Business owners who keep accurate financial records are more empowered to make educated decisions.

Construction contractors especially must monitor how much clients owe them, how much they owe to suppliers and a multitude of other expenses. No items can be missed or forgotten.

Mistakes can be costly and impact both finances and operations.

A good bookkeeper, like the ones on staff at Sherman Oaks Accounting & Bookkeeping powered by One Source Services Inc., will enter transactions daily with knowledge, discipline, and attention-to-detail.

If you are a general contractor or run a construction trade business such as electrical, plumbing, insulation, painting, drywall, siding, landscaping, design or roofing, the help of a specialized bookkeeper could be invaluable to your business.

An experienced construction bookkeeper will have a strong background in job costing, a primary financial concern for construction companies.

If you do not accurately bid jobs, measure profitability upon job completion, identify mistakes, and perpetually improve bidding accuracy then you are missing out on huge profitability potential.

The professional, specialized bookkeepers at Sherman Oaks Accounting & Bookkeeping powered by One Source Services, Inc. will implement bookkeeping software to make the process as efficient and easy as possible. They will regularly run reports, even customized reports, to assess your performance.

Most software packages come with these capabilities, however, our current construction clients choose to use QuickBooks Online accounting software. It is inexpensive, intuitive to use and comprehensive. Here are some key features of QuickBooks most relevant to construction trades:

• Categorizes income, cost of goods sold and expense items by contract or job
• Integrates with TSheets employee time and location tracking; time cards are accessed on mobile devices anywhere at anytime and employers can see GPS locations of all employees on one simple map, to name just a couple of the many cloud-based functions of one of our favorite apps.
• Accepts time card data from other time capturing programs as well
• Processes payroll and allocates payroll costs to jobs
• Tracks and reports workers compensation
• Records bids or proposals on an Estimate form
• Progress invoicing
• Creates and manages Purchase Orders
• Manages inventory
• Reports payments to subcontractors on 1099s
• Tracks and reports sales tax
• Tracks transactions by Customer Type and any other category
• Provides meaningful financial reports including a Profit & Loss by Job report

A Sherman Oaks Accounting & Bookkeeping powered by One Source Services, Inc. bookkeeper that specializes in construction trades will recognize how job costing is at the heart of a company’s financial health.

They will monitor direct and indirect labor, subcontractors, materials, permits, equipment rental, and payroll. They will understand the distinction between a subcontractor and an employee and know the importance of properly handling subcontractors. They will connect every item purchased to the job it was bought for and will ensure that purchase receipts are turned in to them with notes indicating which job it belongs to. They will track and pay sales tax by location.

They will do all this and so much more.

Bookkeeping is vitally important to your business and its success. You cannot afford to allow an amateur to design and maintain your financial structure. Add something as complicated as job costing and it’s even more essential.

In the words of Anna Mazisyuk, owner of Sherman Oaks Accounting & Bookkeeping powered by One Source Services Inc., “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, just wait until you hire an amateur.”