General Contracting & Construction

Every job looks busy. Not every job is profitable. We track costs by project, phase, and cost code so you know exactly where your money goes.

The Reality

Construction generates big numbers. A remodel bills $80,000. A custom home runs $600,000. Revenue looks healthy. But when the job closes out, you’re not sure if you made $40,000 or lost $5,000. The money came in, the money went out, and somewhere in between, the profit either happened or it didn’t.

You know how to build. You can read plans, manage subs, and keep a project moving. Nobody taught you how to track job costs in a way that actually tells you what’s working. That gap between building expertise and financial visibility is where money disappears.

Who This Covers

General contractors, home builders, custom home builders, remodeling contractors, design-build firms, and commercial contractors along the Wasatch Front from Provo to Salt Lake City.

Why It Gets Complicated

Multiple jobs running at once. Materials purchased for one project end up on another. Subcontractor invoices arrive weeks after the work. Change orders get approved verbally but never tracked. By the time the job closes, nobody can piece together what actually happened.

How We Track It

We set up job costing by project, phase, and cost code. Every expense gets tagged to a specific job. Labor, materials, subcontractors, equipment rentals, permits. Nothing floats in a general expense bucket. When the job wraps up, you see exactly what it cost to build and exactly what you made.

Progress billing and retainage get tracked on the balance sheet where they belong. You know how much you’ve billed, how much you’ve collected, and how much is being held back. Overhead costs get allocated across jobs so your profitability numbers reflect reality, not just the direct costs you remembered to track.

Cost Code Structure

We build a chart of accounts that matches how you think about projects. Framing, electrical, plumbing, finishes. When you pull a job profitability report, the numbers line up with how the work actually happened on site.

Overhead Allocation

Truck payments, insurance, office rent, your own salary. These costs don’t belong to any single job but they have to get covered by all of them. We allocate overhead so your job margins reflect real profitability, not just direct costs.

What Goes Wrong

The most common mistake is never allocating overhead. Every job looks profitable on paper because only direct costs get tracked. Meanwhile, the business struggles to pay bills because the overhead is quietly eating the margins. You finish the year wondering why the bank account doesn’t match the profit you thought you made.

The other issue is costs landing on the wrong job. A lumber delivery gets coded to the project that’s easiest to remember. A subcontractor invoice gets posted to whatever job is open in QuickBooks. These small errors compound. One job looks like a disaster while another looks too good to be true. Neither number is accurate.

Retainage Ignored

Retainage is money you’ve earned but can’t collect yet. If it’s not tracked, you’re looking at cash flow projections that assume you have access to money that’s actually locked up for 30, 60, or 90 days after project completion.

Change Orders Not Tracked

The client asks for an upgrade. You agree on a price verbally. The work gets done. Somehow the invoice never gets sent or the extra cost never gets logged. The job eats that margin and nobody notices until it’s too late to recover it.

What Changes

You finish a job and know exactly what happened. The framing came in under budget. The electrical sub ran over. The client’s change orders covered the overage and then some. This isn’t a guess or a feeling. It’s on paper, broken down by cost code, ready to inform your next bid.

Your estimates get better because they’re based on actual historical costs. You stop guessing what a kitchen remodel should cost and start knowing what your last ten kitchen remodels actually cost. Profitable job types become obvious. So do the ones you should stop bidding.

Bidding With Data

When you can pull real numbers from completed projects, your estimates stop being guesses. You see what framing actually costs per square foot on your jobs with your crews. Future bids are grounded in your own track record, not industry averages.

Bank and Bonding Credibility

Lenders and bonding companies trust contractors who can show clean job-level financials. When you walk in with organized books and accurate WIP schedules, you look like someone who understands their business. That credibility opens doors to bigger projects.

Utah's Construction Bookkeeping Specialists