Construction & Contractors
Every project is its own profit center. We track labor, materials, and subs by the job so you know what you actually made.
The Industry
Construction accounting is fundamentally different from most businesses. Every project is its own profit center with its own materials, labor, subcontractors, and timeline. A general contractor running three jobs at once is essentially running three separate businesses at the same time, each with different cost structures and payment schedules. You buy materials before you get paid. You front payroll for weeks or months before draws come through. Cash goes out fast and comes back slow.
Then there’s the paperwork side. Subcontractors need W-9s on file and certificates of insurance before they start work. Change orders get agreed to on the jobsite but never documented. Progress billing requires matching invoices to completed work. California adds its own layer with CSLB licensing requirements and workers’ comp classification rules. All of this needs to flow through your books accurately, and most general bookkeepers don’t know how to set it up for construction.
Who This Covers
Who This Covers
General contractors, home builders, remodelers, and commercial construction companies in Long Beach, the South Bay, and Greater LA. Anyone who bids on projects, manages subcontractors, and needs to know whether the job actually made money after everything is paid out.
What Makes It Different
What Makes It Different
Every dollar of expense needs to be tied to a specific job. Materials, labor, subs, permits, equipment rental. Revenue comes in stages through progress billing or draw schedules. Cash flow timing rarely matches when work gets done. Subcontractor compliance adds administrative overhead that has to be managed alongside the actual construction work.
What We Handle
Job costing is the foundation. Every receipt, every labor hour, every subcontractor invoice gets tagged to the right project in QuickBooks Online. Materials from the supply house, equipment rentals, permit fees, and crew hours all land where they belong. When a job wraps up, you see exactly what it cost versus what you billed. Not a rough estimate. The actual number. That data feeds directly into how you price the next bid.
We also handle the administrative side that keeps the business running cleanly. Subcontractor W-9s get collected before the first payment goes out, so 1099 filing at year-end is straightforward. Accounts payable stays organized so vendor bills and supplier accounts get paid on time without late fees or credit holds at the supply house. Accounts receivable gets tracked so you know which draws are outstanding and which clients are slow to pay. And when it’s time to pull reports for a bank, a bonding company, or your CPA at tax time, the books are already in order.
Job-Level Profitability
Job-Level Profitability
Labor, materials, subcontractor costs, permits, and equipment tracked by project. Revenue matched to the same job. You see gross profit per project and can compare actual costs against your original estimate. QuickBooks Online configured specifically for construction with job costing and project tracking so nothing falls into a generic expense category.
Subcontractor and Vendor Management
Subcontractor and Vendor Management
W-9 collection and 1099 filing for every sub you pay. Accounts payable managed so nothing slips through or triggers a late fee. Vendor accounts at supply houses reconciled monthly. Progress billing and draw schedules tracked so outstanding payments don’t age without follow-up.
What Goes Wrong
The most common problem is not knowing whether a job actually made money until it’s too late. Materials get purchased and expensed in bulk without being allocated to specific projects. A $4,000 lumber order covers two different jobs but hits the books as one line item. Labor costs get tracked by the week, not by the job. At the end of the year, you know total revenue and total expenses, but you have no idea which projects were profitable and which ones quietly lost money. That means your next bid is based on gut feel, not real data.
Cash flow is the other thing that catches people off guard. You use the deposit from the new project to cover payroll on the current one. For a while, everything feels fine. But when two jobs finish at the same time and the next deposit hasn’t come in, you’re scrambling. Without clear work-in-progress tracking, you can’t see the gap forming until it’s already a problem. Add in change orders that were completed but never invoiced and you’re doing more work than you’re getting paid for on top of the cash crunch.
Costs That Never Get Allocated
Costs That Never Get Allocated
Materials and labor expensed in bulk instead of by project. Overhead like truck payments, insurance, and tool replacement left out of job cost calculations entirely. A job that looked like it had a 25% margin actually ran at 12% once all the real costs were assigned. You can’t fix what you can’t see.
Cash Flow Blindspots
Cash Flow Blindspots
Deposits from new work used to finish old work, hiding the true cost of delays. Change orders completed but never billed. Outstanding draws not tracked or followed up on. The books might show revenue, but the bank account tells a different story because nobody is watching the timing between money going out and money coming in.
What Changes
Every job has a clear financial picture from start to finish. You can look at a completed project and see exactly what it cost in labor, materials, subs, and overhead. When you sit down to price the next bid, you’re working from real numbers instead of memory. Over time, you build a history of project data that makes your estimates tighter and your margins more predictable. You stop underbidding because you finally know what things actually cost.
Cash flow gets easier to manage because you can see what’s coming. You know which draws are outstanding, which jobs are about to wrap, and where the gaps might appear. Your books are clean enough to hand to a bank when you need financing or to a bonding company when you’re going after bigger projects. Tax time stops being a scramble because everything has been categorized and reconciled throughout the year. Your CPA gets a clean file instead of a pile of receipts and a prayer.
Confident Bidding
Confident Bidding
Job cost history gives you real data for future estimates. You know your actual margins on kitchens, additions, tenant improvements, and new builds. Pricing decisions come from what happened on past projects, not what you hope will happen on the next one. That changes the way you run the business.
Clean Books That Work for You
Clean Books That Work for You
Financial statements ready for banks, bonding companies, or your CPA whenever you need them. 1099s filed without a January scramble. Monthly reports that show you where the business stands so you can plan ahead instead of reacting to whatever lands in your inbox next.
Long Beach's Trusted Bookkeeping Partner
The Next Step:
A Quick Discovery Call
Tell us where things stand with your books. We'll listen, ask a few questions, and give you a clear quote to get it handled.
