Contractor books fail differently than retail or service books. Money arrives in deposits and draws, costs belong to jobs rather than months, and subs need 1099s in January. Generic bookkeeping advice quietly ignores all of it.
The three things that actually matter
Job-level visibility. If materials, subs, and labor are not tagged to jobs, your P&L can look healthy while individual jobs lose money. Even lightweight job tagging in QuickBooks beats a perfectly categorized ledger with no job dimension.
Deposits are not profit. A $15k draw on day one of a $60k job feels like a great month. Without tracking what portion of billed work is actually earned, contractors routinely spend margin that does not exist yet.
Subcontractor hygiene. Collect W-9s before the first payment, not in January. Track payments per sub all year and 1099 season becomes an afternoon instead of an archaeology project.
A clean monthly rhythm for a trade business
Reconcile every account monthly — especially credit cards, where fuel and material runs pile up. Categorize with a contractor-shaped chart of accounts: materials, subs, equipment, fuel, permits, insurance. Review job profitability alongside the P&L. Close by a fixed date so pricing decisions use last month's real numbers, not two-month-old guesses.
That rhythm is what we run for trade businesses at $199/month flat, with your backlog cleaned up first for a flat $500 if the books are behind — caught up within 2 days, guaranteed in writing. Instant quote on the homepage; no contracts.