Overbilling read as profit
Big draws early make a month look strong. The costs are still coming, and the P&L will not warn you.
Service
WIP & Retainage Tracking
See which jobs are ahead of their billing, which are behind, and how much you're still owed.
A work-in-progress schedule, or WIP, compares what a job has cost so far against how much of the contract has been billed. Where those two diverge you are either overbilled — holding money for work not yet done — or underbilled, financing the job out of your own pocket. Both are worth knowing before the job closes.
Retainage is the portion of each payment an owner or general contractor withholds until the work is accepted, often 5% to 10%. It is money you have earned and not received, and it disappears from view easily. We keep both on the report so cash you are owed does not quietly age out.
The problem
What this usually looks like.
Underbilled jobs financed by you
Work performed and not yet billed is a loan you made to the customer without meaning to.
Retainage forgotten after closeout
The job finished eight months ago, the withheld 10% was never chased, and nobody noticed because it was never tracked as a receivable.
No aging on withheld amounts
Without knowing how long retainage has been outstanding, there is no trigger to go collect it.
What Crew Bookkeeping does
Maintain a monthly WIP schedule
Contract value, approved change orders, cost to date, billed to date, and billing position for each active job.
Track retainage receivable
Amounts withheld on your contracts, recorded per job and aged so you can see what is overdue for collection.
Track retainage payable to subs
What you are holding back from subcontractors, so the release schedule is visible on both sides.
Flag the jobs that need attention
Significantly over- or underbilled jobs called out each month rather than left for you to spot in a spreadsheet.
Who it's for
- General contractors and subs on progress-billed contracts
- Anyone working under contracts that withhold retainage
- Contractors asked for a WIP schedule by a bank or surety
- Businesses running several long-running jobs at once
What you get
- Monthly WIP schedule across active jobs
- Over- and underbilling position per job
- Retainage receivable by job, with aging
- Retainage payable to subcontractors
- A short note on jobs that need attention this month
Related guides
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.
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.
Find out what your jobs are really earning.
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