Bookkeeping for contractors and subcontractors

A contractor's P&L can show a profit while half the jobs lose money. Job costing fixes that by assigning every cost, including labor, materials, equipment and subcontractors, to the job it belongs to. We set up job costing in QuickBooks Online using projects, customers and cost codes, and keep it up to date every month.

You then see estimated versus actual cost on every job while it is still running, not after it closes.

• Projects and cost codes set up in QuickBooks Online
• Labor, materials, equipment and subs coded to each job
• Estimated versus actual cost by job

Sureties, banks and larger general contractors often ask for a work-in-progress schedule: each job's contract value, costs to date, estimated cost to complete, percent complete, and whether you have billed ahead of or behind the work. We prepare the WIP schedule from your job costing each month or quarter. We also track retainage you are owed and retainage you hold back from subs, so neither gets lost.

Construction payroll often means crews in more than one location, different pay rates by task, and union or prevailing wage jobs. We run payroll and code labor to jobs. On federally funded prevailing wage projects, contractors file certified payroll reports, usually on Form WH-347. Clean labor coding by job is what those reports are built from; talk to us in a consultation about your prevailing wage work.

If you hire subs, you need a W-9 from each before you pay them, certificates of insurance on file, and 1099-NEC forms every January. If you are a subcontractor yourself, you mostly need clean job costs, retainage tracking and on-time invoicing. Our monthly service covers both sides.

Best for a specialty subcontractor running eight to twelve jobs at a time with a crew on payroll: SF Business Solutions keeps the job costing current, builds the WIP schedule your surety asks for, and prepares and files the return. We prepare the schedule; a reviewed or audited statement, if your bonding agent needs one, is available through our CPA partner firms.