Construction accounting guide
The WIP schedule: the report banks, sureties, and owners all read first.
The short answer
A WIP (work in progress) schedule lists every open project with its contract value, costs to date, estimated cost to complete, percent complete, revenue earned, and amount billed — ending in each job's over/under billing position. It's where percentage of completion accounting becomes readable, and it's the first document a surety or lender asks for. We build one with every monthly close.
Founder, Accelerate Business Solutions · Published August 21, 2026 · Last updated August 21, 2026
Sound familiar?
What life looks like without a WIP schedule
You can't say where you stand on any job
Asked mid-project whether you're over- or under-billed on the Maple Street house, the honest answer is a shrug.
Profit fade hides until the job closes
Costs drift past the estimate for months. Without percent-complete re-measured monthly, the P&L keeps telling an old story.
Bonding applications stall
The surety wants a current WIP with over/under billing. Producing one from scratch takes weeks — and the job you wanted to bid moves on.
Cash flow whiplash
Over-billed jobs feel like free money until the remaining work has to be finished with billings that no longer cover it.
A once-a-year look in the mirror
The CPA builds something WIP-like at year-end for the tax return. Eleven months of the year, nobody's measuring.
Company-level reports that hide job-level truth
The company P&L can look fine while one big project quietly eats the profit of three good ones. Only a per-project view shows it.
Trusted by business owners who run on real numbers
A sample schedule
What a monthly WIP actually looks like
Three open projects, simplified to the columns that matter. The last column is the one underwriters read first:
| Project | Contract | % Complete | Earned | Billed | Over / (Under) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maple St. Custom Home | $485,000 | 62% | $300,700 | $315,000 | $14,300 |
| Ridgeview Kitchen + Addition | $168,000 | 88% | $147,840 | $126,000 | ($21,840) |
| Downtown Office TI | $342,000 | 31% | $106,020 | $119,700 | $13,680 |
How to read it: Maple St. and Downtown are comfortably over-billed — cash ahead of work. Ridgeview is $21,840 under-billed at 88% complete: the work is nearly done and the billings haven't caught up. That's a collections conversation this week, not a surprise at closeout.
What you get every month
A WIP schedule with every monthly close.
The columns are easy. The inputs — clean per-job costs, honest cost-to-complete estimates, accurate billings — are the work. We own the whole chain, so the schedule is something you can act on, not just file.
Monthly WIP schedule
Every open project, every column, produced with the close on a set date — in the format banks and sureties expect.
Percent-complete re-measurement
Cost-to-complete estimates refreshed monthly with your PMs, so earned revenue reflects reality — not the original bid.
Over/under billing booked
Earned vs. billed reconciled and booked to the balance sheet properly, so your statements hold up to underwriter questions.
Job costing underneath
Every transaction coded to project and cost code daily — the WIP is only as good as the data feeding it.
Variance & fade flagging
Jobs drifting from bid margin get flagged while there's time to correct — not summarized at year-end.
Plain-English walkthrough
Every month, a short review of what moved and what needs attention. Numbers you can read in five minutes.
Signs you need a real WIP schedule
- Nobody could produce an over/under billing number today
- A surety or bank has asked for a WIP you didn't have
- Project profits are only known after closeout
- Billing happens when someone remembers, not on a schedule
- The company P&L hides which jobs are actually carrying it
Who this fits
- General contractors and home builders
- Remodelers running multiple projects at once
- Commercial contractors pursuing bonded work
- Anyone whose projects span more than a couple of months
- Owners who want the truth monthly, not annually
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.
WIP schedule questions, answered
What does WIP stand for, and what is a WIP schedule?
WIP stands for work in progress (sometimes work in process). A WIP schedule is a report listing every open project with its contract value, costs to date, estimated cost to complete, percent complete, revenue earned, and amount billed — ending in the over/under billing position for each job. It's the report that turns percentage of completion accounting into something you can actually read.
How often should a WIP schedule be updated?
Monthly, as part of the close. A WIP schedule is only as good as its inputs: costs to date, current estimates, and billings all move constantly. A quarterly or annual WIP is an autopsy — a monthly WIP is a steering wheel. Ours are produced with every monthly close, on a set date.
Why do banks and sureties ask for a WIP schedule?
Because it's the fastest way to see whether a contractor's reported profit is real. Underwriters read the over/under billing column first: heavy over-billing can mean the company is financing operations with customers' money, and heavy under-billing can mean billing discipline problems. A clean, current WIP is often the difference between a bonding approval and a decline.
Is being over-billed a bad thing?
It's a liability, literally — you've billed for work you haven't performed yet, so you owe the customer that work. A little over-billing is normal and even healthy for cash flow. Chronic, large over-billing across the portfolio means future work has to be completed with cash already collected and possibly spent. The WIP schedule exists so you can see which situation you're in.
Who prepares the WIP schedule?
Usually the bookkeeper or controller — whoever owns job costing. The math is mechanical; the hard part is the inputs: accurate per-job costs, honest cost-to-complete estimates from project managers, and clean billing data. We prepare the WIP monthly for every construction client as a standard deliverable, not an add-on.
Keep reading:
- Percentage of completion accounting — the cost-to-cost math behind every WIP schedule, with a worked example.
- Construction accounting services — WIP schedules, POC reporting, and bank-ready financials every month.
- Construction bookkeeping services — the daily layer — job costing, progress billing, and retainage.
- 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.
Get a WIP schedule you can act on, every month.
Free 30-minute consult. Bring your project list — we'll show you what your over/under billing looks like today and what it takes to keep it current.
Book your free consult