Job costing and change-order discipline for work that has to hit a move-in date
A Plano corporate fit-out runs on a date somebody already announced. The lease is signed, the move-in sits in a press release, and the owner keeps changing scope inside a schedule that cannot move. So you accelerate, you run premium time, and the cost lands in your books weeks before the change order is signed. That is what construction accounting in Plano has to handle. We cost every job to the code, keep priced, pending and unpriced changes as three separate numbers, run a monthly WIP that finds the underbilling before your bank does, and get the Texas remodel versus new construction tax split right.
On the ground
Legacy Town Center, Plano, Texas
Plano work is bought on schedule certainty. When the owner has already published a move-in date, acceleration and scope change become financial events long before they become paperwork, and generic bookkeeping cannot see them coming.
They didn’t just record transactions and call it a day. They built a custom chart of accounts around how a remodeling company actually runs, did a full catch-up on years of bookkeeping inside QuickBooks Online, and now stay on top of my monthly bookkeeping and payroll. Every step, they broke it down in simple terms instead of burying me in accountant talk.
FinTruction rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up, with real job costing, work in progress, and retainage. They didn’t just hand me reports and disappear; they walked me through my numbers until I understood them.
Sahil and his team handle the bookkeeping and job costing for my painting business. They cleaned up my books and set up integrations that give me accurate, timely job costing with solid weekly data. Reliable, detailed, and genuinely invested in getting the numbers right.
FinTruction is the only bookkeeping team we’ve found that truly understands construction accounting and WIP reporting. They aligned our income and costs across 21 jobs and gave us full, monthly transparency. Fast, accurate, and an indispensable partner.
When I came to FinTruction I had no financial structure. No job costing, no WIP tracking, books behind. They did a full cleanup and rebuilt job costing and WIP tracking in QuickBooks. Now I know what’s billed, what’s owed, and where every job stands.
A couple of minutes from a contractor we support, sharing what working with FinTruction has been like and what changed once their numbers finally made sense.
Plano is where companies land when they move to Texas. Toyota North America, JPMorgan Chase, Liberty Mutual and FedEx Office all built or occupied major operations here, and the Legacy business park and Legacy West set the template: a large campus, a corporate tenant, and a delivery date fixed before the first sub is awarded. Granite Park, the Preston Road corridor and the Collin Creek Mall redevelopment keep adding to the same pipeline, and Texas Local Government Code Chapter 380 agreements and state relocation incentives often sit underneath these deals, which is one more reason the announced date does not move.
For a contractor that changes the shape of the risk. On a speculative building, a slipped month costs you money. On a relocation build, a slipped month can trigger liquidated damages, a temporary space cost the tenant will look to recover, and an acceleration directive that arrives faster than any change order paperwork. Contractors in Plano routinely perform tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of directed work before it is priced, and if the accounting cannot show that work as its own number, it simply shows up as a margin fade nobody can explain.
The rest of the market is quieter but not simpler. Plano ISD and the city let public work that carries a prevailing wage determination. Medical office and outpatient construction continues around the Legacy and Willow Bend corridors, senior living keeps a steady group of contractors busy, and West Plano supports a genuine luxury remodel market where the tax treatment of the labor is different again. Spring hail routinely floods Collin County roofers with insurance-funded work that arrives faster than crews and material can absorb it.
What every one of those jobs shares is documentation. A corporate owner, an insurance adjuster, a school district and a bank all want backup, and all of them want it in a format that has to exist before they ask. That is an accounting design problem rather than a diligence problem, and it is solved the same way each time: cost codes that match how the contract is administered, changes logged as they happen, and a WIP schedule produced monthly instead of at year end. If you also work outside Collin County, our construction accounting across Texas covers the same ground statewide, and there is a separate page for contractors based in Dallas.
On a job with a published move-in date, the owner buys the schedule and pays for scope change afterwards. That gap is where Plano contractors bleed. We keep directed work visible from the day it starts, carry acceleration and premium time on their own codes, and make the cost of a delay provable from the records instead of arguable from memory.
Every construction platform claims to have a "QuickBooks integration." Most break the moment your books need to be accurate. Sales tax mismaps, retainage disappears, change orders create duplicates, and job costing reports stop matching project reality. We fix the integration so your software, your books, and your job‑level numbers all tell the same story.
Also work with Foundation, Sage 100, Bill.com, ADP, Gusto, Ramp, and more. See all platforms we integrate →
A corporate campus job is really several jobs stacked together: core and shell, tenant finish-out, furniture coordination, low voltage and audio visual, and a punch phase that decides whether anyone moves in on time. Job costing in Plano has to answer at that level of detail, because the owner reviews it at that level of detail.
Corporate owners bill through a project manager and an owner representative who read the G703 line by line. A pay application that does not match the schedule of values comes back, and a rejected application on a fast job is a month of cash. We build the billing so it goes out right the first time, including the long-lead equipment sitting in a warehouse.
Two Texas rules decide a large part of what a Plano contractor keeps. Whether the labor is taxable remodeling or non-taxable new construction, and whether your job cost records can carry the franchise tax cost of goods sold election. Our construction tax planning services settle both at contract level rather than at filing time.
Corporate work grows a contractor faster than it funds one. Bigger contracts mean bigger commitments, longer float and a bonding conversation you were not having last year. Our controller services and CFO services answer what you can actually carry before you sign for it.
We support the trades that finish corporate space in Collin County, alongside the medical office, senior living, retail and luxury remodel contractors working the rest of the Plano market.
Running a Construction Company in Plano?
Get Your Free AuditA general bookkeeper can record transactions. Construction accounting is a different job.
| What you need | Generic local bookkeeper | FinTruction |
|---|---|---|
| Job-level costing | Lumps all jobs into one P&L | Cost codes and margin per project |
| WIP & revenue recognition | Cash-basis, no WIP schedule | Monthly WIP with over/underbilling |
| Retainage tracking | Buried in AR/AP, often missed | Tracked receivable & payable by contract |
| Bonding & lender packages | Not equipped to produce them | Bonding-ready statements and backlog |
| Construction software | QuickBooks set up like a retail shop | QuickBooks + integrations tuned for contractors |
Texas taxes labor to repair, remodel or restore nonresidential real property as a taxable service under Comptroller Rule 3.357, while labor on new construction is not taxable. For a Plano fit-out contractor that single line decides the tax on the job. Initial finish-out of a shell space that has never been completed is treated as new construction, and adding new usable square footage falls outside the remodeling rules, but re-fitting a floor that a previous tenant occupied is taxable remodeling. Residential work follows different rules again, which matters on the West Plano remodel side. We settle the determination per contract before billing starts.
Texas also treats a contractor differently depending on how the contract states price. Under a lump-sum contract the contractor is generally the consumer of the materials it incorporates; under a separated contract, with materials and labor stated separately, the contractor is generally treated as a seller of the materials. Which form you sign changes who pays tax and when, and contractors who sign both forms and account for them identically are the ones who get a surprise later. We tag the contract type on the job record so purchasing and billing follow it automatically.
Texas has no personal income tax, but most entities file a franchise tax report on taxable margin, and construction companies can generally elect to subtract cost of goods sold instead of compensation. Entities under the revenue threshold owe no tax but usually still have a filing obligation. The election favors contractors furnishing labor and materials to improve real property, yet it is only as strong as the underlying records. Direct labor, materials, equipment and subcontractor cost sitting in general overhead accounts cannot be claimed cleanly, so the deduction quietly shrinks.
Texas does not issue a statewide general contractor license. Electricians and air conditioning and refrigeration contractors are licensed by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, and plumbers by the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners. The City of Plano administers its own permitting, inspection and registration requirements, and each Collin County city does the same, so a contractor working Plano, Frisco and Allen in the same quarter is carrying several sets of fees. Those fees belong in job cost, because a bid rate built on the wrong overhead assumption is wrong on every job that follows.
On private Texas work, Property Code Chapter 53 requires an owner to reserve ten percent of the contract price during the work and for a period afterwards, and lien rights depend on month-driven notices tied to when the labor or material was furnished. Chapter 28, the Texas Prompt Payment Act, generally gives an owner 35 days to pay a prime contractor after a payment request and gives that contractor seven days to pay each subcontractor after being paid. We are not attorneys and we do not file liens. We keep unpaid amounts organized by job, tier and month furnished so your attorney is never rebuilding records against a deadline.
Texas Government Code Chapter 2258 requires prevailing wages on public works let by the state and its political subdivisions, with the rate determined by the awarding body, so City of Plano, Collin County and Plano ISD bond projects frequently carry a wage determination. Federally funded work falls under the Davis-Bacon Act instead. Both require certified payroll. A contractor who runs corporate private work and district work through one payroll process without flagging the determination per contract is the contractor who fails the audit.
Contract terms are not usually thought of as an accounting issue, but on Plano relocation work they are the accounting issue. Liquidated damages, no damage for delay language, notice periods for claims and the definition of a compensable delay all decide whether the extra cost you are already spending is recoverable. The records have to be built to satisfy those clauses while the work happens. We set the job up so that daily labor, equipment and subcontractor cost on directed work is captured against the change from day one, which is the only version of that evidence anyone accepts later.
A fair question when you already have a bookkeeper, a payroll service and a CPA who does the return. Here is the honest answer.
Most Plano contractors do not need another platform. They need the one their project managers already live in connected to the accounting, so a change order raised in the field becomes a number in the books the same week.
Most QuickBooks files we take over were configured for a business that sells products. For a fit-out contractor that means jobs are customers, cost codes do not exist, retainage hides inside receivables, and there is nowhere to record a change order that has been directed but not yet priced.
Is your QuickBooks file working against you?
On an accelerated job the field already knows about a change days before the office does. Connecting the project management platform to the accounting closes that gap, so commitments, change events and cost stay in one version of the truth instead of two.
One set of numbers the field and the office both believe.
Once the systems talk, reporting stops being history. These are the reports Plano contractors actually use to decide what to chase, what to price higher and what to walk away from:
See what this looks like in practice in our construction accounting case studies, or start with a free books Audit.
Because the work here is deadline work. Plano is corporate relocation country, and a build-to-suit or headquarters fit-out usually starts with a signed lease and a move-in date the tenant has already told staff and shareholders about. Schedule certainty is what the owner is buying, so liquidated damages, acceleration and premium time get priced into the job, and scope keeps moving while the date does not. That combination punishes any accounting system that reports a month late. You need job cost to the code as work happens, change orders logged the day they arise, and a WIP schedule that shows the earned position rather than the invoiced one.
Texas treats the two halves of fit-out work very differently, and this is where Plano contractors lose margin quietly. Labor to repair, remodel or restore nonresidential real property is a taxable service under Comptroller Rule 3.357, so tax applies to the charge for the work. Labor on new construction is not taxable, and the initial finish-out of a shell space that has never been finished counts as new construction rather than remodeling. Adding new usable square footage is also outside the remodeling rules. Same crews, same drywall, opposite tax answers. We get the determination made per contract before the first invoice goes out.
Texas does not issue a statewide general contractor license, which regularly surprises firms following a corporate client in from another state. Individual trades are licensed at state level: electricians and air conditioning and refrigeration contractors through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, and plumbers through the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners. On top of that the City of Plano runs its own permitting, inspection and contractor registration requirements, and neighboring Collin County cities each run theirs. Those registration, permit and inspection costs are job costs, not office overhead, and we code them that way so your bid rates stay honest.
We track three separate numbers rather than one. Approved and priced changes sit in the contract value. Submitted but unapproved changes sit in a pending column with the date submitted. Directed work with no paperwork at all sits in an unpriced column, tied to the daily tickets and the correspondence that support it. Acceleration and premium time get their own cost codes so the extra cost of working overtime or double shifts is provable rather than blended into normal labor. When an owner asks why the claim is what it is, the answer comes out of the accounting records instead of being reconstructed from memory.
Most Texas entities file a franchise tax report on taxable margin, and construction companies can generally elect to subtract cost of goods sold rather than compensation. For contractors furnishing labor and materials to improve real property the rules are comparatively generous about what counts as a direct cost. The catch is evidential. The election is only worth what your job cost records can support, so a contractor whose direct labor, materials, equipment and subcontractor costs are buried in general overhead accounts routinely leaves the deduction on the table. We build the chart of accounts so the franchise tax position and the job cost reports come from the same data.
On private Texas projects, Property Code Chapter 53 requires the owner to reserve ten percent of the contract price during the work and for a period after completion, and that fund exists partly to protect subcontractors and suppliers. Payment timing is governed by Chapter 28, the Texas Prompt Payment Act, under which an owner is generally required to pay a prime contractor within 35 days of receiving a payment request, and a contractor is generally required to pay each subcontractor within seven days of being paid. We keep retainage receivable and payable off the ordinary ledgers, tracked by contract with the release condition attached, so nothing sits unclaimed after the job closes.
It depends entirely on who is paying for the job. Texas Government Code Chapter 2258 requires prevailing wages on public works let by the state and its political subdivisions, so City of Plano, Collin County and Plano ISD bond projects frequently carry a wage determination set by the awarding body. Federally funded work falls under the Davis-Bacon Act. Private corporate work, which is most of the Plano market, carries neither. The mistake we see is a contractor who runs both kinds of job treating payroll as one process. We produce certified payroll from the same payroll data that feeds job cost, so the two never disagree in an audit.
Yes, and the accounting is genuinely different from ordinary contract work. Collin County sits in a serious hail belt, and a single spring storm can fill a roofing or exterior restoration backlog for a year. That work is insurance funded, which means supplements, depreciation held back until the work is verified complete, and a claim file that has to match your job cost file line for line. Volume also arrives faster than crews and material, so subcontractor commitments and deposits pile up. We track claim revenue, supplements and recoverable depreciation as their own visible balances rather than letting them wash through general receivables.
We work with contractors across Collin County and the northern Dallas Fort Worth suburbs, including Plano, Frisco, McKinney, Allen, Richardson, Wylie, Murphy, Prosper, Celina, Little Elm, Garland and The Colony, as well as Dallas, Irving and the wider metroplex. Our work is fully remote and our only office is in Coppell, Texas, so you get construction-specific accounting without paying for a storefront near your yard. Most of our clients never need us on site, because the systems we set up run inside the software your project managers and field crews already use every day.
Start with the free Audit. Send us your current accounting file and your most recent job profitability or WIP report, and we will tell you what is wrong with it, what it is costing you, and what it would take to fix. There is no charge and no obligation. If you decide to work with us it is a flat monthly fee based on transaction volume, active jobs and reporting needs, so calling with a question about a change order or a tax position does not start a clock. Sahil Ahmad, CPA reviews the work rather than an offshore data entry pool.
FinTruction provides construction accounting across Texas. Select your city below for job costing, WIP reporting and contractor bookkeeping support in your market.
Nearby
Dallas contractors
Nearby
Arlington contractors
Nearby
Fort Worth contractors
Not Seeing Your City?
We serve contractors across all of Texas. View all locations →
Send us your accounting file and your last job profitability report. We will tell you what is wrong with it, what it is costing you, and whether your change order position would survive a look from an owner. No charge and no obligation for the Audit.
Looking for professional construction accounting in Plano? Fill out the short form below and our contractor bookkeeping team will contact you within 24 hours.
