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Account Masters, Inc.

Construction Accounting

Accounting Built Around Your Projects

Construction businesses earn revenue and incur costs project by project. We provide job costing, budgeting, cost control, progress billing, and project financial reporting support so contractors can understand the financial story of every job.

A project team walking across a large construction site with prepared foundations

The Challenge

Why Construction Accounting Is Different

General bookkeeping is designed to describe a business as a whole. Contractors also need to understand each project, and that requires a different structure for recording, tracking, and reporting financial activity.

  • Profitable overall, unclear by job

    Company-wide financial statements can look healthy while individual projects lose money. Without job-level detail, it is hard to tell which work is worth pursuing.

  • Costs drift from the estimate

    Materials, labor hours, and subcontractor costs change as work progresses. When actual costs are not compared to the budget regularly, overruns are discovered too late.

  • Billing takes time and invites questions

    Progress billings, schedules of values, change orders, and retainage require careful documentation. Inconsistent records can slow down review and payment.

  • Cash is tied up across projects

    Retainage, billing timing, and up-front project costs affect cash flow. Clear reporting helps you see what is owed, what has been billed, and what is still to come.

How We Help

Construction Accounting Services

Each area supports the others, from the first budget to the final billing.

  • Job Costing

    We set up and maintain a job and cost code structure that reflects how you build, then assign every cost and every dollar of revenue to the project it belongs to.

    • Labor, materials, subcontractor, and equipment costs by job
    • Cost codes aligned with your estimates
    • Change order tracking
  • Construction Budgeting

    Estimates become working budgets organized by phase or cost code, giving each project a clear financial baseline to measure against.

    • Budgets built from your estimates
    • Phase and cost code organization
    • Budget revisions for approved changes
  • Cost Control

    Regular budget versus actual comparisons highlight variances while a project is still underway, when there is still time to respond.

    • Budget versus actual reporting
    • Variance identification and follow-up
    • Cost-to-complete visibility
  • Progress Billing

    We help prepare progress billings tied to work completed, maintaining a clear billing history for each contract.

    • Billing based on percent or work completed
    • Schedule of values maintenance
    • Retainage tracking
  • AIA Billing Support

    For projects that require AIA-style pay applications, we support preparation of the application and continuation sheet documentation.

    • Pay application and continuation sheet support
    • Consistency between billing and job cost records
    • Organized supporting documentation
  • Project Financial Reporting

    Reports that show how each project, and your portfolio of projects, is performing, presented in a format that is practical to review.

    • Job profitability reports
    • Project status and billing summaries
    • Company financial statements alongside project detail

From Bid to Closeout

Financial Visibility Through the Life of a Project

  1. Before the work begins

    Turn the estimate into a structured budget and set up the job and cost codes needed to track it.

  2. While the project is underway

    Record costs to the right job, compare them to budget, track change orders, and prepare progress billings.

  3. As the project closes

    Reconcile final costs and billings, release retainage, and review how the job performed against expectations.

A tradesperson in a hard hat measuring lumber inside a construction workshop
Aerial view of construction workers placing reinforcing bar on a building deck

Budget versus actual, every job.

Who We Work With

Support for Contractors and Construction Businesses

We work with construction businesses that want clearer project-level financial information, whether they are establishing job costing for the first time or improving the processes they already have.

  • General contractors
  • Specialty and trade contractors
  • Remodeling and residential builders
  • Construction service businesses managing multiple jobs
Discuss Your Projects

Understand Every Project You Build.

Tell us about your construction business and the accounting support you need.