Bookkeeping for construction & contractors

Job Costing Done Right

Know your margin on every job, not just at year-end

Construction money moves differently: you spend on materials and labor for weeks before a draw comes in, retainage holds back a slice of every invoice until closeout, and a profitable-looking month can hide a job that's quietly underwater. Books that don't track any of this tell you how the company did — never which jobs earned it.

We set up QuickBooks Online with per-project job costing: materials and subcontractor costs tagged to the job they belong to, COGS separated from overhead, progress billing and draws recorded when they're earned, and retainage tracked instead of vanishing into a catch-all account. Your monthly reports show margin by job while there's still time to act on it.

1099 season, already done

If subcontractor payments are tracked correctly all year, January is a formality. We track your subs from the first check, keep W-9s accounted for, and our 1099 service files the forms when the time comes — $50 per form with a $250 minimum. No scramble through twelve months of bank statements.

• Job costing by project in QuickBooks Online — real margin per job
• Progress billing, draw, and retainage tracking
• Materials and COGS separated from overhead
• Subcontractor payment tracking and 1099 filing
• Crew payroll run and filed on QuickBooks Online Payroll — W-2 crew and 1099 subs kept straight
• Cash-flow visibility between draws, so slow-pay months don't surprise you
• Clean, current financials when your bank or bonding company asks for them

Books buried under a busy season? Start with a free file review — we scope the cleanup and quote it fixed before any work begins.

FAQ

Common questions from contractors

Do you file our subcontractor 1099s?

Yes. We track subcontractor payments and W-9s all year as part of your monthly bookkeeping, and our 1099 service files the forms in January — $50 per form with a $250 minimum. If you're coming to us mid-year, we reconstruct the payment history as part of onboarding.

Our books are a mess mid-project — can you still take over?

Yes, that's the most common way contractors arrive. We start with a free file review, scope exactly what it takes to get your jobs and accounts current, and give you a fixed cleanup quote before any work begins. Active jobs get costed correctly going forward while we straighten out the history.