Concrete work lives and dies on the pour. A yardage miscalculation, a weather delay, or a wasted load of ready-mix can erase the margin on a job that looked profitable at bid. Generic bookkeepers lump materials together and miss the per-pour costing that tells you where the money actually went. Here is how trade-native bookkeeping handles a concrete business.
A service business has one main cost: labor. A concrete contractor has ready-mix orders, rebar, wire mesh, forms, gravel base, sealers, curing compounds, and a fleet of equipment that each job chews through. When a generalist drops all of it into "materials" and "equipment," you lose the number that matters: what the pour actually cost versus what you bid.
We set up Class or Location tracking in QuickBooks so every pour or job carries its own ready-mix cost, rebar, labor, subcontractor finishing crews, and equipment usage. That turns a vague "busy season" into a Pour Profit view: the flatwork contract that ran over on yardage and barely broke even, and the decorative pour that held margin because waste was controlled. On the Crew plan and up, that visibility is part of every monthly close.
Ready-mix is a job material that belongs in cost of goods. A power trowel or concrete pump is a fixed asset with a depreciation schedule. A sealer is a job supply. Merge them and every job looks less profitable than it really is, your fixed asset register is wrong, and depreciation is off by the cost of the machine.
Over-ordering concrete is the most common margin leak in the trade. Without a job-level material line, the waste cost disappears into a company-wide average and you never see which jobs are running hot on yardage or why.
A pump truck burns fuel, needs maintenance, and depreciates differently than a skid steer. When equipment costs are pooled, you cannot see which machine is dragging profit or whether a job that required the pump was priced right for it.
Concrete work is seasonal in most markets. A slow winter with active equipment payments and insurance premiums still running can create a cash crunch that good bookkeeping anticipates. If the books are not current by the 15th, there is no early warning.
Yes. We set up Class or Location tracking so each pour or job carries its own ready-mix, rebar, form costs, labor, and subcontractor finishing crews. You see job-level profit, not just a company-wide number, on the Crew plan and up.
Ready-mix, rebar, wire mesh, and forms are categorized as job materials flowing into cost of goods. Mixers, pumps, power trowels, and skid steers are tracked as fixed assets with depreciation schedules. Fuel and maintenance are split by machine so both your job margins and your equipment economics stay accurate.
Yes. We code excess material costs at the job level so you can see which pours ran over on yardage and by how much. That turns a pattern of waste into a visible number you can address at estimating, not after the fact.
We collect W-9s, track payments to each sub through the year, and prepare 1099 totals so January is a confirmation rather than a scramble. Full 1099 filing support is included on the Shop plan.
We reconcile and close every month by the 15th so you have a current picture of cash and payables going into slow season. Fixed costs like equipment payments, insurance, and storage do not stop when pours do, and current books let you plan for that gap instead of reacting to it.
Always. We work inside your own QuickBooks Online subscription. If you ever leave, you keep the file and a clean set of workpapers. No proprietary ledger, no hostage data.
Yes. Our 6-month prepaid option includes a catch-up cleanup so you start current. We scope the backlog up front so there are no surprises.
Trade-native categories, job costing, and a CPA-reviewed close by the 15th. You keep your QuickBooks file.