BEST ACCOUNTANT FOR ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS?
The best accountant for an electrical contractor is one who costs material when it is bought, keeps service and new construction in separate books, and reads certified payroll as job cost. Keep a CPA for tax and compliance. Add a construction CFO when the question turns to cash and margin. SPM is that CFO for electrical subs doing $1M to $12M, and the founder is a master electrician. It is not a CPA firm: nobody at SPM is a CPA, and SPM does no tax preparation, audit or review work.
A CPA answers what happened and files it. An electrical contractor's problem is usually what is about to happen. Labor and wire go into the wall at rough-in, the other trades take their time, and the trim and final billing come months later. Material prices move between the bid and the buyout, and certified payroll can claw back margin after the fact. Those are forward questions built on job cost and a cash forecast, and they are the part a good CPA was never engaged to do.
WHAT IT MEANS.
The right accountant for an electrical contractor is one who separates service work from new construction, costs material at the purchase order, and knows where an accountant's work stops and a construction CFO's forward work starts.
Electrical front-loads its spending. The middle of the job is a cash desert: cost is in the wall, billing milestones are still ahead, and the supplier wants payment. An accountant who books each invoice in the month it is received gives you a correct return and no warning about which week the account runs short.
The founder of SPM is a master electrician who managed more than 150 projects worth over $2.1B combined, so the first conversation is not a lesson in what rough-in and trim mean. The sections below split the work into what a general accountant misses, what to ask for, and what SPM covers.
WHAT A GENERALIST LEAVES OUT.
Rough-in spends the cash and trim collects it
Electrical front-loads labor and wire at rough-in, then waits through other trades' work before trim-out and final billing. Cost is in the wall while billing milestones are still ahead. The monthly profit and loss can show a healthy job in the same week the account is short, because the report follows the invoice and the bank follows the cash.
Material prices move faster than the bid
Copper traded at $5.92 a pound in May 2026, up nearly 25 percent year over year, and switchgear comes with deposits and long lead times. A bid priced in the spring is bought out in the fall. Without material costed by commitment against the estimate, the overrun appears as a low margin after the job closes, when nothing can be done about it.
Certified payroll and service work break a generic job cost
Prevailing wage classifications and fringe calculations turn public work into an admin discipline, and a misclassification claws back margin retroactively. Service work runs on a different rhythm than new construction and needs its own cost structure. One chart of accounts for both makes each one look like the average of the two.
WHAT THE RIGHT PERSON DOES.
Purchase orders are tracked against the bid as they are issued, not when the invoice is paid. A copper or switchgear overrun is visible while there is still time to reprice a change order or buy the remaining material forward.
The schedule of values is built so billing follows the spend and stops trailing it by months. That does not change the contract. It changes how much of the job you are financing while the walls are closed.
Service calls, T&M and new construction each get their own codes and their own margin report. Certified payroll is coded to the job by classification, so a public job's true cost is known before the weekly report goes out.
THE OUTPUTS, NAMED.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing. No payroll. No add-ons.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee |
|---|---|
| Up to $1M | $1,900 to $2,900 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $3,900 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $5,700 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $7,100 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $8,500 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $11,000 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $13,500 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually |
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items.
You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions and never in a report.
Your bookkeeper still does the books.
You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Your office stops answering coding questions and stops chasing a reconciliation on the last day of the month.
We do the books. No payroll.
Every job shows its margin while it's still running.
Everything in Executive, plus the job costing and WIP platform set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed for you every month. You never have to learn it.
We do the books, the job costing, and the software. No payroll.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
