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AB The Tax Expert

Construction & contractor bookkeeping

Construction bookkeeping services built around job costing.

Monthly bookkeeping for general contractors, trades and specialty contractors: every cost tied to a job, subcontractors and 1099s tracked, progress billing and retainage recorded correctly, and financials your bank, bonding agent and tax return can rely on. Plans from $399 a month, scoped to your accounts and volume. Contractors in every state, handled online from Los Angeles.

Why construction is different

Bookkeeping for contractors has to answer one question: did the job make money?

Job costing

Every material purchase, subcontractor invoice, labor hour and equipment charge is coded to the job and cost category it belongs to, so each project shows its own revenue, cost and margin — not one blended number for the company.

Project profitability reporting

Monthly reports by job: billed to date, costs to date, gross profit and margin, and estimate versus actual where you give us the estimate. Problem jobs show up while there is still time to act.

Subcontractors and 1099 tracking

Sub payments tracked by vendor and job through the year, W-9s on file, and Forms 1099-NEC ready in January — for 2026 payments the reporting threshold is $2,000 per contractor.

Deposits and progress billing

Customer deposits recorded as liabilities until earned, progress invoices matched to the contract schedule, and unearned amounts kept out of revenue so the profit and loss is not inflated by cash that is not yet yours.

Retainage

Retainage withheld by customers and retainage you hold on subs tracked as receivables and payables, not lost in accounts receivable, so you know what is actually collectible and when.

Materials, equipment and payroll

Materials coded to jobs or inventory, equipment purchases capitalized and depreciated, and payroll reports reconciled so labor cost lands on the right job and the right quarter.

What’s included

What contractor bookkeeping includes every month.

Reconciliations

Every bank, credit card, loan and line-of-credit account reconciled to its statement every month.

Job-coded transactions

Transactions categorized and assigned to jobs in QuickBooks Online, with questions batched and sent to you once a month rather than one at a time.

Monthly financial statements

Profit and loss, balance sheet, and job profitability reports, delivered after each close.

Liabilities kept straight

Customer deposits, retainage, sales tax where it applies to your work, payroll liabilities and equipment loans carried as what they are.

Year-end tax readiness

Books handed to the tax team already reconciled, with 1099s issued and fixed assets scheduled, so the business return is prepared from the books rather than rebuilt from them. Business tax preparation →

Lender and bonding requests

Financials that answer the questions a bank or surety asks — current financials, job schedules, receivables — without a scramble.

Who it’s for

Contractors we keep books for.

General contractors and remodelers

Multiple jobs at once, progress billing, subcontractors on every project, deposits and change orders.

Trades and specialty contractors

Electrical, plumbing, HVAC, roofing, painting, flooring, landscaping and similar businesses with a mix of service calls and larger jobs.

Owner-operators and small crews

One to twenty people, a truck or several, and a need to know which jobs and which customers are worth repeating.

Contractors behind on their books

If the last year was never coded to jobs or never reconciled, catch-up bookkeeping comes first, then the monthly plan takes over.

How it works

Getting started.

1. Scope

We look at your accounts, volume, number of open jobs and how you estimate and bill, then confirm the plan and price before anything starts.

2. Set up

A chart of accounts and job structure built for construction: cost of revenue by category, jobs as customers or projects, retainage and deposit accounts, equipment and loans.

3. Connect

Bank and card feeds connected, statements and payroll reports flowing to a secure portal, and an agreed way to send us job assignments for costs we cannot infer.

4. Monthly close

Reconciled books and job reports each month, with a short list of questions where we need your input.

5. Year end

1099s, fixed assets and the handoff to the tax return, prepared by the same team.

Pricing

What construction bookkeeping costs.

Monthly plans from $399

Our bookkeeping plans are published on the pricing page: Essentials $399, Growth $549 and Scale $899 a month. Which one fits depends on the number of accounts, transaction volume and how much job-level reporting you need; job costing across several open projects usually sits in Growth or Scale.

What moves the price

More accounts and payment channels, high transaction volume, many concurrent jobs, payroll complexity, and reporting beyond the standard monthly package. We confirm the plan before work begins and tell you if it changes. For a full breakdown of the twelve factors and what other providers charge, see our guide to how much construction bookkeeping costs.

Catch-up first, if needed

Months that were never reconciled or never coded to jobs are scoped as a one-time project before the monthly plan starts.

Taxes by the same team

Schedule C from $750; partnership, S corporation and C corporation returns from $1,200 — prepared from books we already know.

Common questions

What makes construction bookkeeping different from regular bookkeeping?

Costs have to be tracked by job, revenue is often billed in stages before or after the work, customers hold retainage, and subcontractors create 1099 obligations. Ordinary bookkeeping gives you a company total; construction bookkeeping tells you which jobs made money.

What is job costing?

Assigning every cost — materials, subs, labor, equipment — to the specific job it was incurred for, so each project shows its own profit and margin.

Which accounting method should a contractor use?

Small contractors commonly use the cash method for tax; larger or longer-contract businesses may use the completed-contract or percentage-of-completion method. Which applies depends on your revenue and contract length, and we work through it with you before setting up the books.

Do you work with QuickBooks Online?

Yes. We keep contractor books in QuickBooks Online using its customer and project features for job costing, and can set up a clean file if you are starting from spreadsheets.

My books are a mess. Can you still take us on?

Yes. We scope a catch-up or cleanup project first, then move you onto a monthly plan once the books reconcile.

Do you only work with contractors in California?

No. We are based in Los Angeles and work with contractors nationwide; statements, reports and questions all move through a secure portal, so location does not matter.

Ready to know what each job is making?

Tell us about your accounts, jobs and how you bill, and we’ll confirm the right plan and price.

Get Started