Job-level profitability
A company that is profitable overall can be losing money on a third of its jobs. Without job costing you never find out which third.
Construction & Trades
Construction & Trades — tax and accounting that fits how you actually operate
Profit hides at the job level. If your accounting stops at the company P&L, you are guessing about which work is worth taking.
What goes wrong
The five things that cost construction & trades businesses money
Worker classification
California's ABC test makes most subcontracted labour look like employment. This is the single biggest audit exposure in the trades.
Retention & progress billing
Revenue recognised on percentage of completion behaves nothing like cash, and retention held for months distorts both.
Materials & sales tax
Whether you are a retailer or a consumer of materials changes the sales tax treatment — and contractors get this wrong constantly.
Equipment decisions
Section 179, bonus depreciation, financing versus leasing — each choice has a different after-tax cost.
What we do about it
How we work with you
- Job costing set up in QuickBooks so every project shows its own margin
- Work-in-progress schedules that bonding companies and lenders accept
- Worker classification reviewed for every crew member and sub
- Equipment purchase modelling before you sign, not after
- CSLB, licensing and insurance compliance kept in one calendar
Services
What this usually involves
Bookkeeping & Monthly Close
Reconciled every month, closed on a schedule, and delivered with a short note explaining what changed. Not a shoebox reconstructed in March.
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Payroll & Worker Classification
Running payroll is the easy part. Staying on the right side of the EDD, wage orders, sick-leave accrual and worker classification is where employers actually get hurt.
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Proactive Tax Planning & Strategy
Planning is the part of the work that actually moves the number. We model your year while there is still time to change it — and show you, in dollars, what each decision is worth.
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Business Formation & Entity Structuring
The entity you register and the way it is taxed are two separate decisions. Most people make only the first one, and pay for it every year afterwards.
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Let’s look at your construction & trades numbers.
Bring last year’s return and a month of books. Thirty minutes, no charge, and a straight answer about what we would change.