By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com If you run a construction business, you've probably wondered whether the financial side really needs to be different from any other company's. It does — and the gap is bigger than most owners realize. Construction bookkeeping isn't regular bookkeeping with a hard hat on. It tracks money in a fundamentally different way, b

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com Every HVAC contractor spends money to make money — on units, parts, tools, vans, software, technicians, and more. What most owners don't realize is that HVAC tax deductions aren't decided in April by your CPA. They're decided all year long, in your books, by how each expense gets recorded. Book an expense the right way an

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com Ask most HVAC contractors why they offer a maintenance plan, and the answer is some version of 'to keep customers and get the repair work.' That's a good instinct — an HVAC maintenance agreement is one of the most valuable things you can build. But here's the problem: most owners price their plans to win the customer, not

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist Most HVAC maintenance plan programs are sold on instinct. A contractor picks a round number — $199, $250, $350 — because a competitor down the street charges something close, then hopes the math works out by year-end. It usually doesn't, and the books rarely tell a clear story. The problem isn't the idea of recurring revenue. The problem is that the HVAC maintenance agreement was never costed, and the

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com If you run an HVAC business, you already know the trade. What trips up most owners isn't the heating and cooling work — it's the financial side. HVAC accounting works differently than the bookkeeping a restaurant or retail shop uses, because an HVAC company has moving parts most businesses don't: three separate revenue st

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com An HVAC contractor carries more material value than almost any other trade. A single condenser or air handler can run into the thousands. Add the parts on every truck — capacitors, contactors, motors, filters — and the refrigerant that's both expensive and regulated, and you've got serious money rolling around the county

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com Here's the problem with most HVAC contractor bookkeeping: it treats an HVAC business like one company, when really you're running three. You've got install — new systems, replacements, new construction — the big-ticket work that puts five figures on a single job. You've got service — the repairs, the emergency calls, the

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com Every electrical contractor is running a small warehouse on wheels and most don't think of it that way. Each truck is carrying thousands of dollars in wire, breakers, devices, conduit, fittings, and fixtures. Multiply that across a fleet and you've got serious money rolling around the county every day. Yet electrician inv

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com Ask any electrical contractor what they'd most like to have, and somewhere near the top is this: revenue they can count on every month without chasing the next service call. That's exactly what an electrical service agreement delivers — a customer who pays you on a schedule to keep their electrical systems maintained, ins

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com Electrical work runs on permits and inspections more than almost any other trade. Pull the panel, you need a permit. Add circuits, run a new service, do a tenant improvement — permit, then inspection, sometimes several. It's a constant, unavoidable part of the business. And yet electrical permit cost tracking is one of th

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com Here's something that makes electrical contractor payroll genuinely different from payroll in most businesses: your crew isn't one kind of worker at one rate. You've got apprentices learning the trade, journeymen running independently, and foremen or masters leading the job — three tiers, three very different costs, and t

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com Here's the problem with most electrical contractor bookkeeping: it treats an electrical business like one company, when really you're running two. You've got service work — the calls, the repairs, the panel swaps, the troubleshooting that keeps the phone ringing — and you've got project work — the new construction, the co

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com Here's the paradox that takes down more construction businesses than any other: the company is profitable on paper, the bank balance looks fine most months, and then one Friday there's not enough cash to make payroll. The owner is stunned — "we're making money, how are we out of cash?" The answer is almost always the same

By Tammy Hoang, QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Construction Bookkeeping Specialist | Construction Cost Accounting (949) 889-3283 | constructioncostaccounting.com If you've ever applied for a construction bond, opened a line of credit with a construction lender, or filed taxes with a CPA who actually understands construction, you already know that all three want the same document: your construction WIP report. WIP — work in progress — is the single report that tells outside parties