Overtime Electric started trading in October 2025 on the stock QuickBooks chart of accounts. Eight months later the file reported negative revenue, negative total assets, and a checking balance that had drifted far from what the bank actually held. We built the books a contractor needs and brought every number back to reality.
Overtime Electric
| Where the books stood | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Checking balance in QuickBooks | −$27K | Tied to the bank |
| Total assets on the balance sheet | −$23K | ~$36K |
| Gross margin | Not measurable | 57% |
| Cost accounts for job costs | 1 lump | Materials, labor, subs |
| Vehicle and its loan on the books | Neither | Both, amortized |
Overtime Electric is an electrical contractor working across Tampa Bay on new construction, remodels and service upgrades. The company opened for business in October 2025, and like most new contractors it started on whatever QuickBooks offered out of the box. The work came in fast. The bookkeeping never caught up, and the default chart of accounts had no idea it was looking at a construction business.
This was not a case of a few miscoded transactions. Revenue was reported as a negative number, total assets were reported as a negative number, and a financed work van and its loan were missing from the balance sheet entirely.
The checking account showed −$27K in QuickBooks against ~$13K at the bank, because months of activity had never been entered.
Service income sat at −$18K and was split against a "Billable Expense Income" account, dragging total income to −$17K.
The balance sheet reported total assets of −$23K, with a Liabilities section that contained nothing at all.
Cost of goods sold held a single under-$1,000 "Direct supplies & materials" line. No labor, no subcontractors, no job site costs.
Roughly ~$42K of the owner's personal spending was sitting inside the business books, so profitability could not be read.
Two business credit cards were never connected, a financed van and its loan were never recorded, and live "Uncategorized" buckets absorbed the rest.
A cleanup on top of a generic chart of accounts just produces tidier nonsense. We designed the accounts an electrical contractor actually needs first, had the owner approve them, and then posted the history into that structure.
A numbered 1000 to 7100 structure built for an electrical contractor: work in progress, retention receivable, underbillings, materials, direct labor, subcontractors and job site costs. The owner reviewed and approved it before anything was posted.
102 accountsNeither card had ever been linked to QuickBooks, so a large slice of business spending existed nowhere in the books. We connected both and imported the outstanding activity.
300+ transactionsReviewed, categorised and posted every outstanding bank and credit card transaction, including activity going back to 2025 that had never been recorded at all.
600+ transactionsCleared the negative service income balance, retired the inconsistent postings, and consolidated everything into 4010 Contract Revenue-Electricity so revenue reads as one reliable figure.
Separated materials and supplies, small tools, subcontractor labor and job site expenses into their own accounts, which is what makes a gross margin mean anything on a job.
Created grouped accounts for administration, facilities, professional services, technology and software, insurance, vehicle costs, bank fees, licences and repairs, then coded every transaction into the right one. Nothing was left in Uncategorized Expense.
Went through the activity transaction by transaction, identified the owner's personal spending, and moved it out of the expenses and into owner's drawings where it belongs.
~$42K reclassifiedCapitalised the financed vehicle at ~$22.8K, recorded the matching loan, and built a full amortisation schedule so every payment splits correctly between principal and interest.
Neither had ever been recorded, because the asset and the loan did not exist in the file. We booked ~$3.8K of accumulated depreciation and ~$1.1K of vehicle loan interest.
Reconciled the bank to the statements, cleared the leftover balances, and reviewed every balance sheet account until the statement represented the company's real financial position.
Now monthlyInstead of a negative "Services" balance fighting a "Billable Expense Income" account, the first half of 2026 rolls up to a single clean contract revenue line of ~$186K.
The "before" figures are not a smaller version of the same business. They are what happens when most of the year was never entered and the accounts to hold it did not exist.
"Before" figures are what the original file reported on 18 June 2026. "After" figures cover January to June 2026 on the rebuilt file.
An electrical contractor's money goes out in three directions: materials off the shelf, subcontracted labor, and whatever the job site itself costs. Those are now three separate accounts instead of one, which is the only reason a 57% gross margin can be calculated at all.
Share of ~$80K total cost of goods sold, January to June 2026.
The old file was not missing accounts so much as missing the right ones. QuickBooks had supplied a long alphabetical list of generic accounts, of which only 11 were carrying any activity, and not one of them described construction work.
Total assets moved from a reported −$23K to ~$36K, not because the company suddenly grew, but because the things it already owned and already owed were finally written down.
A financed work vehicle worth ~$22.8K had never appeared on the balance sheet. It is now recorded under 1520 Vehicles.
The matching liability was recorded and put on a schedule, paying down from ~$22.8K to ~$21.2K by 30 June 2026.
With the asset on the books, ~$3.8K of accumulated depreciation could be calculated and recorded for the first time.
~$1.1K of vehicle loan interest is now expensed properly instead of every payment being treated as a cost.
The two business cards are connected and carrying their real balances, so spending is captured as it happens and reconciliation is routine.
~$42K of the owner's personal spending now sits in 3400 Owner's Drawings, out of the expenses, so profit is real profit.
The advantage of fixing this in year one is that there is no second backlog to clear. The structure is built, the feeds are connected, and the books stay level with the work.
Started the company in October 2025 and the work took off way faster than I planned for. I was just using whatever QuickBooks gave me. Never really thought about it.
By this summer my books were showing a bank balance nowhere close to what I actually had, my revenue was somehow a negative number, and my work van was not even on there. I had no idea if I was making money on any of it.
FinTruction set the accounts up properly first, then went back and cleaned up everything I never entered. Found the van, found the loan, got my personal spending out of the business. Now I can look at my margin and actually believe it.
Two more construction businesses, with the same before-and-after numbers straight out of their books.
Rescue + Monthly
Several years behind, with the books off the bank by nearly $129K and total assets showing negative, rebuilt into a clean, trustworthy bottom line.
"They built a custom chart of accounts around how a remodeling company actually runs."
$1M+ Rebuild
A $1M+ builder with 500+ backlogged transactions and a tangled ledger, rebuilt into investor-grade, job-costable financials.
"FinTruction rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up, with real job costing, WIP, and retainage."
The stock QuickBooks chart of accounts cannot tell you whether a job made money, and every month you run on it is another month to clean up later. We build the accounts a contractor needs, connect the feeds, and keep the books level with the work. Free consultation, zero commitment.