Job costing
Job costing for contractors: what it is and how to set it up
Company-level profit tells you almost nothing about which jobs earned it. Here is the cost code structure and setup sequence that makes job margin visible.
8 min read · Updated
Resources
Guides for contractors who want their numbers to mean something.
No fluff and no sales pitch — just the mechanics of job costing, subcontractor reporting, retainage, and clean books.
Subcontractors
Subcontractor 1099s: a year-round checklist for contractors
The January 1099 scramble is a bookkeeping problem disguised as a tax problem. Fix it in the order you pay people, not at year end.
6 min read · Updated
Cash flow
Retainage: how to track money you have earned but cannot spend
Retainage is revenue you have earned, invoiced, and cannot use. Tracked in a normal receivables balance, it quietly ages into money nobody remembers to collect.
6 min read · Updated
Reporting
The WIP schedule, explained for contractors who have to produce one
Banks and sureties ask for a WIP schedule. It is also the single most useful internal report a contractor with multiple active jobs can read.
7 min read · Updated
Cleanup
Getting contractor books clean before tax season
Most of what your tax preparer bills you for at year end is cleanup they should not have had to do. Here is the sequence to fix it yourself.
6 min read · Updated
Job costing
Change orders: how to track them so they don't eat your margin
The extra work got done. The paperwork did not. Here is how to log, price, approve, and bill change orders so the work you added shows up in the money you collect.
9 min read · Updated
Cash flow
Cash flow for contractors: why a full pipeline doesn't mean money in the bank
Profit is an opinion about a period of time. Cash is a fact about today. Here is why the two diverge on construction jobs, and what actually shortens the gap.
9 min read · Updated
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