Construction & Contractors
Job costing, WIP tracking, and financial oversight for contractors and builders. We track every dollar by project so you know your true margins and can bid with confidence.
The Industry
Construction accounting sits apart from every other type of business accounting. Each project is its own profit center with its own revenue, its own material costs, its own labor, and its own timeline. A general contractor running three jobs at once is essentially managing three separate businesses under one roof. The money flows in and out on different schedules for each project, and the only way to know if you are actually making money is to track every dollar back to the job it belongs to.
The Phoenix market adds its own pressure. Rapid growth across the East Valley means contractors stay busy, sometimes too busy to notice when a project is bleeding money. The temptation to take on more work is constant, but taking on more work without understanding your margins is how profitable contractors end up in trouble. Add in subcontractors, change orders, material price swings, and the gap between when you spend and when you collect, and you have an accounting challenge that QuickBooks out of the box was never designed to handle.
Who This Covers
Who This Covers
General contractors, home builders, remodelers, and commercial construction companies in Chandler, the East Valley, and greater Phoenix. Any construction business that bids on work, manages crews or subcontractors, and needs to know the actual profit on every project.
Why It Gets Complicated
Why It Gets Complicated
You buy materials before you get paid. You front payroll every week. Subcontractors invoice on their own schedule. Change orders happen mid-project without updated paperwork. Progress billing and retainage create gaps between earned revenue and collected cash. Every one of these moving parts has to be captured accurately or your financials are fiction.
What We Handle
Job costing is the foundation. Every receipt, every labor hour, every subcontractor invoice, and every permit fee gets tagged to the specific project it belongs to. This is not optional in construction. Without it, you have a total revenue number and a total expense number but no way to know which jobs made money and which ones ate your margin. We set up QuickBooks specifically for construction workflows so the reports give you project-level visibility from the start.
Beyond job costing, we handle the financial tracking that keeps a construction business running smoothly. Subcontractor management means collecting W-9s before the first payment goes out and having clean records ready for 1099 filing in January. Accounts receivable tracking ensures you know which invoices are outstanding and which clients are slow to pay. Sean spent years as Director of Finance and Controller for large homebuilders, managing WIP schedules, production tracking, and budget-to-actual reporting at scale. That same discipline gets applied to your business, whether you are running a two-person crew or managing multiple project sites across the Valley.
Project-Level Financial Tracking
Project-Level Financial Tracking
Every expense coded to a specific job. Materials, labor, subs, equipment rental, permits. Revenue tracked against each project. Monthly reports that show you exactly where each job stands against the original budget. Historical data that builds over time so your estimates improve with every completed project.
Subcontractor and Compliance Management
Subcontractor and Compliance Management
W-9 collection and tracking before the first payment. 1099 preparation and filing at year end. Clean records for insurance audits and workers’ comp reviews. Accounts receivable monitoring so you know who owes you money and how long the balance has been sitting there.
Common Problems
The most expensive mistake in construction is not knowing your true project costs. A contractor finishes a remodel, deposits the final payment, and assumes the job went well. But nobody tracked the extra material runs, the two days of rework, or the fact that the sub came in $2,000 over the original quote. The profit that looked like $15,000 on paper was really $8,000. And the next time a similar job comes along, the bid goes out at the same rate because there was no data showing what actually happened.
Cash flow is the other silent killer. Construction businesses can be profitable on paper and still run out of cash. You finished the work in March, invoiced in April, and the check showed up in June. Meanwhile, you had payroll every Friday, material deliveries to pay for, and a subcontractor threatening to lien the project. Without a clear picture of when cash is coming in and going out, even a healthy business can end up scrambling to make it through the month.
Bidding Blind
Bidding Blind
When you don’t track costs by project, every estimate is a guess. You might be consistently underbidding certain types of work and not realize it until you look at the bank account at the end of the year and wonder where the money went. Accurate job costing is the only way to bid with confidence instead of hope.
Mixing Project Funds
Mixing Project Funds
Using the deposit from the new job to cover expenses on the old job is common. It works for a while until the timing catches up with you. Without WIP reporting that shows exactly where each project stands financially, you cannot see the problem building until the cash runs out and there is nothing left to shuffle around.
What Changes
You start making decisions based on real numbers. Job costing data shows you which types of projects consistently hit your target margin and which ones fall short. Your estimates get tighter because they are built on historical cost data from similar completed projects, not gut feel. When a client requests a change order, you know exactly what it will cost and you price it accordingly instead of eating the difference.
The financial side of your business stops being a source of stress and starts being a tool you actually use. Cash flow forecasting shows you the gaps before they arrive so you can plan around them. Your books are clean enough that bonding companies, banks, and your tax accountant can work with them without asking you to reconstruct the year. You spend your time running projects and growing the business instead of chasing down receipts and wondering if you made money last month.
Confident Bidding and Better Margins
Confident Bidding and Better Margins
Historical project data takes the guesswork out of estimating. You see what similar jobs actually cost, including the overhead and the surprises that always show up. You stop leaving money on the table on jobs you underbid and stop taking on work that does not meet your margin requirements.
Financial Clarity for Growth
Financial Clarity for Growth
When you need a line of credit, a bond, or a loan for new equipment, your books are ready. Clean financials and project-level reporting show lenders and bonding companies exactly how your business performs. Growth becomes a calculated decision instead of a leap of faith.
Bookkeeping for East Valley Small Businesses
The Next Step:
Tell Us About Your Business
Let us know where things stand with your books and what kind of help you're looking for. We'll give you an honest assessment and a clear price.
