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Know The Job's Margin Before It Closes
Job costing, subcontractor paperwork, payroll, and statements a bonding company will actually take.
What A Contractor's Books Have To Carry
A general contractor's accounting has to answer questions no other small business asks. Which job made money. What is held in retainage. Whether every subcontractor had a certificate before they were paid. What the bank sees when it looks at work in progress.
- Costs coded by job across labor, materials, and subcontractors
- Estimate versus actual reported per job
- Retainage receivable and payable tracked apart from open invoices
- Change orders captured when approved rather than at completion
- Subcontractor W-9s and insurance certificates collected before payment
- Payroll by classification code for the annual comp audit
The Three Costs Contractors Absorb Quietly
First, change orders performed and never billed. Second, subcontractors paid without a certificate of insurance, whose payroll is then charged to your workers' compensation policy at audit. Third, bidding the next job from a memory of the last one rather than from what it actually cost.
All three are bookkeeping problems with construction-sized price tags, and all three are fixed by the same structure.
Growth, Bonding, And Licensing
As jobs get larger the paperwork requirements get heavier. Bonding companies want statements in a particular form. Licensing has to be current in every municipality where work is performed, which in this market usually means more than one. Both are handled here alongside the books.
Contractors Across Huntsville, AL And Madison County
Construction is one of the industries this firm serves most, working with general contractors and trade businesses in Huntsville, AL, Harvest, AL, Athens, AL, and across the North Alabama growth corridor.
Questions People Ask About General Contracting & Construction
How much bookkeeping detail does a small contractor need?
Enough to know each job's cost. Even a two-crew business benefits from job-level costing, because the alternative is repeating an unprofitable bid without knowing it.
What happens if a subcontractor has no insurance certificate?
Their payments are generally charged to your workers' compensation policy at audit as if they were your employees. Collecting the certificate before work starts is the only reliable fix.
Do I need financial statements for bonding?
Usually. Ask the bonding company in writing exactly what they need, including which statements, which period, and any supporting schedules, so the package is prepared once and prepared right.
Often Handled Alongside This
Construction Accounting
Job-level costing, retainage tracked apart from ordinary receivables, work in progress reported for jobs crossing a period end, change orders captured when approved, and subcontractor documentation collected before payment rather than at audit.
Read moreJob Costing
Labor, materials, subcontractors, and equipment coded to the job so each project carries its own profit and loss, with estimate-to-actual comparison that makes the next bid better and feeds the comp audit and bonding statements.
Read moreWorkers' Compensation Audit Support
Payroll organized by classification code, overtime adjusted where the rules allow, owner exclusions applied, and subcontractor certificates matched to payments before the auditor arrives, then the resulting worksheet checked before the bill is accepted.
Read moreReady To Get This Off Your Desk?
Tell us where things stand right now, including anything that is late or missing, and you will leave with a plain description of the work involved and the order it should happen in.