Industrial-scale payables, draws, and retainage kept current for Houston contractors
On a Houston job the build is rarely what goes wrong. The books are, because the sheer volume buries them. Run a refinery turnaround or a Ship Channel expansion and a single month throws off thousands of payable lines across three tiers of subcontractors, material releases, and equipment rentals, on top of draw applications that each carry retainage held for the length of a build that can run for years. Post all of that by hand between site walks and something always slips: a draw goes out with the retainage recorded wrong, a second-tier sub's invoice never lands in the ledger, and by the time anyone checks, what the books say you owe no longer matches reality. A generalist who has never touched a pay application treats your company like any storefront and misses the industrial detail entirely. Bookkeeping for contractors is our whole focus. We post each cost to the job it belongs to, keep AP moving across every vendor tier, record every draw and the retainage it holds, reconcile the accounts, and close the month on a fixed date. We work with general contractors, industrial and pipeline crews, mechanical trades, and commercial builders across Harris County and the Houston metro.
On the ground
Houston construction bookkeeping
Reliable books start with posting every dollar to the right job, cost code, and account the day it happens. We handle daily entry so your QuickBooks stays current and you can see where each Houston job actually stands instead of finding out at month-end, even when the transaction volume runs into the thousands.
If your file is a mess or you are months behind, we fix it. Plenty of Houston contractors come to us with miscoded industrial costs, retainage entered wrong, and no real job costing after a busy turnaround season. We rebuild the file for construction and bring every account current so the numbers are trustworthy again.
Houston contractors carry huge payable volume across tiers of subs and suppliers on every industrial and commercial job. We take AP off your desk, post each bill to the right job the day it arrives, 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 Houston energy, medical center, and Gulf Coast work that means multi-draw billing with retainage held for the length of a build. We record every progress draw and pay application accurately, track retainage receivable by project, and follow the aging so nothing is left uncollected at closeout.
Labor is the biggest line for most Houston builders, and it only tells the truth when it is coded to the right job. We record payroll, allocate labor to projects and cost codes, and keep the documentation federal Port and disaster-recovery work demands under Davis-Bacon.
Every month you get a construction-formatted statement package on a fixed date, reconciled and ready for your CPA, bank, or surety. No more waiting weeks to learn how the business actually did across all that active work.
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 →
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.
Bookkeeping for a Houston construction company is nothing like bookkeeping for a shop or an office. Between industrial payables running across multiple subcontractor tiers, draw applications with retainage held for years, equipment and material releases on turnaround work, and payroll that has to land on the right job, a general bookkeeper simply posts it wrong. Accurate, current records are the foundation everything else stands on.
Houston runs one of the largest construction markets in the country, and the scale of it is exactly what buries a contractor's books. Petrochemical facility builds and refinery turnarounds along the Ship Channel, LNG and port expansion on the Gulf Coast, continuous work across the Texas Medical Center, and a relentless residential market mean most builders are running several heavy jobs at once.
Each of those jobs throws off a flood of transactions: subcontractor bills stacked across multiple tiers, material and equipment releases, progress draws, retainage held and released over years, and payroll split across projects. Multiply that by a full slate of industrial and commercial work and the payables ledger alone grows faster than any owner can key in between site visits.
When the records fall behind, the damage is quiet but real. Cash decisions get made on stale numbers, miscoded costs hide which jobs are actually losing money, draws go out with retainage entered wrong, 1099 season turns into a reconstruction, and the year-end handoff to a CPA becomes an expensive cleanup. The work was profitable; the record-keeping is what put the company at risk.
FinTruction keeps Houston contractors out of that hole. We match the volume of the market with a disciplined monthly process, so the books stay current and coded to the job, and you always know where the money went.
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 Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Galveston, and Brazoria counties. Whether you run a five-person crew or manage industrial and commercial builds along the Ship Channel, we keep your records current and job-level accurate.
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Texas Franchise Tax COGS Records: Texas has no state income tax, but most Houston construction companies file the Texas franchise tax and many use the cost of goods sold method to reduce their taxable margin. That method only holds up when direct labor, materials, and subcontractor costs are documented by job. We track those costs at the project level all year so the numbers tie out when your CPA prepares the return.
1099 Reporting for Subcontractors: Contractors who pay a subcontractor $600 or more in a year must issue a 1099-NEC. Given the subcontractor volume a Houston crew runs, we record every payment by vendor and job throughout the year and collect W-9s up front, so year-end 1099 filing is accurate rather than a last-minute reconstruction.
Certified Payroll on Federal Projects: Port of Houston expansions, Harris County flood control infrastructure, and FEMA-funded rebuilds fall under the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires prevailing wages and certified payroll reporting. Our bookkeeping keeps wage rates, hours by project, and fringe payments recorded so certified payroll can be produced without scrambling.
Texas Sales and Use Tax on Materials: Texas charges sales tax on construction materials, and use tax can be owed on out-of-area or online purchases where sales tax was not collected. We separate taxable material buys from labor and subcontractor costs in your records and capture use tax owed, so the documentation is organized by job when it is time to file.
Texas Property Code and Mechanic's Lien Documentation: Lien rights under the Texas Property Code carry strict notice and filing deadlines and depend on clean records of contract amounts, billings, and payments received by project. Our bookkeeping maintains that project-level payment history so the documentation is there if a payment dispute arises.
We work only with construction companies, so we post your books the way contractors actually operate, not the way a general bookkeeper guesses.
FinTruction runs your construction bookkeeping in Houston on the software you already use. We connect your accounting platform, field and project management tools, and payroll so transactions flow into current books without double entry.
We set up and maintain QuickBooks Online and Desktop specifically for Houston contractors, so job costing, retainage, and progress invoicing are handled correctly from the first entry rather than bolted on after a turnaround leaves the file a mess.
Need QuickBooks Cleaned Up for Construction?
We connect the tools your Houston crews use in the field to your books so draws, costs, and payments flow through without manual re-entry, even at industrial transaction volume.
That volume is exactly what we are built for. A refinery turnaround or a Ship Channel expansion generates payable lines across several tiers of subcontractors, material releases, and equipment rentals faster than any office can key them in. We take over AP entry so every bill is posted to the correct job and cost code the day it arrives, sits in an approval queue you control, and is scheduled against your cash. You always know what you owe by job before it turns into a surprise, and vendors stop calling because they are paid on a predictable rhythm.
On a multi-year energy or Ship Channel project the draw and retainage record-keeping is where books usually slip. We enter each progress draw and pay application to the right job and phase, record the retainage withheld into a separate retainage receivable account as it is held, and track release schedules so nothing is left uncollected at closeout. On the payable side we do the same for retainage you hold back from your own subs, so your balance sheet shows the real position of every dollar held across the build.
Yes, cleanup and catch-up are two of the most common ways Houston contractors start with us. We rebuild the chart of accounts for construction, correct miscoded costs and duplicate entries, set up job costing classes and items, fix retainage and draw postings, and reconcile back through the year. Most contractors who are several months behind are brought current within two to four weeks, with no disruption to the field, and then we hold that position with a disciplined monthly process.
Yes. Houston crews run enormous subcontractor volume across multiple tiers, so we record every sub and supplier payment against the correct job and vendor all year, collect W-9s before the first check goes out, and flag anyone paid $600 or more so 1099-NEC filing in January is accurate rather than a year-end reconstruction. Keeping those vendor records clean through the year is what keeps 1099 season from becoming a scramble on a busy Harris County book of work.
Yes. Gulf Coast storm work sends a surge of transactions through the books that has to be tracked by job, insurance claim, and funding source. We post every expense to the correct project, match insurance and reimbursement receipts against the costs they cover, and keep disaster-recovery jobs coded separately so the records stay audit-ready for FEMA or an insurance carrier. This is record-keeping and documentation, so your accountant and adjuster get numbers that tie out.
Yes. Texas has no state income tax, so the records that matter on your books are the cost of goods sold detail behind the franchise tax and the sales and use tax on materials. We track direct labor, materials, and subcontractor costs by job all year so the COGS numbers are documented and tie out when your CPA prepares the franchise-tax return, and we separate taxable material purchases from labor and capture use tax owed on out-of-area or online buys where sales tax was not charged. We keep the records; your accountant handles the filing and any strategy.
We work with contractors across Harris County and the wider metro, including Sugar Land, The Woodlands, Katy, Pearland, Pasadena, Baytown, League City, and Conroe, plus the surrounding growth in Fort Bend, Montgomery, Galveston, and Brazoria counties. Our bookkeeping is fully remote, so we support builders anywhere along the Texas Gulf Coast without needing to visit your office.
Bookkeeping is the day-to-day work: coding costs to jobs, running AP across your subcontractor tiers, recording draws and retainage, reconciling accounts, and producing monthly statements. Accounting builds on those books with WIP reporting, revenue recognition, franchise-tax planning, and CFO-level analysis. Many Houston contractors start with bookkeeping to get current, reliable records, then add construction accounting in Houston as they grow. We provide both.
FinTruction provides construction bookkeeping and accounting across major cities in Texas. Select your city to learn more about our contractor bookkeeping and job costing services in your area.
Beyond keeping the books current, we also run job costing, WIP reporting, franchise-tax planning, and CFO support for Houston contractors.
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If you are searching for construction bookkeeping in Houston, QuickBooks cleanup, or catch-up bookkeeping to get your contractor books back on track, FinTruction is ready to help your business gain financial clarity.
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