Job-cost coding accurate enough to show true margin on every Detroit job, in real time
On thin-margin rehab, industrial, and auto-plant work, one miscoded cost is all it takes to hide which job is actually losing money, and by the time you feel it in the bank account the job is nearly done. It usually isn't the build that hurts Detroit contractors. It's what happens to the paperwork after: subcontractor bills that never get logged against the right project, retainage left uncollected, receipts that never make it into the file, and a QuickBooks company that slowly stops matching reality until you can't tell a winning job from a losing one. Squeeze that into a short building season with auto-facility, downtown, and Land Bank rehab jobs all running at once, and a small backlog snowballs into a quarter you can't reconstruct. A general bookkeeper posts every cost to broad categories and never surfaces the job that's underwater. Construction bookkeeping is all we do, and we do it for Detroit contractors: every cost tied to the job and cost code the day it lands, AP and AR managed, subcontractor payments and retainage recorded, QuickBooks kept construction-ready, and a real monthly close delivered on a fixed date. The payoff is coding precise enough to read true margin job by job, in real time, instead of guessing at year-end. Detroit clients include industrial and plant contractors, gut-renovation crews, site and concrete outfits, and the mechanical trades feeding them.
On the ground
Detroit construction bookkeeping
Bookkeeping for a construction company in Detroit is nothing like bookkeeping for a shop or an office. Between multi-draw auto-plant and commercial billing, retainage held for months, per-property Land Bank rehab costs, subcontractor payments across dozens of vendors, and payroll that has to land on the right job and the right city, a general bookkeeper simply codes it wrong. Clean books are the foundation everything else stands on.
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.
A 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 |
Our construction bookkeeping supports contractors and specialty trades across Wayne County and metro Detroit. Whether you run a five-person rehab crew or manage auto-plant and industrial buildouts, we keep your books clean and job-level accurate.
Are You a Contractor in Detroit?
Get Clean Books and Financial ClarityAccurate books start with putting every dollar against the right job, cost code, and account the day it happens. We handle daily entry so your QuickBooks is always current and you can see where each Detroit job actually stands instead of finding out at month-end that a thin-margin job went underwater weeks ago.
If your file is a mess or you are months behind, we fix it. Many Detroit contractors come to us with miscoded expenses, undeposited funds sitting for months, and no real job costing. We rebuild the file for construction and bring every account current so a single mis-posted cost never hides a losing job again.
Detroit contractors run dozens of subcontractor and supplier relationships across every project, and industrial builds add union crews and equipment vendors on top. We keep AP organized, code each bill to the right job, and stay ahead of payment schedules so you protect vendor relationships, avoid late fees, and reach year-end with clean 1099 records.
Getting paid keeps the doors open, and on Detroit auto-facility, downtown, and Land Bank rehab work that means multi-draw billing, per-property milestones, and retainage held for months. We record every progress draw and AIA pay application accurately, track retainage receivable by project, and follow the aging so nothing slips through a short building season.
Labor is the biggest line for most Detroit builders, and it only tells the truth if it is coded to the right job and the right city. We record payroll, allocate labor to projects and cost codes, keep Detroit city-tax wages separated from work elsewhere, and maintain the documentation Davis-Bacon work demands on federally funded jobs.
Every month you get a clean, construction-formatted statement package on a fixed date, reconciled and ready for your CPA, bank, or surety. No more waiting weeks to find out how the business did, and no more guessing which job carried the month.
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 →
Detroit is in the middle of one of the biggest construction booms in its history, and that pace is exactly what buries a contractor's books. Auto and EV plant retooling for GM, Ford, and Stellantis, downtown redevelopment and historic rehabs, Gordie Howe Bridge corridor work, and Land Bank demolition and rehabilitation across the neighborhoods mean most builders are running several active projects at once.
Every one of those jobs generates a stream of transactions: subcontractor bills, material runs, equipment rentals, progress draws, retainage held and released, per-property rehab costs, and payroll that has to be split across projects and between Detroit and non-Detroit job sites. Multiply that by a full slate of work crammed into a short building season and the bookkeeping backlog grows faster than any owner can keep up with between site visits.
When the books fall behind, the damage is quiet but real. On thin-margin rehab and industrial work, cash flow decisions get made on stale numbers, one miscoded cost hides which job is actually losing money, 1099 season becomes a scramble, and the year-end handoff to a CPA turns into an expensive cleanup. The work was profitable; the record-keeping is what put the company at risk.
FinTruction keeps Detroit contractors out of that hole. We match the pace of the market with a disciplined monthly process so your books stay clean, current, and coded to the job, and you always know where the money went and which project earned it.
Detroit City Income Tax Records: Detroit levies a city income tax of 2.4 percent on residents and 1.2 percent on non-residents who work in the city, so wages for crews on Detroit job sites must be handled apart from work elsewhere. We record labor by job and location and keep the withholding recorded cleanly, so the numbers your payroll provider and CPA use for city filings match your books.
Michigan 1099 and Subcontractor Records: Michigan contractors who pay a subcontractor at or above the IRS reporting threshold in a year must issue a 1099-NEC. Our process tracks every subcontractor payment by vendor and job all year and collects W-9s up front, so year-end 1099 filing is accurate rather than a last-minute reconstruction.
Certified Payroll on Federal Projects: Michigan reenacted its state prevailing wage law effective February 13, 2024, so state financed work carries a prevailing wage obligation again, and federally funded Detroit work such as infrastructure, transit, and Gordie Howe Bridge corridor projects falls under the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires prevailing wages and certified payroll reporting each pay period. Our bookkeeping keeps wage rates, hours by project, and fringe payments recorded so certified payroll can be produced without scrambling.
Michigan Use Tax on Materials: Michigan imposes a 6 percent use tax on construction materials purchased out of state or from vendors who do not collect Michigan sales tax. We separate taxable material purchases from labor and subcontractor costs in your records so use tax obligations are clear and a Michigan Department of Treasury audit is straightforward.
Michigan Construction Lien Documentation: The Michigan Construction Lien Act carries strict deadlines, with a Notice of Furnishing due within 20 days of first furnishing labor or materials and liens recorded within 90 days, and lien rights depend on clean records of contract amounts, billings, and payments by project. Our bookkeeping maintains that project-level payment history so the documentation is there if a dispute arises.
We work only with construction companies, so we code your books the way contractors actually operate, not the way a general bookkeeper guesses.
Contractors who were behind, off the bank, or heading into an audit. Same work, different trades.
Built From Scratch
"FinTruction set the accounts up properly first, then cleaned up everything I never entered."
Rescue + Monthly
"They built a custom chart of accounts around how a remodeling company actually runs."
FinTruction runs your construction bookkeeping in Detroit on the software you already use. We connect your accounting platform, field and project management tools, and payroll so transactions flow into clean books without double entry.
We set up and maintain QuickBooks Online and Desktop specifically for Detroit contractors, so job costing, retainage, and progress invoicing are handled correctly from the first entry rather than bolted on later.
Need QuickBooks Cleaned Up for Construction?
We connect the tools your Detroit crews use in the field to your books so draws, costs, and payments flow through without manual re-entry.
Every month, without exception. Detroit contractors running auto-plant work, downtown redevelopment, and rehab jobs at the same time generate far too many transactions to reconcile once a quarter. We run a clean monthly close: bank and card reconciliations, job-cost coding checked, AP and AR brought current, and a financial statement package delivered by a fixed date each month so you always know which job is making money and which one is not.
Yes, QuickBooks cleanup is one of the most common ways Detroit contractors start with us. We rebuild the chart of accounts for construction, fix miscoded expenses and undeposited funds, set up job costing classes and items, correct retainage entries, and reconcile back through the year. Once the file is clean we keep it that way with a disciplined monthly process so a single mis-posted cost never hides which project is actually losing money.
Yes. We record every subcontractor payment against the right job and vendor throughout the year, collect W-9s up front, and flag anyone paid at or above the IRS reporting threshold so 1099-NEC filing is accurate rather than a January scramble. For Detroit projects tied to community benefit agreements or local hiring goals, we can also tag payments so your workforce and compliance reporting lines up with your books.
Yes. Large auto-facility and EV plant builds run on multi-draw billing with retainage held for months, while Detroit Land Bank rehab and demolition work is paid per property against inspection milestones. On the bookkeeping side that means coding each draw to the right job and phase, recording retainage receivable as it is withheld, and tracking costs by property so nothing gets lost between draws. We keep those entries accurate so your accountant, bank, and bonding company see the real numbers.
Detroit levies a city income tax of 2.4 percent on residents and 1.2 percent on non-residents who work in the city, so payroll for crews on Detroit job sites has to be handled separately from work elsewhere. In the books we record wages by job and location and keep the withholding recorded cleanly, so the figures your payroll provider and CPA use for city filings match your accounting to the dollar.
Yes. Michigan reenacted its state prevailing wage law effective February 13, 2024, so state financed work carries a prevailing wage obligation again, and federally funded Detroit work such as infrastructure, transit, and Gordie Howe Bridge corridor projects still falls under the Davis-Bacon Act. Our bookkeeping keeps wage rates, hours by project, and fringe payments recorded so certified payroll can be produced each pay period without digging through paperwork after the fact.
Catch-up bookkeeping is a core service. We reconcile from the last clean month forward, recategorize transactions to the correct jobs and cost codes, sort out subcontractor and material payments, and hand your CPA a clean set of books. Most Detroit contractors who are three to nine months behind are caught up within two to four weeks with no disruption to the field.
Bookkeeping is the day-to-day work: coding transactions to jobs, reconciling accounts, managing AP and AR, and producing monthly statements. Accounting builds on those books with WIP reporting, revenue recognition, tax planning, and CFO-level analysis. Many Detroit contractors start with bookkeeping to get clean, current records, then add construction accounting in Detroit as they grow. We provide both.
FinTruction provides construction bookkeeping and accounting across major cities in Michigan. Select your city to learn more about our contractor bookkeeping and job costing services in your area.
Beyond day-to-day books, we also run job costing, WIP reporting, tax planning, and CFO support for Detroit contractors.
Construction Accounting in Detroit
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Working across the state? Construction accounting in Michigan
If you are searching for construction bookkeeping in Detroit, QuickBooks cleanup, or catch-up bookkeeping to get your contractor books back on track, FinTruction is ready to help your business gain financial clarity.
Looking for professional construction accounting in Detroit? Fill out the short form below and our contractor bookkeeping team will contact you within 24 hours.
