YEAR-END ACCOUNTING WITHOUT THE JANUARY PANIC.
Most subcontractors face year-end as archaeology, with the CPA digging through twelve months of poorly coded transactions in February while the owner answers questions about forgotten checks. The working approach runs as a checklist with hard deadlines. Q4 prep in October and November covers current reconciliations, aged AR reduction, and the fixed asset and loan schedules. A real December close reconciles every account and cuts job costs off cleanly. The construction-specific truing covers WIP and percent complete on every open job, resolved unbilled change orders, and confirmed retainage. Then a January CPA package cuts prep time and fees.
Year-end is a checklist with deadlines, and most of it's due before December. The two highest value items both carry hard December cutoffs: cash collected by the 31st is cash your balance sheet can show the bank, and equipment purchases, bonus depreciation, and entity moves only count if they happen before the ball drops. Starting in January forfeits both. A company that closes every month by the 10th doesn't have a year-end project at all, just a thirteenth close with a few extra schedules attached.
WHAT IT MEANS.
The year-end close is the set of reconciliations, accruals, and construction-specific true-ups that turn twelve months of transactions into a financial statement your CPA, your bank, and your surety can all use.
The reason year-end hurts is almost never the year-end work itself. It's twelve months of small decisions nobody made: a reconciliation left two months behind, a trade-in with no paperwork, a change order that was never approved or written off. Each one takes minutes in the month it happened and an afternoon in February, which is the whole argument for closing monthly.
WHY JANUARY HURTS.
Year-end runs as archaeology instead of a close
The CPA digs through twelve months of poorly coded transactions in February while the owner answers questions about checks written last spring. None of that produces a better return, and it costs more, because a CPA prices a construction return partly on how much rebuilding the books need. The work is real either way. The only real choice is whether it happens on a schedule or under a filing deadline.
The January panic gets built in October
Every item that makes January painful has an October or November fix. Reconciliations get left more than 30 days behind, AR never gets worked hard in Q4, the fixed asset schedule carries purchases and trades with no documentation, and the loan schedule doesn't reflect the equipment note signed mid-year. None of that's difficult in October. All of it's difficult in February.
Cutoff errors distort two years at once
A $40K material invoice dated January 3 for December deliveries understates this year's costs and overstates next year's. The same thing happens with the split payroll week at December 31 and with December subcontractor pay apps posted in January. Both years' job margins come out wrong, and any audit question about the period has nothing solid to stand on.
The construction accounts nobody reconciles
Retainage receivable, unapproved change orders, old job balances, customer deposits, and over-billings are the accounts generic year-end checklists skip entirely. They're also the accounts a construction balance sheet lives on. Retainage left unconfirmed job by job and change orders left undispositioned are how a year-end statement misses by six figures without anybody making a mistake.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
Subs that close every month by the 10th don't have a year-end project, they have a thirteenth close with a few extra schedules. The whole checklist compresses into days because December starts reconciled. That's the real fix here: year-end stops being painful once it stops being annual.
CPAs price construction returns partly on how much rebuilding the books need. A reconciled trial balance with a supportable WIP comes in as a tax engagement rather than a forensic one. Most subs see that difference in the invoice, and all of them see it in how few questions February brings.
The year-end financial statement is what your bank renews the line against and what your surety sets program limits from. A clean close with an honest WIP is worth real borrowing and bonding capacity. One $25M GC went from unbondable to $10M aggregate on the strength of financials a surety could finally read.
WHAT TO CLOSE, AND WHEN.
Bank, credit card, and loan accounts get reconciled current, with no statement more than 30 days behind. Aged AR gets worked hard through Q4, because every dollar collected by December 31 is a dollar your balance sheet shows the bank and the surety. Unbilled work and unsubmitted change orders get pushed through billing now, since revenue earned this year should be billed this year. The fixed asset schedule gets updated for purchases, disposals, and trades, with invoices attached for everything the CPA will depreciate, and the loan schedules get brought current on balances, rates, and maturities including any equipment note signed mid-year. Subcontractor and vendor W-9s get collected for January 1099s. And the December tax planning conversation with your CPA happens on time, because equipment purchases, bonus depreciation, and entity decisions only work before the year ends.
The year-end WIP is the document of the season. Every open job carries contract value, meaning original plus executed change orders, along with cost to date, cost to complete, percent complete, earned revenue, billed to date, and the over or under-billing. It drives revenue recognition, your tax position on percentage of completion methods, and the financial statement your bank and surety judge you on for the next twelve months. An honest cost to complete on every job is the difference between a year-end that's true and one that's hopeful.
December costs go in December, with no exceptions. Accrue received-but-uninvoiced materials, post December labor including the accrued days of the split payroll week, and put the December subcontractor pay apps in December. Getting the cutoff right keeps both years' job margins honest and survives any audit question about the period.
Retainage receivable gets confirmed job by job against the contracts. Unapproved change orders get dispositioned, which means pursue them, write them down, or document the dispute. Old job balances get zeroed out, and customer deposits and over-billings get classified correctly as liabilities. These are the accounts generic checklists skip, and they're the ones a construction balance sheet lives on.
This is the package that cuts a CPA's prep time, and their bill, roughly in half. It carries a closed trial balance with every account reconciled across bank, cards, loans, and payroll liabilities, plus the year-end WIP schedule with percentage of completion support. It carries fixed asset and loan schedules with backup invoices, job-level profit detail for the year on both closed and open jobs, and AR and AP agings as of December 31 with retainage broken out separately. It documents owner transactions across draws, contributions, personal-use items, and vehicle logs, and it shows 1099s issued by January 31 rather than pending. Give a CPA that package in the first week of February and the return gets filed from clean data instead of rebuilt from bank statements.
Civil and equipment-heavy companies get caught by the fixed asset schedule, with machines bought, sold, and traded all year and the paperwork scattered across the desk and the dealer's email, and Section 179 and bonus depreciation decisions on six-figure iron belong in the December tax conversation. Concrete gets caught by cutoff, in the split payroll week at December 31 and the ready-mix invoices that come in during January for December pours, so accrue both or December job margins are fiction in both directions. Electrical gets caught by the change order pile, a year of small directed changes with some approved, some pending, and some forgotten, and year-end is the forcing function that gets every one dispositioned before the surety reads the WIP in March. Multi-site erosion work gets caught by the rollup, where forty sites blended into one number hide which contracts made money and which sites still hold unbilled storm response work from Q3.
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, and 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 rather than a report.
Your bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Nobody in your office is answering coding questions or chasing a reconciliation at month end.
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 job costing.
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