Bookkeeping for contractors & home service trades
Know which jobs are actually making you money.
Crew Bookkeeping handles your monthly bookkeeping, job costing, and subcontractor tracking — so you always know your numbers, not just your bank balance.
Job costing • Subcontractor 1099s • QuickBooks Online
CPA reviewed
Books reviewed by a licensed CPA
Every account is reviewed by our staff CPA before financials are delivered.
Certified
QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor Certified
A certified QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor works on every engagement.
No lock-in
Month to month
No long-term contract. Cancel any month and we hand off your records cleanly.
The problem
You can be booked solid and still not know if you're making money.
Most contractors track cash, not cost. The pipeline looks full, the crew is busy, and the bank balance moves — but nothing tells you which jobs carried the company and which ones quietly ate the margin.
Materials and labor get coded to one big bucket, so job profitability is a guess. Retainage sits withheld on jobs that closed out months ago. Subcontractor payments and W-9s scatter across texts, checks, and card statements until January turns into a scramble.
Change orders never make it into the numbers. Deposits get spent before the work is done. And when a slow month hits, the cash flow surprise arrives long after you could have priced or scheduled around it.
Messy
- Job costs mixed together
- No idea which jobs are profitable
- Subcontractor payments untracked
- Retainage forgotten
Managed
- Job-level cost tracking
- Consistent monthly reconciliation
- Subcontractor 1099 tracking
- Retainage monitored
Clean
- Know your margin on every job
- Books ready for your CPA or tax preparer
- Confident bidding based on real cost data
Services
Bookkeeping built for how contractors actually work.
Everything is handled inside QuickBooks Online, structured around jobs, crews, and vendors — not a generic small-business chart of accounts.
Job Costing
Track cost and profitability at the job level, not just company-wide.
Monthly Bookkeeping
Transaction categorization, reconciliation, and monthly financial statements.
Subcontractor Tracking
W-9 collection, payment tracking, and 1099-NEC prep support.
Retainage Tracking
Keep visibility on withheld payments until jobs close out.
Accounts Payable
Organize materials, equipment, and vendor bills.
QuickBooks Online
Professional support inside your existing QBO account.
How it works
Four steps to books you can bid from.
A clear onboarding, then a consistent monthly rhythm you can plan around.
Tell us about your business
Trade type, current job volume, and bookkeeping setup.
We get your books organized
Set up your job costing structure and reconcile your accounts.
We handle the monthly work
Bookkeeping, job cost tracking, and subcontractor payments.
You get clear job-level financials
Know your margin on every project.
Who we serve
Trades we know inside and out.
Different trades carry different cost structures. We set your books up for yours.
General Contractors
You are the one holding the schedule, the subs, and the budget together. Your books should show whether that effort actually paid.
See how we handle itHVAC & Plumbing Contractors
Service calls and installs are two different businesses sharing one bank account. Your books should tell them apart.
See how we handle itElectrical Contractors
Material prices move, gear lead times stretch, and the bid you signed six months ago has to survive both.
See how we handle itRoofing Contractors
Two busy quarters have to carry four. That only works if you know what each roof actually earned.
See how we handle itRemodelers & Renovation Contractors
The bid was clean. Then came the selections, the allowances, and eleven change orders.
See how we handle itLandscaping & Specialty Trades
Recurring maintenance and one-off installs behave nothing alike. Reported together, they hide each other.
See how we handle itPricing
Straightforward pricing, built around job complexity.
Pick a starting point — we'll confirm the right fit after reviewing your job volume and complexity.
Built for contractors and trade businesses doing up to about $3M in annual revenue. If you're larger, we'll talk through a custom scope.
Starter
For solo contractors or small crews under ~$150K revenue.
- Up to 40 transactions/month
- One business bank account or card
- Monthly categorization & reconciliation
- Quarterly financial statements
- Quarterly CPA review
- Email support
Growth
For contractors managing multiple active jobs and subcontractors.
- Up to 120 transactions/month
- Job-level cost tracking across active projects
- Subcontractor payment & 1099 tracking
- Monthly bookkeeping, reconciliation & categorization
- Monthly financial statements
- Monthly CPA review
- Priority email support
*Managing high transaction volumes or multi-crew operations? Custom volume tiers are available upon request.
Complete
For established contractors with larger crews, simultaneous jobs, and retainage/progress billing.
- 120+ transactions/month
- Full job costing across unlimited active jobs
- Retainage tracking
- Accounts Payable support
- Monthly close process
- Dedicated CPA review & monthly consultation call
Every plan includes secure QuickBooks Online access, review by a licensed CPA, and a QuickBooks ProAdvisor-certified bookkeeping process. Final pricing may adjust based on job volume and complexity after a free consultation.
Add-ons
Need a little more?
Bolt these onto any plan when your situation calls for it.
Starting at $250/mo
Cleanup & catch-up bookkeeping
For backlog months that need to be brought current before ongoing work begins.
One-time flat fee
QuickBooks Online setup & job costing structure
Chart of accounts, job/class structure, and item lists configured for your trade. Ask for a quote.
Add-on
Certified payroll / prevailing wage reporting support
Reporting support for public and prevailing-wage projects. Ask for a quote.
Why Crew Bookkeeping
A bookkeeping process you can actually rely on.
CPA-reviewed, every month
Your books are reviewed by a licensed CPA before any financials are delivered to you.
QuickBooks ProAdvisor certified
A QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor-certified bookkeeper works inside your own QBO file.
Built specifically for trades
Job costing, retainage, change orders, and subcontractor tracking — the parts of contractor accounting generic bookkeepers skip.
A process you can see
A consistent monthly schedule means you always know when your numbers will be ready and what we need from you.
Work happens in your own file
We operate inside your QuickBooks Online account. Your data stays yours and your tax preparer can pull from it directly.
Clear scope, plainly stated
Bookkeeping and financial reporting only. We don't run payroll, we don't file tax returns, and we're not a CPA firm.
No long-term contract required.
Start month to month. If Crew Bookkeeping isn't the right fit, you can cancel anytime — no lock-in, no penalty.
Resources
Guides written for contractors, not accountants.
Practical explanations of the numbers that decide whether a job made money.
Job costing
Job costing for contractors: what it is and how to set it up
Company-level profit tells you almost nothing about which jobs earned it. Here is the cost code structure and setup sequence that makes job margin visible.
8 min readSubcontractors
Subcontractor 1099s: a year-round checklist for contractors
The January 1099 scramble is a bookkeeping problem disguised as a tax problem. Fix it in the order you pay people, not at year end.
6 min readCash flow
Retainage: how to track money you have earned but cannot spend
Retainage is revenue you have earned, invoiced, and cannot use. Tracked in a normal receivables balance, it quietly ages into money nobody remembers to collect.
6 min readFAQ
Questions contractors ask us first.
Find out what your jobs are really earning.
Send us a few details and we'll come back with what we see in your books, which numbers are missing, and the plan that fits your job volume. No obligation and no long-term contract.
- Reply within one business day
- A look at your job costing structure
- Clear pricing before anything starts
Request your free consultation
Tell us about your business and we'll come back within one business day with what we see and which plan fits.