Construction Bookkeeping · QuickBooks Cleanup · South Carolina
A one-time QuickBooks cleanup for South Carolina general contractors. Multi-trade job costs rebuilt, subcontractor payments tracked toward 1099s, retainage and change orders put where they belong, draws separated from revenue. Fixed scope, fixed price, and a date it is finished by. Monthly bookkeeping after that is your call, not a condition.
What we handle
On multi-trade projects, small tracking errors compound into big surprises. We keep job costing, retainage, and 1099s straight and deliver a monthly close you can actually plan from.
Costs across every sub and phase rolled up per project so you see true job margin.
Every subcontractor tracked against the 2026 reporting threshold of $2,000 and prepared for year-end filing.
Milestone billing and owner draws recorded cleanly against each project.
Retainage held out and not recognized as revenue until released.
Change-order revenue and cost captured so scope creep doesn't hide your margin.
Work-in-progress kept current so over- and under-billing show up before they hurt.
Pricing
A cleanup is a one-time project — fixed scope, fixed price, and a date it is finished by. These are starting prices, not sight-unseen quotes; the exact figure is set after a free books diagnostic.
Monthly bookkeeping afterwards is optional, never a condition of the cleanup. Plans run $149 Starter, $299 Growth and $599 Scale per month — no setup fee, cancel any time. See how a cleanup works →
The detail
General contracting concentrates every accounting problem in the trades into one file: long jobs, many subcontractors, staged billing, retainage and change orders.
This is the defining problem. On a job running four or six months, the point at which you discover it lost money should not be the end of it. By then the crew is committed, the material is bought and the client relationship makes a hard conversation harder.
Costs are assigned to jobs as they land, so committed cost against contract value is visible during the job rather than after it.
A GC file can carry dozens of subcontractors. Reconstructing who was paid what — and who needs a 1099 — from twelve months of bank activity is genuinely difficult and easy to get wrong. W-9 collection tracked at the point of first payment turns it into an administrative task instead of an annual risk.
Both are normal on GC work and both distort the books when handled loosely. Unbilled change orders understate revenue and hide scope creep. Retainage recognized on invoice overstates income and brings tax forward on money you have not received.
Both get tracked explicitly — change orders against the job, retainage held until released. If you want to see the mechanics, here is how to job-cost a change order in QuickBooks Online, step by step.
If overhead sits in one undifferentiated pile, there is no reliable basis for the markup in a bid. Most GCs end up pricing from instinct and a competitor's last number. Knowing your real overhead recovery per job is what turns bidding from a guess into a decision.
How a month runs
The same sequence every month, so you know when numbers land and what they will tell you.
Closes finish within 3–5 business days of receiving your documents. The gap between month end and a finished close is almost always waiting on statements or receipts, which is why document requests go out through a secure portal rather than email threads.
Common questions
No, but it should feed it. Project software tells you what was scheduled and what was spent operationally. The books tell you what it did to the business — margin, tax position, cash. The two need to agree, and reconciling them is part of the monthly close.
A cleanup is a one-time project and starts at $750, $1,800, $3,200 or $4,500 depending on scope. Those are starting prices, not sight-unseen quotes — the exact figure is confirmed after a free books diagnostic, and it is fixed before any work begins.
Monthly bookkeeping afterwards is optional, never a condition of the cleanup. Plans are $149 (Starter, up to 100 transactions), $299 (Growth, up to 400) and $599 (Scale, up to 1,000). Transactions above your plan cap bill at $0.50 each. Payroll processing and reporting are included with Growth and Scale. There is no setup fee and you can cancel at any time.
Usually less than people expect. We work inside your existing QuickBooks Online file rather than moving you onto proprietary software, so there is no migration and no lock-in. If you leave, the file is yours and it goes with you.
The first step is a review of what is already there, and nothing gets changed without telling you first. If the prior work is clean, we pick up from where it stands. If it is not, you will get a written scope before anyone starts fixing it.
Plenty of trades businesses do, and for a one-van operation with simple billing it can work. It stops working at the point where jobs overlap, subcontractors get involved, deposits arrive before work starts, and equipment purchases need capitalizing. That is usually where the books quietly stop reflecting reality — the bank balance looks fine while margin is leaking on jobs nobody has costed.
The test is simple: if you cannot say which of last quarter's jobs made money, the books are not doing their job yet.
Tell us about your business and get a free books diagnostic - no call required, no obligation.
Get your free books diagnostic →Tell us where the books stand today. You'll get a written assessment and a fixed-price quote within one business day — no call required.
Prefer to talk? Email hello@flowbookkeepingservices.com or call (843) 749-8691.
Expect an email from hello@flowbookkeepingservices.com within one business day.