Know Which Jobs Make Money. Stop Guessing.
Construction bookkeeping isn't general bookkeeping with a hard hat on — it requires job costing, WIP analysis, and subcontractor documentation that most bookkeepers have never set up correctly.
What Construction Clients Actually Need From Their Books
Contractors deal with financial complexity that falls outside the scope of standard small business accounting. Billing cycles tied to AIA schedules, retainage held across multiple jobs, subcontractor documentation requirements, and payroll that shifts with crew size and project phase — all of it has to be tracked correctly or the numbers at year-end are fiction.
We provide bookkeeping for construction companies built around the way the industry actually works. That means job costing in QuickBooks Online, per-project profitability reporting, and a monthly close process that reconciles jobs as they complete — not in a pile at year-end.
- Job costing setup and ongoing management in QuickBooks Online
- Per-job profitability reports so you know where you're making and losing money
- WIP schedule tracking for accurate revenue recognition
- Retainage tracking across active and completed contracts
- AIA billing cycle reconciliation
- Subcontractor payment documentation and 1099 prep
- Certified payroll and prevailing wage compliance
- Monthly project close-out as jobs complete
Job Costing Done Right — Every Project Tracked, Every Dollar Placed
The most common financial blind spot in construction isn't missing receipts — it's not knowing which jobs are profitable until it's too late to do anything about it. Job costing in QuickBooks Online, set up and maintained correctly, gives you per-project visibility into labor, materials, subcontractor costs, and overhead allocation in real time.
We configure QBO for contractor bookkeeping from the ground up: cost codes, class tracking, job estimates, and progress billing. If your QuickBooks setup was inherited or built without construction in mind, we handle the cleanup and restructure it so the reports you pull actually reflect your business.
Construction Payroll Is Its Own Problem — We Handle It
Prevailing wage requirements, certified payroll reporting, seasonal crew changes, multi-job labor allocation — construction payroll has layers that standard payroll processing doesn't account for. Misclassifying workers or miscoding labor to the wrong job doesn't just create a payroll error; it corrupts your job costing data and can expose you to compliance risk on public contracts.
Our payroll services for construction clients include certified payroll reporting, prevailing wage tracking, and labor allocation by job so your payroll and your job costs stay in sync.
We Already Know What Retainage Is — Let's Get to Work
Construction clients shouldn't have to explain industry terminology to their bookkeeper. We've worked with AIA billing cycles, retainage receivable and payable, subcontractor lien waivers, and certified payroll documentation. None of that requires a learning curve on our end.
If you've worked with a general bookkeeper who needed hand-holding on construction-specific accounting, the difference is immediate. We speak the language, we know the workflow, and we get set up without pulling you away from the job site to explain how your business works.
For CPA Firms With Construction Clients
If your firm serves contractors and you need reliable back-office capacity for job costing, QBO cleanup, or ongoing construction bookkeeping, we work with CPA firms as a white-label partner. We operate under your firm's relationship — your client never knows we're involved unless you want them to. Our Advanced Certified ProAdvisor credential and construction-specific experience make us a direct extension of your team for this vertical.
Frequently Asked Questions About Construction Bookkeeping
How is construction bookkeeping different from regular bookkeeping?
Construction accounting requires job costing, WIP tracking, retainage management, and project-level profitability reporting that standard bookkeeping doesn't address. Revenue recognition in construction often follows percentage-of-completion or contract milestones rather than simple cash or accrual rules, and payroll complexity — prevailing wage, certified payroll, multi-job labor allocation — adds another layer that general bookkeeping software setups aren't built to handle without specific configuration.
Do you handle certified payroll?
Yes. We prepare certified payroll reports for contractors working on public projects subject to prevailing wage requirements. This includes proper worker classification, wage rate verification, and the documentation format required for compliance submissions.
How does job costing work in QuickBooks for construction?
In QuickBooks Online, job costing is built around customers and projects, with cost codes and classes used to allocate labor, materials, subcontractor costs, and overhead to specific jobs. We set up the chart of accounts and project structure so every transaction is coded correctly at entry — which means your job profitability reports reflect actual costs rather than approximations. If your current QBO file wasn't set up with job costing in mind, we can restructure it.
Can you help if my construction books are already behind?
Yes. Bookkeeping cleanup is one of our core services, and we handle it frequently for contractors who've fallen behind or inherited a QBO file that wasn't set up correctly. We'll assess what needs to be corrected, reconcile outstanding periods, and close out any open jobs that should have been completed. From there, we move into ongoing monthly bookkeeping so it doesn't fall behind again.
Ready to See Which Jobs Are Actually Making You Money?
Schedule a consultation and we'll walk through your current setup, identify what's missing, and show you what construction bookkeeping looks like when it's done right.