For general contractors & home builders
Is every project making money — or just keeping the crew busy?
The short answer
Construction bookkeeping is not regular bookkeeping with a hard hat on. It means job costing by phase and cost code, progress billing tied to milestones, retainage tracked until it's collected, and a monthly WIP schedule that shows whether you're over- or under-billed on every open project. We run all of it in QuickBooks Online for a fixed monthly fee starting as low as $600, books closed by the 15th.
Founder, Accelerate Business Solutions · Published August 21, 2026 · Last updated September 19, 2026
Sound familiar?
The projects are real. The numbers are a fog.
Every project shares one bucket
All your jobs run through the same accounts. The profitable custom build is quietly subsidizing the remodel that went sideways — and you can't see which is which.
Draws that don't match the work
Progress billings go out when cash gets tight, not when milestones hit. You end up ahead of the work or behind it — and both positions are dangerous.
Retainage that falls off the radar
Five to ten percent of every invoice gets held back, tracked in your head or nowhere. That's money you've already earned — and it should be on the books until it's in the bank.
No WIP schedule when it matters
The bank or bonding agent asks for a work-in-progress report and it turns into a week of spreadsheet archaeology. Meanwhile, the answer it would show is a mystery.
Sub paperwork chaos
Lien waivers, certificates of insurance, and 1099s live in email threads and the truck's glovebox. January becomes an archaeology project — and a compliance risk.
Equipment costs in no man's land
The skid steer, the trailer, the fuel — all sitting in overhead instead of allocated to the jobs that used them. Every project looks more profitable than it is.
Trusted by business owners who run on real numbers
How to do bookkeeping for a construction company
Construction bookkeeping follows the same six steps whether you run three jobs or thirty. Most contractors get the first two right and lose the value at step three.
1. Split direct job costs from overhead
Build a chart of accounts where labor, materials, subcontractors, and equipment sit as direct job costs — separate from rent, insurance, and office payroll. Without this split, gross margin per project is meaningless.
2. Set every project up as a job with cost codes
Each contract becomes its own job in QuickBooks Online, broken into phases and cost codes. Cost codes are what let you compare this bathroom remodel to the last one instead of comparing two blended totals.
3. Code every transaction to a job — including labor
Materials, fuel, dump fees, rentals, and payroll hours all get tagged to the job that consumed them. This is the step that fails in most construction books, and it's the one that decides whether job costing works at all.
4. Bill draws to completed work, and record retainage
Progress billings go out against milestones actually finished, not against cash pressure. Retainage gets recorded as its own receivable so the 5–10% held back stays visible until it's collected.
5. Reconcile every account, every month
Bank, credit cards, loans, and lines of credit reconciled monthly. Unreconciled accounts are how duplicate expenses and missed deposits survive until tax season.
6. Close the month with a project P&L and a WIP schedule
Per-project profit alongside a work-in-progress schedule showing over/under billing on every open job. That pair is what turns bookkeeping into decisions you can bid from.
The bookkeeping mistakes that cost contractors the most
- All jobs in one bucket, so no project ever gets its own P&L
- Equipment, fuel, and small tools buried in overhead instead of allocated to jobs
- Draws billed by cash need rather than completed work
- Retainage never recorded, so earned money vanishes from the books
- No estimate-vs-actual review, so the next bid repeats the last loss
Should you outsource construction bookkeeping?
A full-time in-house bookkeeper runs roughly $55,000–$75,000 a year once benefits and payroll taxes are counted, and most contractors under $10M in revenue don't have forty hours a week of work to hand them. Outsourced construction bookkeeping gives you project-level reporting at a fixed monthly fee, from someone who already knows cost codes, retainage, and WIP. Keep it in-house when daily transaction volume is high and you already employ someone fluent in job costing.
What you get every month
Construction accounting, done the way builders need it.
A generalist bookkeeper categorizes what hits the bank. We run your books the way a construction company needs them run — every cost tagged to a project and phase, every draw matched to the work, every month closed on schedule.
Per-project P&L by cost code
Labor, materials, subs, and equipment tagged to the project and phase they belong to. You see profit per job — not one blended number.
Monthly WIP schedule
A work-in-progress report showing contract value, costs to date, and over/under billing per project — ready for the bank or bonding agent.
Progress billing & retainage
Draws matched to milestones, and retainage receivable tracked on the books until it's collected. Earned money stops falling through the cracks.
Estimate vs. actual grading
Every closed project graded against the bid, cost code by cost code — so the next estimate is built on evidence, not memory.
Subcontractor compliance
1099s, lien waivers, and COI tracking handled before checks go out — no January scramble, no compliance surprises.
Books closed by the 15th
QuickBooks Online configured for construction, every transaction categorized, every account reconciled, reports in your hands on a set date.
Signs your books aren't built for construction
- You can't produce a WIP schedule without a week of spreadsheet work
- Draws go out when cash is tight, not when milestones hit
- Retainage is tracked in your head — or nowhere
- Equipment and fuel costs all live in overhead
- You find out a project lost money after the final invoice
Who this fits
- General contractors and custom home builders
- Design-build firms running multi-month projects
- Remodelers scaling from a few jobs to a full pipeline
- Roughly $500k–$10M in revenue with multiple active projects
- Builders whose bank or bonding agent wants real reports
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 actually ask
How is construction accounting different from regular bookkeeping?
Regular bookkeeping tracks money in and out of the business. Construction accounting tracks it per project: job costing by phase and cost code, progress billing tied to milestones, retainage receivable, and a WIP schedule showing whether you're over- or under-billed on every open job. A generalist bookkeeper categorizes transactions — construction bookkeeping tells you which projects actually make money.
Can you produce a WIP report for my bank or bonding company?
Yes — a work-in-progress schedule is a standard monthly deliverable. It shows each open project's contract value, costs to date, estimated cost to complete, and over/under billing, in the format banks and sureties expect. No more week-long spreadsheet scrambles when someone asks for it.
My books are months behind. Can you catch me up?
Yes. Catch-up and cleanup is routine work here, quoted as a one-time fixed project after we look at one month of your books — not an hourly meter. Then monthly service keeps you current from there.
What does construction bookkeeping cost?
Fixed monthly pricing starting as low as $600, depending on transaction volume and how many active projects we're tracking. No hourly billing. One under-billed project caught early usually covers months of the fee.
How do you do bookkeeping for a construction company?
Six steps, in this order: (1) set up a chart of accounts with direct job costs separated from overhead; (2) create every project as a job in QuickBooks Online with cost codes for labor, materials, subs, and equipment; (3) code every transaction — including payroll hours and fuel — to the job that consumed it; (4) bill progress draws against completed milestones and record retainage as its own receivable; (5) reconcile bank, credit card, and loan accounts monthly; (6) close the month with a per-project P&L and a WIP schedule. The discipline is step 3 — that's where most construction books break down.
What does a bookkeeper do for a construction company?
A construction bookkeeper codes every cost to a project and phase, runs payroll allocation so labor burden lands on the right job, tracks progress billings and retainage, manages subcontractor 1099s and lien waivers, reconciles accounts monthly, and produces the per-project P&L and WIP schedule. A generalist bookkeeper does only the last two of those — which is why the job-level numbers stay invisible.
Should I outsource my construction bookkeeping?
Outsource when the job-level numbers matter more than the hours cost. A full-time in-house bookkeeper runs roughly $55,000–$75,000 a year with benefits and payroll taxes, and most contractors under $10M don't have 40 hours a week of work for one. An outsourced construction bookkeeper gives you the same project-level reporting at a fixed monthly fee, with construction experience you'd otherwise have to train for. Keep it in-house if you have high daily transaction volume and someone who already knows job costing.
What are the biggest bookkeeping mistakes construction contractors make?
Five recur constantly: putting all jobs in one bucket so no project P&L exists; leaving equipment, fuel, and small tools in overhead instead of allocating them to jobs; billing draws by cash need instead of by completed work; never recording retainage, so earned money disappears from the books; and skipping estimate-vs-actual review, so the next bid repeats the last loss.
Keep reading:
- Construction accounting services — percentage-of-completion reporting, WIP schedules, and bank-ready financials.
- Percentage of completion accounting, explained — the cost-to-cost formula with a worked example.
- The WIP schedule, explained — the report where POC lives, with a sample schedule.
- Bookkeeping for remodelers — progress billing, change orders, and allowance variance for remodeling firms.
- 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.
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