Job profit is a guess
Costs land in one company-wide bucket. You can see that revenue came in, but not which project earned it or which one quietly ate the margin.
Construction & Contractors
Know Which Jobs Actually Made Money.
Bookkeeping structured around how construction businesses run: costs tracked to the job that incurred them, subcontractor payables organized, and payroll support that keeps up with the crew schedule.
A free 30-minute review of how your jobs, costs, change orders and retainage are actually recorded.
- No obligation
- No sales pressure
- 30 minutes
- Virtual
- Free
Job-level costing Subcontractor & 1099 records Retainage tracked separately
- QuickBooks ProAdvisor Gold
- 10+ Years Finance Systems Experience
- Secure Cloud Bookkeeping
- Serving Clients Nationwide
What Goes Wrong
The Financial Blind Spots Contractors Live With
Construction has cost structures that general bookkeeping is not built for. Left alone, these compound quietly until a job closes in the red.
Retainage disappears
Withheld amounts get folded into general receivables and payables, so nobody can say how much is being held on which contract or when it should come back.
Subcontractor records drift
Payments across several active projects, missing W-9s, and vendor names entered three different ways. Come January, 1099 information has to be reconstructed.
Labor cost isn’t allocated
Crew hours are paid but never mapped back to jobs, so labor, usually the largest variable cost on a project, is invisible in job reporting.
Change orders go untracked
Extra work gets performed, sometimes invoiced, sometimes not. The original contract value and the actual billed value stop matching.
QuickBooks was never set up for this
No projects or classes, a chart of accounts that grew by accident, and materials, equipment, and overhead all landing in the same expense line.
How The File Is Set Up
The Chart of Accounts Follows the Job, Not the Bank Feed
Most contractor files are organized around whatever the bank feed suggested. That is why the profit and loss looks fine and the job margins are a mystery. We rebuild the structure so every dollar has a job attached to it before it ever reaches a report.
- Projects or classes per jobLabor, materials, equipment, and subcontractor cost post to the job that incurred them.
- Cost codes that match how you bidCategories mirror your estimate, so budget-to-actual compares like for like.
- Retainage in its own accountsHeld and owed amounts stay visible instead of disappearing into AR and AP.
- Subcontractor records maintained year-roundW-9s, vendor detail, and payment history organized for your tax professional.
Construction Bookkeeping Services
Built for Jobs, Crews, and Change Orders
Every piece is structured around the workflows a construction business runs on daily.
Job Costing & Project Tracking
- QuickBooks projects or classes configured per job
- Labor, materials, equipment, and sub costs allocated by job
- Budget-to-actual tracking on active work
- Change order recordkeeping against contract value
Subcontractor & Vendor Payables
- AP tracking across concurrent projects
- W-9 collection and vendor record hygiene
- Year-round 1099 recordkeeping for your tax professional
- Lien waiver and payment documentation filing
Retainage & Progress Billing
- Retainage receivable and payable tracked separately
- Progress billing and draw schedule records
- Over- and under-billing visibility by job
- Aging on what is owed and what is held
Payroll Support for Crews
- Payroll support for W-2 crew members and 1099 contractors
- Labor cost allocated back to the job
- Payroll recordkeeping reconciled in QuickBooks Online
- Organized records for varying crew schedules
Cost Categorization & Close
- Materials, equipment, fuel, and permits categorized correctly
- Job-site expense capture and coding
- Bank and credit card reconciliation
- Month-end close on a predictable schedule
QuickBooks Online for Contractors
- Setup with a construction-appropriate chart of accounts
- Cleanup of files that were never configured for job costing
- Cost of goods sold structured for construction
- Ongoing support from a Gold-tier ProAdvisor
Scope of services: Meridian Ledger Group LLC provides bookkeeping, payroll support, QuickBooks Online services, and financial reporting. We do not provide tax preparation or tax filing, and we do not provide legal, tax, audit, or investment advisory services. We keep 1099 and job cost records organized so your CPA or tax professional can work from them directly.
What Changes
The Reports You Get, and What They Answer
Job profitability report
Revenue, cost, and margin for every active and closed job. Answers: which work is worth bidding again, and which client relationships cost more than they return.
Budget-to-actual by project
Estimated versus incurred cost while the job is still running. Answers: is this project drifting, and is there still time to do something about it.
AP aging with sub detail
What is owed to which subcontractor, against which job, and for how long. Answers: what has to go out this week and what can wait for the next draw.
Cash flow and retainage position
Cash on hand alongside retainage held and owed. Answers: whether you can take on the next job without financing the gap yourself.
Draw schedules, subcontractor payments, and payroll all compete for the same cash. A thirteen-week view puts the crew schedule and the collection calendar on the same page, so the decision to take on the next job is made with numbers rather than optimism.
If the file is too far behind to report from, start with cleanup and catch-up
Start Here
Find Out What Your Job Costing Is Missing
Thirty minutes with a QuickBooks ProAdvisor Gold, reviewing your file, your job setup, and your payroll process. No cost, no obligation, and the recommendations are yours to keep.
- No obligation
- No sales pressure
- 30 minutes
- Virtual
- Free
Mon–Fri, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Pacific Virtual, nationwide
Questions
Construction Bookkeeping FAQ
Can you track costs by job in QuickBooks Online?
Yes. QuickBooks Online is configured with projects or classes so labor, materials, equipment, and subcontractor costs post to the job that incurred them. That is what makes job-level profit and budget-to-actual reporting possible.
Do you handle 1099 recordkeeping for subcontractors?
Yes. Subcontractor vendor records, W-9 tracking, and payment history are maintained throughout the year so 1099 information is organized and ready when your tax professional needs it. We do not prepare or file tax returns.
Can you track retainage?
Yes. Retainage receivable and retainage payable are tracked in dedicated accounts so withheld amounts stay visible instead of disappearing into general receivables and payables.
My QuickBooks file has years of miscategorized job costs. Can that be fixed?
Yes, as a defined cleanup and catch-up project with a fixed scope. See how cleanup and catch-up works, or book a health check and we will estimate the effort.
Do you file construction taxes?
No. We do not provide tax preparation or tax filing, and we do not provide legal, tax, audit, or investment advisory services. We maintain accurate, reconciled books that your CPA or tax professional can work from directly.
The Other Half
Profitable and Out of Cash Are Not Opposites
A contractor can finish a job at a healthy margin and still not be able to make payroll, because in construction the money arrives long after the cost does. Margin reporting alone will never show you that.
Where the gap comes from
On a job with progress billing, you buy material and pay labor in week one. You bill at the end of the month. The general contractor pays in thirty to sixty days, and holds back retainage until the whole project closes out. So the cash cycle on a profitable job can run four months longer than the cost cycle.
Stack three of those jobs and the company is financing its own growth out of working capital. That is survivable when it is visible and planned for. It is what kills contractors when it is a surprise.
What has to be tracked separately for any of this to be visible
- Progress billings against contract valueHow much of each contract has been billed to date, so over-billing and under-billing are both visible before a job closes.
- Retainage receivable in its own accountNot folded into ordinary accounts receivable, where it makes the aging report look worse than it is and then gets forgotten at closeout.
- Accounts receivable aging by customer and jobSo a slow-paying general contractor shows up as a pattern rather than as a single late invoice.
- A rolling thirteen-week cash viewKnown inflows and outflows week by week, far enough ahead that a gap is a decision rather than an emergency.
- Subcontractor payables against the same scheduleWhat is owed out, and when, sitting next to what is coming in.
Why thirteen weeks
A quarter is long enough to see a shortfall coming while there is still time to act on it: pull a draw forward, chase retainage, delay a purchase, or talk to the bank before the account is empty. It is also short enough that the numbers are real commitments rather than forecasts. Beyond about a quarter, a contractor’s cash view becomes guesswork about jobs that have not been awarded yet.
None of this requires new software. It requires the underlying records to be structured so the report can be produced, and someone to produce it on the same day every week.
Go Deeper
The Construction Bookkeeping Library
Written for contractors who want to understand the mechanics rather than take our word for it. Construction gets the most detail here because it is where most of this work sits.
Read the detail
- Setting up job costing in QuickBooks Online
- Where the line sits between direct cost and overhead
- Reading gross margin by job, and what it hides
- Recording retainage receivable and payable
- The QuickBooks cleanup checklist
The work behind it
- Monthly bookkeeping and close
- QuickBooks cleanup and catch-up
- Payroll support and labor allocation
- Financial reporting
- A worked three-job margin example
Also From Meridian Ledger Group
Real Estate
Entity and property-level books for investors, agents, and developers.
Real estate bookkeeping
Property Management
Rent bookkeeping, owner distributions, and monthly reporting by property.
Property management bookkeeping
QuickBooks Cleanup & Catch-Up
A fixed-scope project to bring a behind or disorganized file current.
Cleanup & catch-up