Contractor Bookkeeping Template

For contractors, the job is the profit center

A contractor can show a healthy bank balance while one job quietly consumes the profit from three good ones. Company-level bookkeeping is necessary, but it is not enough. Every quote, cost, billing, and payment needs to stay attached to the job so the owner can see margin before the final invoice—not months later.

Vickery Finance has two related workbooks. The Contractor Job Costing & Quote Tracker is built for general contractors, remodelers, roofers, painters, and trades quoting and running their own jobs. The Construction Subcontractor Profit Tracker focuses on contracts with a GC or client, crew labor, materials, billed and paid amounts, and money still owed.

A job-cost bookkeeping routine

Set the job up once, then record costs against it as they occur. Retyping job totals at month-end destroys the audit trail and usually loses small purchases that determine the final margin.

1. Create the job record. For a general-contractor job, log client, dates, quoted price, amount paid, amount owed, and status. For a subcontract, log contract value, billed to date, and paid to date.
2. Build the quote by line. The Contractor Quote Builder uses item, quantity, unit cost, and markup; cost, quoted price, and profit calculate automatically.
3. Assign every cost to a job. Contractor categories include labor, materials, subcontractor, equipment, permits, and other. Subcontractor expenses can be tied to a job or marked Overhead.
4. Track crew time where it belongs. The Subcontractor workbook records hours by job, role, and wage so per-job and per-crew labor totals calculate from the same source.
5. Watch billed, paid, and owed. Amount owed is part of job performance. Completed jobs that are still owed are flagged so collection does not disappear into a general receivables list.
6. Close with job P&L. Compare quoted or contract value with actual costs by category, total profit, margin, and budget variance. Review the best and worst jobs before quoting similar work.

Price and track every job

Both workbooks are $39 and run in Excel and Google Sheets. Contractor Job Costing includes the Job Log, Job Costs, Quote Builder, Job P&L, and Dashboard. Construction Subcontractor includes Jobs and Contracts, Labor and Crew, Materials and Expenses, Monthly P&L, and Dashboard.

Frequently asked questions