THE CHART OF ACCOUNTS SETUP, IN BUILD ORDER.
A construction chart of accounts gets built in four passes, and the order decides whether you can use the result. Pass one is the cost code structure, three levels deep. Level one is seven broad categories, level two is a breakdown by type, and level three is the phase or timing breakdown. A $1 to $12 million sub uses one and two on every project and three on phased work. Pass two separates direct job expense, the nine cost types that belong to one job and show no physical progress on it. Pass three sets the equipment cost basis, a daily, weekly and monthly cost for every owned piece. Pass four builds the eight overhead categories. It is the only pass that can produce an overhead rate, and it can't be built until the first three are done.
The order is the method, because each pass uses the one before it. An overhead rate is total overhead divided by revenue. You can't compute it until every cost has a home and direct job expense has taken back what belongs to the jobs. Do the passes out of order and the rate gets calculated over categories that still hold each other's costs, so the rate is wrong. Most books we inherit are correct to the penny and still can't produce that rate, because nobody ever built the cost codes and categories under them.
Rather talk it through first? Book a 20 minute call. Nothing gets sold on this call.
Want it set up for you? Onboarding only, from $4,500 one time. Books migrated and job costing built, then your own team keeps it up.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Construction chart of accounts setup is building four things in order: the cost code structure, the direct job expense category, the equipment cost basis and the overhead categories. Each one is finished before the next one depends on it.
Three levels is the whole design. Level one is a broad category, level two is a breakdown by type inside it, and level three is the phase or timing breakdown for phased work. That's enough to read a job, and the code list stays short. With one level, everything goes into a bucket called job expense. A company that adds a fourth level ends up with a list the field won't use correctly.
The equipment side gets a computed cost basis. That's a daily, weekly and monthly cost for each owned piece. You work it out from how long you plan to own it, what it will cost to replace, general maintenance across the ownership period, insurance and registration, the major repairs that happen once or twice in that period, and your real count of annual working days after holidays and planned downtime. Rental companies charge thirteen months in a year on monthly rentals. The CONTROL Book asks you to price your own iron the same way.
FOUR WAYS THE STRUCTURE FAILS.
One level of coding, and a bucket called job expense
With a single level, you have nowhere to record what kind of cost something was. So the catch-all line grows until it holds a serious share of the job. The levels solve it: the broad category at level one, then the type at level two, and the phase at level three on phased work. The test is whether somebody who wasn't on the job can read the cost detail afterward and say what happened out there.
Labor in dollars with no hours behind it
Burden rates differ by employee, because family coverage and retirement contributions aren't the same for two people on the same crew. Say a labor line is tracked only in dollars. You can't tell a crew that took more hours than the estimate allowed from a crew whose hours were right and whose burden was higher than the bid assumed. Track dollars against dollars and hours against hours, on every code that can hold labor or equipment.
Direct job expense has nowhere to live
Superintendents, non-working foremen, project managers, assistant project managers, safety, job trailers, storage containers, permits, and legal are all required to do one job. None of them show physical progress on it. If your chart of accounts has no home for those nine cost types, they go to overhead. Then every job looks cheaper than it was, and your overhead looks higher than it is. The CONTROL Book makes direct job expense its own category for that reason.
The project manager question never gets settled
A project manager dedicated to a few jobs at a time is a job cost. One who is spread across seven or more, or who manages company-wide functions, is overhead. If you never write that rule down, you'll code the same role both ways in a single year. Then your overhead rate moves and nobody can trace why. Settle it during setup, in writing, per person.
FOUR PASSES, IN THIS SEQUENCE.
Put the broad category at level one, the breakdown by type at level two, and the phase or timing breakdown at level three for phased work. Build both from the way your estimators already write a bid, so budget and actual compare line by line. Every code that can hold labor or equipment has a dollar field and an hour field. This pass takes the longest, and everything after it is built from it.
Give the nine cost types their own category before you touch overhead. Settle the project manager rule at the same time, because that borderline case decides where a large payroll line goes. Do the owner in the same session. Owner compensation belongs in overhead at market rate for the work being done, whatever the draws happen to total.
Set one daily, weekly and monthly cost for each owned piece. Compute it from the ownership period, the replacement cost, maintenance across that period, insurance and registration, the repairs that happen once or twice in that period, and your real count of annual working days. Job costing uses the daily figure. A bundled all-in hourly rate puts the machine, the operator and the fuel in one number. You can't see a labor overrun inside a rate like that, which is why the book keeps them apart.
The eight are office requirements, software subscriptions, administrative expenses, employee benefits and development, owned equipment idle time and normal maintenance, insurance, non-direct job employees, and everything else. Non-direct job employees decides whether the rate is right. It holds the estimating team, the safety manager, in-house accounting, business development, the C-suite and the owner. Build those categories honestly and the rate usually comes out above what you believed it was.
A setup one person maintains stops being current the first busy month. The cost codes, the equipment rates and the overhead calculation go into the system the company uses. Then the accounting record and the job cost record are one record, and nobody has to reconcile two at month end by guessing. Closing the books and bank reconciliations by the tenth keeps it current after the setup is finished.
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. We don't bill by the hour, and we don't do payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is in the table.
Built for subs doing $1M to $12M. Above $12.5M we quote.
| Last 12 months revenue | Core | Strategic | Platinum | One-time onboarding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $1,900 | $3,100 | $3,300 | $2,500 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 | $4,100 | $5,300 | $4,500 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 | $5,900 | $8,300 | $6,000 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 | $7,600 | $11,800 | $7,500 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 | $8,900 | $14,900 | $9,000 |
| Above $12.5M | Quoted | Quoted | Quoted | Quoted |
The onboarding fee covers migrating your books back to the start of your last taxable year and getting you fully operational in 60 days. It's billed once, with your first invoice. It's the same for all three tiers, and it moves with your revenue band. Your first month is prorated, and your monthly engagement starts on the first of the first full month.
Just want the setup? Onboarding only is the same onboarding work with no monthly service after it, one time, at the onboarding fee plus $2,000. Start a monthly engagement later and $2,000 counts toward it. It starts at $4,500, and the price for every band is on the pricing page.
The three tier columns are the whole price. Which one fits depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items. The onboarding fee is right here in the table.
- Online software only: QuickBooks, Sage, Viewpoint and similar. No VPN or hosted desktop.
- Not in any tier: payroll, pay applications, collections on receivables.
- Pricing valid through 2027.
CFO work. Your own bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
We build your plan every month. Your team does the work.
You get the CFO work: job costing built to match the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, WIP every month, and a monthly meeting that ends with decisions.
Your bookkeeper still does the books.
Core, plus bookkeeping and bank reconciliations, plus job costing and WIP software set up and managed for you. Use your own online accounting software or we supply it, one price.
We build the plan, track it and adjust it every month.
We only work with trade subcontractors. We know what to look for, and we fix problems while they're still small. Everything in Core, plus the bookkeeping and bank reconciliations done for you, and the job costing and WIP software set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed every month. Use your own online software, or move to ours and we pay for it.
Our team does the bookkeeping and the reconciliations. We don't do payroll.
Strategic, plus a controller who handles payables and receivables the way an in-house controller would. You approve every payment.
We manage the money side for you, every week.
Everything in Strategic, plus our team does the controller work. We handle your bills and receivables the way an in-house controller would: we call vendors, pay the bills and keep the accounting current. We plan the cash flow first, and you approve every payment because it is your money.
Our team does the payables and receivables. We don't do payroll, pay applications or collections.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
