You build the future.

We make it count.

Bookkeeping Built for Job Costs, WIP, and Certified Payroll for General Contractors, Commercial Subs, and Specialty Trades across Texas.

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Why Contractors Call Us

The Money Goes Out Long Before It Comes In.

Materials get bought in week one. Labor gets paid every Friday. The draw lands sixty days after the pay app, assuming nobody kicks it back — and ten percent of it sits in retainage until the job closes out.

That gap is why profitable contractors run out of cash. It isn't a margin problem and it usually isn't a bidding problem. It's a timing problem, made worse when nobody can tell you what a job has actually cost until a month after it mattered.

We build the financial side of a contracting business so the numbers keep up with the work — job costs allocated weekly, billings that go out clean the first time, and a WIP schedule your bonding agent will accept.

  • No idea which jobs are actually making money
  • Job costs landing in the wrong phase or the wrong job
  • Pay apps kicked back for documentation
  • Retainage counted as collectible receivables
  • Over- and under-billing nobody is tracking
  • Certified payroll reports late or rejected
  • No WIP schedule when the surety asks for one
  • Committed costs invisible until the invoice arrives
What We Handle

The Work General Bookkeepers Get Wrong on Contract Jobs

Construction doesn't fit a standard chart of accounts. These are the pieces that have to be right.

Job Costing

Every Dollar on the Right Job

Costs allocated weekly to the correct job and phase — not swept into a general bucket at month-end.

  • Labor, burden, materials, equipment, and subs by phase
  • Committed costs captured at PO, not at invoice
  • Estimated versus actual on every closed job
  • Historical cost data you can bid from next time
WIP Reporting

Work-in-Progress Schedules

The report a surety, bank, or GC asks for — built correctly and available when they ask.

  • Percentage complete by cost-to-cost or units
  • Over- and under-billing calculated per job
  • Backlog and remaining contract value
  • Gross profit by job, and where it's slipping
Progress Billing

AIA G702 and G703

Pay applications prepared to match the contract and the schedule of values, so they don't come back.

  • Schedule of values built and maintained
  • G702 and G703 continuation sheets prepared
  • Stored materials and change orders reflected
  • Retainage calculated and tracked separately
Retainage

Money You've Earned but Can't Spend

Retainage is not a receivable you can count on this month, and treating it like one distorts everything.

  • Tracked per job and per contract, receivable and payable
  • Held sub retainage tracked alongside yours
  • Release followed up at closeout instead of forgotten
  • Kept out of collectible aging so cash forecasts stay honest
Change Orders

Scope That Changed and Nobody Billed

The most common place contract profit disappears is work performed on a change order that never got approved or invoiced.

  • Change order log maintained against each contract
  • Pending versus approved tracked separately
  • Contract value updated as changes are approved
  • Unbilled approved work flagged before it ages out
Documentation

Lien Waivers and Compliance Paperwork

The document tracking that holds up payment when it's missing or late.

  • Conditional and unconditional waivers prepared and logged
  • Sub and supplier waivers collected before you release payment
  • Certificates of insurance and W-9s tracked per sub
  • 1099 preparation with vendor records already complete

Job costing, retainage, and progress billing all run off the same underlying records. When one team handles all of it, the numbers agree — which is the entire point.

Built for the Field

Your Crews Don't Wait for Month-End. Neither Should Your Numbers.

Costs allocated weekly, billings out on schedule, and a job-level margin you can see while the job is still open — not after it closes and the money is already spent.

Certified Payroll

Prevailing Wage Work, Reported Correctly and On Time

Public and commercial jobs come with reporting most payroll providers won't touch. We process roughly 8,000 payrolls a year, and certified payroll is a routine part of that.

WH-347 and Agency Forms

Weekly certified payroll reports prepared in the format the awarding agency actually requires, not a generic export.

LCPtracker, CCIP & Portals

Submissions through the compliance portals GCs and agencies use, including LCPtracker and CCIP — including the rejections and resubmissions.

Davis-Bacon & Prevailing Wage

Wage determinations applied by classification, with fringe benefit calculations handled correctly rather than approximated.

Labor Classification

Workers reported under the right classification for the work performed, including split classifications across a single week.

Statements of Compliance

Signed statements accompanying every report, with the supporting documentation retained where you can find it later.

Apprentices & Fringe Reporting

Apprentice ratios and registered program documentation, plus fringe benefit reporting on the schedule the job requires.

Certified payroll is part of our payroll and HR compliance service. See the full payroll page →

Systems

Software Built for Contract Work, Not Forced Into It

Most construction bookkeeping problems trace back to running a contracting business inside a general ledger that was never set up for jobs.

Knowify Certified Advisor — Bulverde Business Solutions

Knowify Certified Advisor

We're a certified advisor in Knowify, which is built specifically for contractors and syncs both ways with QuickBooks Online.

  • Job costing by labor, material, equipment, and sub, broken out by phase
  • Progress billing with retainage handled natively
  • Change orders and purchase order tracking
  • Timesheets and payroll integration
  • Clean two-way sync so QuickBooks and job records agree
Intuit QuickBooks ProAdvisor Elite certified — Bulverde Business Solutions

QuickBooks ProAdvisor Elite

Our team holds Intuit's top ProAdvisor tier. If you'd rather stay in QuickBooks alone, we'll set it up to actually do job costing.

  • Chart of accounts restructured for contract work
  • Items, classes, and job tracking configured properly
  • Existing file cleaned up rather than replaced
  • Reporting built on top so you see job-level margin
  • No migration you didn't ask for
Paperwork That Decides What You Can Bid

The Packages Somebody Has to Fill Out — and Usually It's You, at Night

Sureties, general contractors, lenders, and suppliers all want financial packages. None of them want the same format, and all of them have deadlines.

Vendor & Supplier

Credit Applications

New supplier accounts, equipment dealers, material houses, fuel accounts. We complete the applications, assemble the financial statements and references they ask for, and handle the follow-up questions — instead of it sitting on your desk while a job waits on material.

General Contractors

GC Prequalification

GCs increasingly won't add a sub to a bid list without financials, a WIP schedule, safety documentation, and references in their own portal or format. We build the package once, keep it current, and resubmit it as each GC asks.

Surety

Bonding Capacity

Sureties underwrite off your WIP schedule, working capital, and equity. Books that don't tie out don't just delay a bond — they cap the size of work you're allowed to bid, which is a growth ceiling most contractors don't realize they've hit.

Lenders

Bank & Line of Credit

Lenders want two years that agree and a forecast that holds up. We assemble the package and sit in on the conversation, so you're not on the spot explaining numbers somebody else prepared.

Credit applications and GC prequalification packages are included for Full-Service construction clients. They're administrative work that takes real time and gets deprioritized until it's urgent — which is exactly why it belongs with the team that already has your financials assembled. See what Full-Service includes →

Insurance Audits

Your Books Set Your Insurance Premium.

General liability and workers' compensation premiums are audited against your actual payroll, subcontractor spend, and cost records. It's the point where a year of bookkeeping decisions turns into a bill you either owe or don't.

In construction the most expensive gap is almost never a sub without insurance — it's a sub who had insurance while the certificate was never collected, or expired mid-project and was never renewed. Without documentation covering the period they worked, those payments can be added to your premium basis as though you had employed them directly.

We collect and track subcontractor certificates as the work happens, keep payroll reconciled to what was filed, and code costs so a classification split can actually be supported. Then we sit through the audit and produce the records.

We've handled these every year since 2021

General liability and workers' compensation audits, several a year. We read the document request, assemble and reconcile the records, produce the certificate file, and answer the auditor's questions — so nobody stops working to rebuild a year of paperwork on short notice.

Who We Work With

Commercial, Public, and Custom Residential

The requirements change a lot depending on who's paying and what's in the contract.

General Contractors

Multiple jobs running at once, sub payables and sub retainage to manage, pay apps out and pay apps in, and a WIP schedule that has to hold up to a surety.

Commercial Subcontractors

Prevailing wage reporting, compliance portal submissions, GC prequalification packages, and getting paid on schedules you don't control.

Specialty Trades

Concrete, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, roofing, site work. High material cost, crew-level labor tracking, and margin that lives or dies on job costing.

Custom Builders & Remodelers

Draw schedules, allowances, selections, and change orders on residential work — plus separating owner and business spending when a build runs long.

A Note on Custom Home Builders

We work very closely with a custom builder — deep in the numbers on individual builds, not just closing the month and sending a report. That work taught us how different residential is from commercial, even though both are "construction."

Custom builds break bookkeeping in their own specific ways. Allowances get exceeded and never billed. Selections change three times and only one version makes it into the contract value. A draw gets funded against percentages nobody recalculated. Owner spending and business spending blur on a build that runs eighteen months.

If you're building custom homes, you don't need someone who does commercial job costing and hopes it translates. You need someone who's actually been inside a build.

What That Looks Like
  • Cost tracking per build, per phase, per allowance category
  • Allowance overages surfaced while they're still billable
  • Selections and change orders reflected in contract value
  • Draw schedules reconciled against actual completion
  • Lender draw packages assembled with backup
  • Owner draws kept separate from job cost
  • Margin visible per build before closeout, not after
Everything Connected

Job Costing Only Works If the Books Underneath Are Right

Certified payroll feeds job cost. Job cost feeds WIP. WIP feeds the bond. Progress billing feeds cash. When separate providers handle separate pieces, the numbers stop agreeing — and you find out at the worst possible moment.

To be clear about scope: BBS provides bookkeeping, payroll, and financial operations services for construction businesses. We are not a CPA firm and not a law firm. We prepare and track lien waiver documentation as an administrative function — we don't provide legal advice on lien rights, contract terms, or notice deadlines, and Texas lien law is strict about timing. For anything requiring legal interpretation we'll say so and recommend you talk to construction counsel. We're glad to work alongside your attorney, CPA, and bonding agent and give them the records they need.

Where We Work

Construction Bookkeeping Across Texas — and Nationwide

We work with contractors in San Antonio, Bulverde, Spring Branch, Boerne, and New Braunfels, plus Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, and Houston. Multi-state contractors are handled remotely through our secure client portal.

See All Locations We Serve →
Common Questions

Construction Bookkeeping — Answered

What contractors ask before handing over the books.

Can you build a WIP schedule our surety will accept?

Yes, and it's one of the most common reasons contractors call us. That means percentage complete calculated on a defensible basis, over- and under-billing per job, backlog, and gross profit by contract — assembled so a surety or general contractor can review it without sending it back. If your job costs were never allocated properly, the schedule has to be rebuilt from source records first, and we'll tell you that up front.

Do you handle certified payroll and prevailing wage reporting?

Yes. WH-347 and agency-specific forms, Davis-Bacon wage determinations by classification, fringe benefit reporting, statements of compliance, apprentice ratios, and submission through compliance portals including LCPtracker and CCIP. We process roughly 8,000 payrolls a year and certified payroll is routine work for us, not an exception we'd have to figure out. See our payroll and HR compliance services.

Can you prepare our AIA pay applications?

Yes — G702 and G703 continuation sheets prepared against the schedule of values, with approved change orders, stored materials, and retainage reflected correctly. Most pay app rejections come from the billing not matching the schedule of values or missing supporting documentation, and both are avoidable when the same team maintains the SOV and prepares the billing.

Are you a CPA firm? Can you do our taxes?

No. BBS provides bookkeeping, payroll, and financial operations services — not CPA, tax, or attest services. We're not a CPA firm and we don't prepare returns. We keep the books and job records accurate year-round, assemble a documented year-end package, and coordinate directly with your CPA so they aren't rebuilding your job costs in March.

Do we have to switch to Knowify?

No. We're a Knowify Certified Advisor and it's genuinely better for contract work, but plenty of our construction clients run entirely in QuickBooks Online and we configure it to do proper job costing. If your current setup works we'd rather run it than migrate you. If it's actively fighting you — no job tracking, a chart of accounts nobody can read — we'll say so and explain what changing would involve.

How do you handle retainage?

Tracked separately from collectible receivables, both what's held from you and what you hold from subs. That distinction matters because retainage sitting in your regular aging makes your cash position look better than it is — and it's a common reason contractors are surprised by a shortfall in an otherwise good month. We also follow up on release at closeout, which is money that routinely gets forgotten.

Do you prepare lien waivers?

We prepare and track conditional and unconditional waiver documentation as an administrative function, and we collect them from your subs and suppliers before payment is released. We are not a law firm and we don't advise on lien rights, notice deadlines, or contract terms — Texas lien law is unforgiving about timing, so anything involving legal interpretation goes to construction counsel. We'll flag it plainly when that line is reached.

Our job costs are a mess. Where do we even start?

With a diagnostic review. We get read-only access, see how far back the problems go, and give you a written scope and fixed price before any work starts. Reallocating historical costs to the right jobs and phases is the usual first step, because a WIP schedule built on bad allocations is worse than no WIP schedule. See our cleanup service.

Do you work with residential builders too?

Yes. Custom builders and remodelers have their own version of the same problems — draw schedules, allowances and selections, change orders, and long builds where owner spending and business spending blur together. The mechanics differ from commercial work but the discipline is the same: costs on the right job, billings that match the contract, and margin visible before the job closes.

Will you fill out vendor credit apps and GC prequal packages?

Yes — for Full-Service construction clients this is included. Supplier and equipment credit applications, GC prequalification packages, and the financial statements and references that go with them. It's tedious work that tends to sit until a job is waiting on material or a bid deadline is days away, and we already have the financials assembled, so it's faster for us than for you. See what Full-Service includes.

We run several entities. Can you handle that?

Yes, and it's common in construction — an operating company, an equipment entity, a real estate holding entity, sometimes a separate company per large project or joint venture. Each gets its own books, with intercompany transactions tracked properly rather than netted out and forgotten. Consolidated reporting where you need to see the whole picture, and separate financials where a surety or lender wants a single entity.

What does this cost?

A flat monthly price, quoted after we look at your actual job volume, crew size, entity structure, and whether certified payroll and progress billing are in scope. We don't bill hourly and we don't meter phone calls. A contractor running four jobs and a contractor running forty are different engagements, so anyone quoting you before looking is guessing.

Most Contractors End Up Here

The Whole Financial Operation, One Monthly Price

Bookkeeping, certified payroll, AP/AR, WIP and reporting, controller oversight, and office support under one team — plus vendor credit applications and GC prequalification packages handled for you, not handed back to you.

See How It Works
Beyond Bookkeeping. Built for Growth.

Which of Your Jobs Made Money Last Year?

If that takes more than a minute to answer, start there. Send us a job list and a recent WIP report — or tell us you don't have one — and we'll tell you what it would take to fix.

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