Accounting 101: A Guide for Construction Entities

Contractors are facing constant challenges in today’s economic climate. In addition to planning, environmental challenges and regulatory demands, there’s must to consider.

One area often overlooked, yet especially necessary, is having accurate, timely financials for your construction organization. We commonly receive questions on construction accounting across the industry and we can not overstate the critical importance of your financial records.

Having timely, detailed financials can help you make critical business decisions, model financial scenarios and know what’s going on in your organization.

A guide to accounting for your construction entity

To help answer those questions and give construction entities an understanding of the importance of accounting, we’ve developed a guide on common issues in construction accounting.

The guide covers key accounting items, including:

• Chart of accounts
• Contract schedules
• Contracts in progress
• Complete contracts
• Current period tie-out
• Prior period tie-out
• Fade-gain analysis

This guide assumes you are accounting for contracts using generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America (U.S. GAAP) and recognizing income using the percentage of completion method (and QuickBooks).

Understanding the Importance of Your Financials

While we provide you as much information as possible, please know that accounting and bookkeeping can be complex and confusing, even for the most skilled of professionals.

If you have any questions, or need additional guidance, reach out to a member of our construction team.

Download our accounting guide for construction entities

Complete the form below and you’ll receive immediate access to our guide for construction accounting for your organization. You will also receive an email with it attached so you can save it for later reference.

As you work through these changes and updates, don’t hesitate to reach out with questions.