Who We Serve · Service-Based · Construction & Trades
In construction, company-wide totals hide which jobs make money and which bleed. We run job costing, WIP schedules, and percentage-of-completion so you see project profit in real time — and produce the bonding-grade financials sureties and lenders require.
Construction accounting is the discipline of treating every project as its own profit center — coding costs to jobs and cost codes, tracking work-in-progress, recognizing revenue by percentage of completion, and handling retainage and change orders — so a contractor knows true job profitability and can produce the financial statements sureties and lenders expect. It is among the most operationally complex forms of accounting because revenue, billing, and cash rarely move together.
The danger of generalist bookkeeping here is real: company-wide revenue and expense totals can look healthy while a single job quietly runs at a loss. Job costing and WIP are what surface that before it becomes the “catastrophic project.”
The disciplines — job costing, WIP, retainage — carry across, but billing and cycle length differ by trade.
Multiple subs, schedule-of-values (G702/G703) billing, and bonding requirements. We keep WIP and retainage clean enough to protect bonding capacity.
Tighter scopes, faster cycles, and dependence on GC payment timing. We track job margin and the cash gap between performing work and getting paid.
Long cycles, allowances, and change orders. We track cost codes against the original estimate so margin erosion shows up early.
Recurring service plus project work, fleet and equipment costs. See our field services finance resources for crew-based operations.
Larger bonded jobs and lender scrutiny. We produce WIP schedules and financials that hold up to surety and bank review.
Material-heavy with prevailing-wage and certified-payroll requirements on public work. We keep labor burden and compliance accurate by job.
The business-model attributes that make this niche different to account for — and that a generalist bookkeeper usually misses.
Every cost — material, labor, sub, equipment — coded to a specific job and cost code that matches the original estimate. The foundation everything else sits on.
A schedule comparing costs incurred and billings to percentage complete, revealing over- and under-billing on every active job. Sureties read it first.
Revenue recognized as the job progresses — 40% of costs incurred means 40% of contract value earned — so profit isn’t overstated by early billing.
5–10% withheld by the customer until completion, tracked in a separate Retainage Receivable account rather than buried in ordinary A/R.
Approved changes update both contract value and estimated cost; unapproved ones are disputed work tracked separately so margin isn’t misstated.
Bonding-grade financials for surety capacity, plus prevailing-wage and certified-payroll compliance on public projects.
A few measures tell a contractor whether the business — and each job — is actually healthy.
A 20-minute call. No pitch, no obligation. We’ll tell you honestly whether we can help — including whether your WIP and job costing are where they need to be.
Talk to an expertJob costing treats every project as its own profit center — every material, labor, subcontractor, and equipment cost is coded to a specific job and cost code matching the original estimate. Standard bookkeeping looks at company-wide totals, which is dangerous in construction because it hides which projects make money and which lose it. Job costing is the only way to see true project profitability.
A work-in-progress schedule shows, for every active job, how much has been spent, how much revenue is earned based on percentage of completion, how much has been billed, and whether the job is over- or under-billed. It makes percentage-of-completion accounting work in practice and is the primary tool sureties use to set bonding capacity, so accuracy directly affects how much work you can win.
Most contractors use the percentage-of-completion method: as costs are incurred against the total estimate, a matching share of contract value is recognized as revenue. When a job is 40% through its expected costs, 40% of the contract value is earned. This aligns profit with progress and prevents over-billing from looking like pure profit. Short jobs may use the completed-contract method instead.
Often when pursuing larger bonded projects, when cash is tight despite a full backlog, or when WIP and bonding-grade financials are beyond what current bookkeeping produces. A fractional CFO builds the job-costing and WIP infrastructure, manages cash across project cycles, and prepares the financials sureties and lenders require — without a full-time hire.