How Much Does Contractor Bookkeeping Cost?
What contractor bookkeeping actually costs in 2026, what drives the price, what DIY really costs in your time, and where done-for-you services start.
Read articleAuthor
Mary Mattison
Bookkeeper, Bookkeeper & Tax Preparer, 40+ years.
Articles by Mary Mattison
Retainage in Construction: What It Is and How to Track It in Your Books
Retainage is the slice of every progress payment held back until a job is done. Booked wrong, it overstates your income and hides a cash crunch. Here is how to track it.
Read articleConstruction Accounting Software, Honestly Compared
There is no single best construction accounting software, because the three tools people mean by that phrase do different jobs. Here is how to tell which one you actually need.
Read articleWIP and Percentage-of-Completion Accounting for Contractors, Explained
A WIP schedule reconciles what a job has billed against what it has earned. Overbilling and underbilling are the warning lights. Here is what those terms mean in plain English.
Read articleWhat Is Certified Payroll? A Contractor's Guide
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Read articleContractor Chart of Accounts: How to Structure It in QuickBooks
A generic QuickBooks chart of accounts hides your job profit and makes overhead look like direct cost. Here is how to build a trade-native structure that actually tells you where the money went.
Read articleCash vs Accrual Accounting for Contractors: What Each Method Shows and Why It Matters
Cash basis and accrual basis accounting each paint a different picture of your contracting business. Learn what each method shows, where each one misleads, and how we set up clean books either way in QuickBooks Online.
Read articleWhen Should a Contractor Hire a Bookkeeper?
A straight-talk guide for contractors weighing DIY bookkeeping against done-for-you monthly close. Learn the concrete signs it is time to stop going it alone.
Read articleTrade Tax Deductions: What Your Books Need to Capture
Before your tax pro can claim anything, your books have to capture it. Here is a plain-language guide to the expense categories contractors commonly miss and the bookkeeping habits that protect every dollar at tax time.
Read articleQuickBooks for Contractors vs Done-For-You Bookkeeping: Which Is Right for You?
DIY QuickBooks, a categorization service, or a done-for-you trade bookkeeper? An honest comparison of the three ways contractors keep their books, and how to pick.
Read articleCatch-Up Bookkeeping for Contractors: How to Get Current Fast
Behind on your books? Here is what a catch-up actually involves, how long it takes, and how to stay current once you are out of the hole.
Read articleHow to Set Up Job Costing in QuickBooks for Contractors
A company-wide P&L tells you if the business made money. Job costing in QuickBooks tells you which jobs, crews, and customers actually drove that profit. Here is how to set it up.
Read articleWhy Your Field-Service App Never Matches QuickBooks (and How to Fix It)
Your Jobber or ServiceTitan total never matches your QuickBooks deposits. Here is why those numbers diverge and how to reconcile them so your revenue and job costs are trustworthy.
Read articleContractor 1099 Deadlines: A Year-Round Checklist (Not a January Panic)
The January 31 deadline is just the finish line. The real work is collecting W-9s before the first payment and tracking subcontractor payments all year. Here is the checklist.
Read articleWant your books handled by specialists?
Trade-native bookkeeping inside your own QuickBooks file, closed every month.