CONSTRUCTION BOOKKEEPING FOR SUBCONTRACTORS.
BOOKKEEPING FOR CONSTRUCTION. NOT THE SAME THING.
Construction bookkeeping is not the same as bookkeeping for a restaurant, a retail store, or a professional services firm. The difference isn't the software. The difference is the structure underneath it.
Generic bookkeeping tracks revenue and expenses. Construction bookkeeping tracks revenue and expenses by job. Every transaction needs to land in a job cost code that matches your estimate. Labor, materials, equipment, subcontractors — all of it categorized at the job level, not just the company level. If it isn't, your P&L looks fine while individual jobs bleed money you can't see.
Most subcontractors who come to SPM have books that are accurate in a general sense — the totals are right — but useless for job costing. The CPA can file the taxes. Nobody can tell you which jobs made money.
The bookkeeping feeds the job costing. The job costing feeds the WIP. The WIP feeds the cash forecast. That chain only works if the bookkeeping is structured correctly from the start. Generic bookkeeping breaks the chain at step one.
GENERIC BOOKKEEPING VS CONSTRUCTION BOOKKEEPING.
WHAT SPM BOOKKEEPING DELIVERS.
Not included:
THREE REASONS YOUR BOOKS DON'T WORK FOR YOU.
Wrong Tool
QuickBooks was built for retail and professional services. It can be adapted for construction, but the default setup is wrong every time. Cost codes don't exist by default. Job structure is an afterthought. You end up with accurate books that are useless for construction financial management.
Wrong Structure
Even with the right tool, the chart of accounts has to match your estimate structure. If your bids break out labor, material, equipment, and subs by phase — your books need to do the same. If they don't, the variance report between your estimate and your actual costs is impossible to run.
Wrong Person
A general bookkeeper knows how to categorize transactions. A construction bookkeeper knows what a mobilization cost is, how retainage affects the balance sheet, why a lump-sum job needs different cost code treatment than a T&M job, and how WIP connects to the monthly close. Those are different skill sets.
THE SYSTEM BEHIND THE SERVICE.
Construction bookkeeping at SPM runs on CFOS — the Construction Financial Operating System. CFOS is a six-module financial control architecture built specifically for commercial subcontractors.
Bookkeeping is one entry point into that system. It does not exist in isolation. The bookkeeping feeds the job costing. The job costing feeds the WIP. The WIP feeds the cash forecast. That chain is how subcontractors stop being surprised by their own numbers.
When a $3.2M electrical contractor had $180K in uncollected AR and no job costing visibility, the first fix was building the bookkeeping structure correctly — cost codes aligned to the estimate, every transaction tagged to the right job. That foundation is what made the per-job variance reports possible. That's what the Job Profitability module runs on.
WHAT IT COSTS.
Priced by your last 12 months of revenue. ControlQore is billed separately at approximately $100/month per $1M in revenue. SPM does not handle payroll.
| Revenue | Core Financial | Executive Financial |
|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $1,900/mo | $2,900/mo |
| $1M–$3M | $2,600/mo | $3,600/mo |
| $4M–$6M | $3,800/mo | $5,500/mo |
| $7M–$9M | $5,100/mo | $6,900/mo |
| $10M–$12M | $6,100/mo | $8,500/mo |
| $13M+ | Quoted | Quoted |
Core Financial: ControlQore setup, job costing, bookkeeping, bank recs. Executive Financial: everything in Core plus monthly CFO advisory, controllership, and accountability. Full breakdown →
FIT. AND NOT FIT.
Commercial subcontractors doing $1M to $12M in civil, concrete, electrical (commercial new construction), SWPPP, sitework, underground utility, grading, masonry, framing, drywall, insulation, excavation, demolition, paving, structural steel, waterproofing, EIFS/stucco, or concrete flatwork. Books are a mess, job costing doesn't exist or doesn't match estimates, CPA can't get the data they need at tax time.
$2M–$3M or $8M–$12M in the same trades. Books are adequate but not structured for job costing. Growing faster than the financial systems can keep up. Preparing for a bonding capacity increase or line of credit review and needs clean, job-costed financials to present.
Residential contractors. Under $1M revenue. Mechanical, plumbing, HVAC, glazing, roofing, or solar. Single-customer dependency. If your primary problem is getting more work — not managing the work you have — bookkeeping isn't the right starting point.
