Bookkeeping Services for Contractors & Construction Companies
Whether you run a general contracting firm, a roofing company, an electrical contractor, or an HVAC contractor, we handle the bookkeeping the way jobs actually run. From job costing, WIP schedules, retainage tracking, and payroll. So you will see exactly which jobs make money—not just what's in the bank.
99%
Accuracy Rate
6+
Years in Business
250K+
Billable Hours
28+
Years of Combined Leadership
7+
Industries Served
All 50
States
Why Contractor Bookkeeping is Different from Standard Bookkeeping
A contracting business doesn't just complete jobs — it manages job costs, retainage, change orders, WIP, and multi-state crews. Standard bookkeeping wasn't built for that level of complexity. Here's where generic accounting usually breaks down.
Blurred Job Costing
Materials, labor, and subcontractor invoices get grouped into a single general expense account instead of the specific job they belong to. You might know the business made money overall, but you have no idea which projects were highly profitable and which ones quietly lost money.
Untracked Retainage
General contractors often hold back 10% until a project wraps up. If that retainage isn't tracked as a distinct receivable, it drops off your radar entirely. That's hard-earned cash missing from your balance sheet and sitting in someone else's bank account.
Missing Work-in-Progress (WIP) Tracking
A project can be 60% complete but only 30% billed — and standard reporting misses that gap. Without a WIP schedule tying costs to real progress, your financials give you a false picture of the year.
1099 vs. W-2 Misclassification
Crews get paid as 1099 independent contractors when the IRS would treat them as W-2 employees — or the reverse. It sits quietly on your books until an audit or a workers' comp claim brings it to the surface — and by then it's expensive to fix.
Unbilled Change Orders
Construction contracts move — extra work gets approved on-site, and unless that change order is logged against the original contract value, the job's real scope and your books drift apart. You end up doing work you never billed for, and the margin never shows up.
Unallocated Equipment Costs
Trucks, lifts, and heavy tools get expensed straight to general overhead instead of being allocated to the specific jobs that required them. Your overhead looks bloated, individual job margins look artificially high, and depreciation becomes a messy year-end afterthought.
Why General Accounting Doesn't Work for Contractors (And How We Fix It)
A contracting business rarely runs into financial trouble because its total revenue is wrong. It runs into trouble when that total is the only number it tracks.
If you have five jobs running at once — two profitable, two break-even, and one losing money — a standard Profit and Loss (P&L) statement lumps them all together. The overall business can look fine on paper while specific projects quietly drag down your margins.
At Datastub, we break that single number apart. We cost every job separately, track retainage project by project, and build Work-in-Progress (WIP) schedules that match your actual completion rate.
The result: clear visibility into which jobs drive your profit and which ones cost you money to run.
The Consolidated P&L
What a standard P&L obscures:
- Job A: Profitable, but the exact margin is unknown.
- Job B: Breaking even, but blended into the overall totals.
- Job C: Losing money, but buried within general expense accounts.
- Retainage: Earned but missing from your primary reports.
- WIP: Untracked, creating a disconnect between billing and actual project progress.
One overall number that hides the performance of individual projects.
True Job Costing
Job-level accuracy rolling up into one reliable total:
- Separated Costs: Labor, materials, subcontractors, and equipment are tracked individually for every job.
- Clear Retainage: Retainage is recorded and visible as a distinct line item per project.
- Accurate WIP: Schedules correctly reflect your actual percentage of completion.
- Reliable P&L: A company-wide financial statement built from exact, project-level data rather than a blended average.
Clear, project-by-project margins so you know exactly what type of work to bid on next.
How Our Contractor Bookkeeping Service Works
From Discovery to Monthly Close, here's exactly what happens — and when.
Discovery Call
A 30-minute call with Nimesh or a senior. We learn your business, how your jobs are tracked today, and what isn't working.
Scope & Books Review
We review your current job costing setup, chart of accounts, and any WIP or retainage tracking already in place. You get back a written scope with fixed pricing.
Onboarding
We build job costing by job and phase, set up retainage tracking, and rebuild your WIP schedule if one isn't in place. If your books need catch-up first, we scope that as its own engagement.
Financial Review
Your first walkthrough of real numbers — job by job, not just the total. What's carrying the business, what to watch, and what to bid differently next time.
Ongoing Bookkeeping
Every job costed as it runs, WIP updated monthly, retainage tracked job by job. The books close every month.
What We Handle for Contractor Bookkeeping
Contractor bookkeeping services built around how jobs actually run — from bid to close-out, not just month to month.
Job Costing
We code every cost — labor, materials, subcontractors, and equipment — to the specific job and phase it belongs to. You see the real margin on each individual project, not just the business as a whole.
WIP Schedules & Percentage-of-Completion
Work-in-progress schedules built and maintained monthly, so over-billing and under-billing surface before they become a cash flow surprise.
Change Order Tracking
Every change order logged against the original contract, so revised contract value and margin stay accurate. Your WIP and job P&L reflect the job as it's scoped.
Retainage Tracking
Retainage held by GCs, or retainage you're holding from subs, tracked as its own line. It stays visible on your books instead of disappearing into general Accounts Receivable.
AIA & Progress Billing
Draw requests and progress billing are tracked against the schedule of values (AIA G702/G703 where you use it), with AP managed so subcontractors and vendors get paid on schedule.
Multi-state & Certified Payroll
Multi-state crew payroll, prevailing wage and certified payroll for public jobs, and 1099 tracking for subcontractors. Run in Gusto, ADP, or whatever you already use.
Worker Classification Review
We review how your crews and subs are classified and flag potential 1099 vs. W-2 discrepancies before they become an audit or workers' comp issue.
Sales & Use Tax Compliance
State-by-state tax treatment of materials and labor. Rules differ by jurisdiction, and getting it wrong on a big job adds up fast.
Business Tax Filing & Planning
Federal and state returns prepared in-house, plus year-round planning — contractor deductions, Section 179 and depreciation on equipment, and percentage-of-completion tax strategy.
We Work In The Software Your Jobs Already Run On
Your accounting platform, your PM tool, your payroll system — we work in all three, so nothing gets switched and there's no new tool to learn.
Accounting Tools
QuickBooks · Sage 300 · ZohoBooks · Xero Job costing, cost-code tracking, and WIP set up correctly in whichever platform you run — no forced migrations.
Construction Tools
Procore · Buildertrend · ServiceTitan · BuildOps If your job-cost data lives in a PM platform, we pull it into your books instead of asking you to re-enter it.
Payroll
ADP · Gusto · Paychex · Payroll4Construction Including certified payroll and prevailing wage reporting for public jobs.
Why Contractors Choose Datastub
Outsourcing your books raises real questions. Here's where we stand on the six that matter most.
Quality Control
Will I be able to control quality across an outsourced team?
- Every output passes through a four-tier review: Accountant → Senior → Lead → Manager.
- One assigned account manager who owns your engagement end to end.
Data Security
Will my data be safe?
- US-hosted Microsoft security stack, encrypted at every level.
- Role-based, office-only access — and covered by E&O and cyber insurance.
Point of Contact
Who's my point of contact?
- You get a dedicated account manager assigned to your engagement — and a 24-business-hour response on every question.
- A monthly meeting to walk through your numbers — not just send them.
Industry Knowledge
Have you worked with my industry?
- Contractors and construction are one of the seven industries we work in deeply — GCs, Roofers, Painters, and specialty trades.
- We handle: job costing, WIP, retainage, change orders, and certified payroll.
Transition
How will the transition work?
- Onboarding starts within 48 hours of signing.
- Whatever your previous bookkeeper left behind, we'll sort it out — that's our job, not yours.
Flexibility
What if it doesn't work out?
- 60 days' notice. No long-term contracts.
- A clean handover with all your documents, ready for your next firm.
Real Results From Our Contractor Bookkeeping Engagements
Three real contractor engagements — what we found, what we did, and what it meant for the client.
Fixing $200K in Unallocated Expenses
A painting contractor came to us for routine bookkeeping with zero job costing and roughly $200K of expenses lumped into a single general account. We scoped a full cleanup and rebuilt a year of financials from scratch in 30 days — every cost allocated to the job it belonged to, with clean expense tracking the owner could finally read job by job.
$50K in Retainage, Now Tracked
A general contractor running five active jobs at once had roughly $50,000 in retainage held back across those jobs — none of it tracked anywhere in the books. We set up dedicated retainage tracking by job, rebuilt the WIP schedule to reflect actual percentage of completion, and gave the owner a clear view of cash that was earned but not yet collectible.
$150K in Cash, Freed Up
A $1.5M roofing contractor was running out of cash — paying for heavy materials upfront, then waiting too long to bill for them. We set up a disciplined invoicing schedule so billing tracked costs as they went out, freeing up roughly $150,000 in working capital and steadying the business.
Reviews from Real Businesses
Real Google reviews from clients we've worked with. Nothing edited, nothing curated.
Contractor Bookkeeping Services
The things people want to know before they pick up the phone. Still unsure?
Can you track costs by job or project?
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Yes — job costing is the core of how we set up contractor books. Labor, materials, subs, and equipment are all coded to the job and phase, so you see real margin on each project.
Do you build WIP schedules and handle percentage-of-completion?
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Yes. We build and maintain work-in-progress schedules monthly, so over-billing and under-billing show up early instead of surfacing as a cash flow surprise.
Can you track retainage separately from regular receivables?
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Yes. Retainage held by GCs, or retainage you’re holding from subs, is tracked as its own line — visible on your books instead of buried in general AR.
Do you handle certified payroll and prevailing wage?
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Yes, for contractors on public or government-funded jobs. We handle certified payroll reporting and prevailing wage compliance alongside standard multi-state payroll.
Can you help with 1099 vs. W-2 classification?
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Yes. We review how your crews and subs are classified and flag anything that looks off before it becomes an audit or workers’ comp issue — the classification decision itself stays with you and your counsel.
What software do you work in?
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QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, and Sage Intacct primarily — including job costing and class tracking features. If you’re on construction-specific software or something else, tell us and we’ll work in it or advise on a migration.
Can’t a regular bookkeeper handle my construction books?
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A general bookkeeper can record transactions, but construction runs on job costing, WIP, retainage, and certified payroll — the details generalists usually miss. That gap is exactly where job profitability gets lost and tax opportunities slip. We do construction books every day, not as a side specialty.
Should I outsource my bookkeeping or hire someone in-house?
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Outsourcing gets you construction-specific expertise — job costing, WIP, certified payroll — without the salary, benefits, and training a full-time hire costs. You scale as your job volume moves, and you’re never stuck if one person leaves. For most small and mid-size contractors, that’s more coverage for less than an in-house bookkeeper.
Research Us The Way You Research Now
Get straight answers about how we do bookkeeping for contractors — without browsing the whole website.
What does Datastub handle for contractor bookkeeping?
How do you handle job costing and WIP schedules?
How do you track retainage separately?
Do you handle certified payroll and prevailing wage?
Logos open the respective AI tool in a new tab with the question prefilled. Answers come from the AI tool, not Datastub.
Let's Get Your Jobs on One Clean Set of Books
Book a free consultation. We'll look at how your jobs are tracked today and what it would take to see real margin on every one of them.