Construction accounting services
Financials the bank, the bonding agent, and you can actually trust.
The short answer
Construction accounting goes past recording transactions: it means percentage-of-completion revenue recognition, a monthly WIP schedule with over/under billing per project, and financial statements built so a bank or surety can underwrite them. Underneath it all sits real job costing by cost code. We run the whole stack in QuickBooks Online for a fixed monthly fee starting as low as $600.
Founder, Accelerate Business Solutions · Published August 21, 2026 · Last updated September 19, 2026
Sound familiar?
Bookkeeping records the past. Who's reading it?
Revenue recognized whenever deposits land
Cash in the door gets treated as revenue whether or not the work is done. Some months look heroic, others disastrous — and neither is true.
Profit fade nobody sees coming
A project that starts at 25% margin can quietly erode over six months of change orders and slow draws. Without percentage-of-completion reporting, you find out at year-end.
Statements the bank can't underwrite
You apply for a credit line or bonding and the financials come back with questions you can't answer. Clean, construction-literate statements are the entry fee.
Cash flow whiplash
Retainage held, draws slow, payroll every Friday. The company is profitable on paper and broke on Tuesday — and nobody modeled it.
A CPA who appears once a year
Your tax accountant files from whatever the books say. Between filings, nobody is watching whether margins are holding.
Over/under billing never measured
Being over-billed feels like great cash flow — until the remaining work catches up and the remaining billings don't cover it.
Trusted by business owners who run on real numbers
What is construction accounting?
Construction accounting is project-based accounting for companies that build. Instead of a single company-wide income statement, revenue and cost are tracked per contract: every cost coded to a job and phase, revenue recognized as work is performed, retainage carried as its own receivable, and a WIP schedule measuring over- and under-billing on each open project. The unit of profit is the job — not the month.
Construction accounting methods, compared
Percentage of completion (cost-to-cost)
Revenue is recognized in proportion to costs incurred against total estimated costs. The standard for contracts spanning more than a month, and what banks and sureties expect to see. Requires reliable job cost data and honest estimates to complete.
Completed contract
All revenue and cost land when the job finishes. Simple, and acceptable for short jobs, but it makes income lumpy and hides profit fade until it's too late to act on.
Accrual
Revenue booked when invoiced, costs when incurred. Better than cash for matching, but without percentage of completion it still misreports long projects — a big draw looks like a great month.
Cash basis
Revenue when collected, cost when paid. Often used for the tax return, rarely useful for running the company. Your books and your tax method don't have to match; your CPA converts at filing.
How construction accounting differs from regular accounting
- Revenue is recognized against work performed, not invoices sent
- Costs are coded to jobs and phases, not only to expense accounts
- Retainage is held back on both receivables and payables
- A WIP schedule reconciles billings against earned revenue every month
- Equipment and labor burden are allocated to the jobs that consumed them
What you get every month
Construction accounting that reads the job, not just the bank feed.
Tax accountants file from your numbers. Generalist bookkeepers record them. We build the numbers the way a construction company's numbers should be built — per project, per phase, against the work actually performed.
Percentage-of-completion reporting
Revenue recognized as work is performed, not when cash lands — so a slow collections month doesn't look like a bad month, and a big deposit doesn't look like profit.
Monthly WIP schedule
Contract value, costs to date, estimated cost to complete, and over/under billing for every open project — in the format banks and sureties expect.
Bank- & bond-ready financials
P&L, balance sheet, and WIP that hold up to underwriter questions — ready when the credit line or bonding application is, not six weeks later.
Project-level margin watch
Margins tracked per project every month. Profit fade gets flagged while there's still time to fix it — not discovered at tax time.
Job costing underneath it all
Every cost tagged to a project and cost code, so the accounting layer is built on real per-job data instead of averages.
Tax-ready CPA handoff
Books closed clean every month and packaged at year-end, so your CPA files instead of excavates.
Signs you've outgrown plain bookkeeping
- Your CPA asks questions your books can't answer
- Revenue looks lumpy — feast months, famine months, neither real
- A bank or surety has asked for a WIP schedule you couldn't produce
- You couldn't say whether you're over- or under-billed today
- Profit surprises arrive once a year, with the tax bill
Who this fits
- General contractors and custom home builders
- Design-build firms and remodelers running long projects
- Companies pursuing bonded work or a bigger credit line
- Roughly $1M–$10M in revenue with multiple active projects
- Owners who want a numbers partner, not a data-entry bookkeeper
Fixed monthly pricing starting as low as $600, based on transaction volume and active jobs. You'll get an exact number on the first call — not a range that grows later.
Questions builders ask about construction accounting
What's the difference between construction bookkeeping and construction accounting?
Bookkeeping records what happened — every transaction categorized, every account reconciled, costs tagged to the right project. Accounting is what the numbers mean: revenue recognized as work is performed (percentage of completion), over/under billing measured against the WIP schedule, and financial statements built so a bank or surety can underwrite them. We handle both under one fixed monthly fee.
Do you replace my CPA?
No — we work alongside your CPA. They handle tax strategy and filing; we keep the books tax-ready all year and hand over a clean year-end package. Most clients find their CPA bills drop because there's no cleanup left to bill for.
Can you help us qualify for bonding or a credit line?
Yes. Sureties and lenders want a current WIP schedule, a clean balance sheet, and statements that hold up to questions. Those are standard monthly deliverables here — not a scramble when the application is due.
What do construction accounting services cost?
Fixed monthly pricing starting as low as $600, depending on transaction volume and how many active projects we're tracking. One caught profit-fade or a bonding approval usually covers the fee for the year.
What is construction accounting?
Construction accounting is project-based accounting for companies that build. Instead of one company-wide income statement, revenue and cost are tracked per contract: costs coded to jobs and phases, revenue recognized as work is performed (percentage of completion), retainage carried as its own receivable, and a WIP schedule measuring over- and under-billing on every open project. The unit of profit is the job, not the month.
What accounting method should a construction company use?
Short jobs that start and finish inside a month can run on completed contract or straight accrual. Once contracts span months, percentage of completion — usually cost-to-cost — is the standard, and it's what banks and sureties expect. Cash basis may still be used for the tax return; the two don't have to match, which is why most contractors keep accrual books and let their CPA convert at filing.
How is construction accounting different from regular accounting?
Four things regular accounting doesn't handle: revenue recognized against work performed rather than invoices sent; costs coded to jobs and phases instead of only to expense accounts; retainage held back on both receivables and payables; and a WIP schedule reconciling billings to earned revenue. Miss any of them and the financial statements will not survive an underwriter's questions.
Do I need a construction CPA or a construction bookkeeper?
Both, doing different work. A construction CPA handles tax strategy, entity structure, and the annual filing. A construction bookkeeper or accountant keeps job costing, WIP, and monthly closes current all year so those filings — and any bonding or lending application — start from clean numbers. We do the second and work alongside your CPA on the first.
Keep reading:
- Construction bookkeeping services — the day-to-day layer — job costing, progress billing, and retainage tracking.
- Percentage of completion accounting, explained — the cost-to-cost formula with a worked example.
- The WIP schedule, explained — every column decoded, with a sample schedule.
- Free job cost calculator — see a job's true margin before you sign.
- Bookkeeping & job costing for contractors — the full picture for the trades, all in one place.
- Job costing in QuickBooks: a contractor's guide — the five-step setup that shows which jobs actually make money.
- How much does bookkeeping cost in 2026? — DIY vs. full-time hire vs. fractional, with real numbers.
Client results
What owners say after the books are handled
Shannon got our books cleaned up and finally showed us which jobs were actually making money. We stopped guessing on bids and our margins went up because of it.
Having Shannon handle the bookkeeping took a huge weight off. Everything is closed on time, the numbers make sense, and I get my evenings back instead of fighting QuickBooks.
Shannon helped me clean up a year of QuickBooks financials and get me on the right track to be able to see clean financials after going through a few other bookkeeping companies. Finally found one that does what they say they will, and their end of month reporting analysis is better than any of the others I've used.
Get financials your bank will take seriously.
Free 30-minute consult. Bring your last P&L — we'll tell you honestly what your numbers are saying, and what it would take to make them construction-grade.
Book your free consult