomes that flow directly from having a finance function built for the specific challenges of operating in Denver. For business owners managing $5M to $50M in revenue, the question is not whether this investment makes sense. It is how much growth you are leaving on the table without it.
Scale Your Denver Business with Confidence
Get finance leadership that understands energy volatility, construction accounting, cannabis tax compliance, and Colorado's complex regulatory landscape. We work with Denver businesses from $5M to $50M in revenue.