For contractors & the trades
Which of your jobs actually made money last month?
The short answer
Most contractors can't answer that until tax time. Job-costing bookkeeping tags every dollar of labor, material, and subcontractor cost to the job it belongs to — so every month you see profit per job, estimate vs. actual, and which work to bid more of. We do it for a fixed monthly fee starting as low as $600, with your books closed by the 15th.
Founder, Accelerate Business Solutions · Published August 21, 2026 · Last updated August 21, 2026
Sound familiar?
The job went fine. The books are the problem.
Bidding from your gut
You price the next job from memory of the last one — but you never actually saw the last one's real cost. Underpriced work compounds quietly.
Busy, but not profitable
Crews are booked out and revenue is up, yet there's less left over than last year. Somewhere between the bid and the final invoice, the margin leaked.
Cash flow whiplash
Materials go out before draws come in. The bank balance looks fine on Tuesday and terrifying on Friday — and you're never sure which is real.
Subs and 1099 chaos
Payments to subcontractors tracked in texts and check stubs, then a scramble in January to figure out who got paid what.
Change orders that vanish
Extra work gets done, invoiced late, or not at all. Without per-job tracking, unbilled change orders are invisible until the job closes.
The truck-stop shoebox
Fuel receipts, supplier invoices, and material runs pile up. The books happen on Sunday night, badly, or not at all.
Trusted by business owners who run on real numbers
What you get every month
Bookkeeping built around the job, not the checkbook.
A generalist bookkeeper categorizes what hits the bank. We run your books the way a contractor needs them run — every cost tied to a job, every month closed on schedule.
Per-job profit & loss
Every dollar of labor, material, and subs tagged to the job it belongs to. You see which jobs made money — and which ones quietly didn't.
Estimate vs. actual
Each closed job compared against the bid. This is how your estimating gets sharper every quarter instead of staying a guess.
Labor & material tracking
Crew hours and material costs allocated per job, so your margins are real numbers instead of vibes.
Books closed by the 15th
Every transaction categorized, every account reconciled, reports in your hands on a set date — every single month.
QuickBooks Online, set up right
Jobs, classes, and items configured for how contractors actually work — then maintained so the data stays trustworthy.
A/R, A/P, 1099s & sales tax
Who owes you, who you owe, subcontractor 1099s, and filings handled — no January archaeology project.
Signs you need job costing
- You can't name your most profitable job last quarter
- Bids are built from memory, not from actuals
- Labor and materials share one big expense bucket
- You find out a job lost money after it's closed
- Your CPA asks job-level questions you can't answer
Who this fits
- General contractors and home builders
- HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing shops
- Remodelers and specialty trades
- Owner-led crews, roughly $250k–$5M in revenue
- Anyone bidding work without trusting their numbers
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 contractors actually ask
Isn't QuickBooks enough for a contractor?
QuickBooks tracks money in and out, but job costing doesn't happen by default. Someone has to set up jobs, classes, and items correctly and then code every transaction to the right job, every month. That's the setup and the discipline we bring.
Am I too small for job costing?
If you run more than one job at a time and bid new work from your memory of old jobs, you're exactly who it's for. Job costing matters more at small scale — one underpriced job can wipe out a quarter's profit.
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 it cost?
Fixed monthly pricing starting as low as $600, depending on transaction volume and how many active jobs we're tracking. No hourly billing. Job costing usually pays for itself in the first underpriced job it exposes.
By trade:
- Bookkeeping for electricians
- Bookkeeping for plumbers
- Bookkeeping for HVAC companies
- Bookkeeping for remodelers
- Construction bookkeeping (GCs & builders)
Keep reading:
- Job costing in QuickBooks: a contractor's guide — the five-step setup that shows which jobs actually make money.
- Services and pricing — the full breakdown of monthly bookkeeping and job costing.
- 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.
Find out which jobs are really paying you.
Free 30-minute consult. Bring your roughest month — we'll tell you honestly what it would take to get job-level clarity, and what it costs.
Book your free consult