Allowances reconciled, costs coded to the job, and a close that lands on a date
You are four months behind and the owner wants the open-book cost report on Friday. That is the Scottsdale version of the problem. A custom home in Silverleaf or DC Ranch runs on allowances and client selections, the owner upgrades something most weeks, and the change gets signed in the field long before anything reaches QuickBooks. The allowance log lives on a project manager's laptop. FinTruction runs construction bookkeeping for Scottsdale contractors: we code every bill to the job and cost code, reconcile what was allowed against what was actually spent, and close each month on a date you can plan around.
On the ground
Resort terrace above the Sonoran desert, Scottsdale, Arizona
Luxury custom homes, resort renovations and high-end remodels are billed cost-plus or against allowances, which means the record itself is part of the deliverable. A general bookkeeper posts the supplier invoice to Materials Expense and moves on. That single habit is what stops a Scottsdale builder from ever knowing which job made money.
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 |
We work with builders and specialty trades across Scottsdale and the north Valley, from custom estate builders in the desert communities to the finish and outdoor-living crews whose invoices land on those same jobs.
Behind on the Books in Scottsdale?
Get Your Free AuditMost Scottsdale builders reach us the same way: a bookkeeper left, or the CPA will not file until the file makes sense. We rebuild the backlog month by month instead of forcing it into one adjusting entry, so you finish catch-up with job profitability on work you already handed over, not just a return that can be filed.
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 →
On a Scottsdale custom home the client is choosing something almost every week, and each choice is a number that has to reach the ledger before it is forgotten. We run the allowance ledger as part of the books rather than as a spreadsheet nobody reconciles, so the overage on a stone slab or an appliance package becomes a receivable in the same week it is committed.
Cost-plus and construction-management contracts let the owner or their representative read your job cost line by line, which raises the standard the bookkeeping has to meet. Every posted cost keeps its document, reimbursables stay separate from overhead the contract does not allow, and the fee calculation stays reproducible from the ledger rather than from memory.
A single luxury estate carries a long list of specialty vendors, and Arizona is an open-shop market where much of that list is subcontracted rather than employed. Vendor compliance is therefore a bookkeeping control. We hold the payment until the paperwork behind the vendor is on record, which is a great deal cheaper than discovering the gap during an insurance audit.
A close that happens whenever someone gets to it is not a close. We reconcile every bank account, credit card and line of credit, post payroll so labor hours land on the job rather than in one expense account, and deliver the month on a fixed date. Once that is running, our construction bookkeeping service becomes something you plan around instead of chase.
Scottsdale builds at the top of the Arizona market, and the contract forms that come with that are the reason the bookkeeping is harder here than the job count suggests. A custom estate in Silverleaf, DC Ranch, Troon North or the Desert Mountain area is typically written cost-plus or as a construction-management agreement with an allowance schedule attached. That structure hands the owner the right to read your job cost, and it means the record is not just an internal management tool, it is part of what you are selling.
The volume of decisions is the other half of it. On a luxury build the client is selecting stone, tile, plumbing fixtures, appliances, cabinetry, lighting and landscape material over the life of the job, often with a designer between them and the builder. Each selection either fits inside its allowance or does not. When nobody records the difference the week it happens, the overages accumulate quietly and get discovered at closeout, which is the worst possible moment to hand a client a number they were not expecting.
Scottsdale also has a seasonality problem the rest of the country does not. Resort and hospitality renovation around Old Town, the Waterfront, the Camelback corridor and Kierland is scheduled for the low-occupancy summer months, which is exactly when the heat compresses the working day and crews start before sunrise. Medical and dental fit-out and the boutique commercial work around the Scottsdale Airpark and the Loop 101 corridor run to their own after-hours phasing. The office ends up handling a surge of invoices in the months the field is least available to answer questions about them.
None of that is a reason to be behind, but it is the reason so many Scottsdale contractors are. The fix is unglamorous: every cost coded to a job and a code as it is entered, allowances reconciled continuously, and a close date that does not move. Once the record is trustworthy, the analytical layer becomes possible, which is what our construction accounting service for Scottsdale contractors adds on top.
Arizona Registrar of Contractors licensing and bonding: Contractors working in Scottsdale hold a license from the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, and the required bond amount is scaled to the volume of work performed under that classification. That makes revenue by license classification a record-keeping obligation rather than an afterthought, because a builder whose volume has outgrown its bond band usually finds out at renewal. Residential licenses also carry the Residential Contractors Recovery Fund assessment. We post license fees, bond premiums, general liability and workers compensation cost to overhead deliberately so the burden rate you bid with reflects what you actually carry.
Transaction privilege tax recorded as you bill: Arizona taxes contracting income at the contractor rather than charging the customer sales tax, and Scottsdale layers a city rate collected through the Arizona Department of Revenue under the Model City Tax Code. The bookkeeping consequence is simple and constant: contracting income is coded by jurisdiction and classification when the billing is entered, so the TPT return is produced from the ledger. Exemption documentation belongs on the job file too. A subcontractor invoicing under a prime contractor should have the prime contractor certificate, Arizona Form 5005, in hand before that invoice is entered without tax.
Payroll in a right-to-work, no-prevailing-wage state: Arizona has no state prevailing wage law and is a right-to-work state, so Scottsdale work is overwhelmingly open shop and there are no union trust remittances to reconcile. Certified payroll under the federal Davis-Bacon Act only applies where federal money is in the job. What does apply every pay run is paid sick leave accrual under the Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act, an annually indexed state minimum wage, and Arizona withholding elected as a percentage of gross wages on Form A-4. Hours still have to post to the job and code they were worked on.
Worker classification and vendor documentation: Open-shop markets run on subcontracted labor, and on a high-end Scottsdale job the vendor list runs long across pool, landscape, millwork, stone, automation and finish trades. Treating classification as a bookkeeping control means the W-9 and a current certificate of insurance are on file before the first payment is released, lien waivers are collected against each release, and payments are accumulated by vendor so 1099-NEC preparation in January is routine. Where a vendor is starting to look like an employee, that is raised while it is still cheap to fix.
Retainage, prompt payment and preliminary notice dates: Retainage is entered as its own receivable at the moment a billing is recorded, kept out of ordinary accounts receivable where it stops being chased. Arizona lien rights depend on a preliminary twenty-day notice measured from when labor or materials were first furnished, and Arizona's prompt payment statutes start their clocks from the date a billing is submitted. Those are date problems, which makes them bookkeeping problems. We record first-furnishing and billing submission dates on the job so the deadline calendar runs off real data.
City of Scottsdale permits, fees and sensitive-lands review: Scottsdale charges permit, plan review, inspection and impact fees, and hillside and desert-preservation review in the environmentally sensitive areas of North Scottsdale adds design and reporting steps that carry their own cost and their own delay. Those fees are job cost, not office overhead, and the carrying cost of a delayed start belongs to the project it delayed. We code permit and review fees to the job at entry so the estate that consumed six months of review shows the true cost of having been built there.
A reasonable question if you already have someone doing the data entry. Here is the honest answer.
Contractors who were behind, off the bank, or heading into an audit. Same work, different trades.
Rescue + Monthly
"They built a custom chart of accounts around how a remodeling company actually runs."
$1M+ Rebuild
"FinTruction rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up, with real job costing, WIP, and retainage."
Most Scottsdale builders already own everything they need. The problem is that the estimate lives in one system, the selections in another and the accounting in a third, so somebody re-types the same numbers and the three never agree.
The QuickBooks files we inherit from Scottsdale builders were usually set up by someone configuring a business that sells products. Jobs are customers, allowances do not exist as anything the system understands, retainage hides inside receivables and every supplier invoice is a fresh decision about where it goes.
Is your QuickBooks file the reason you are behind?
Custom builders usually run selections and client communication in a project platform already. Connecting it to the accounting is what stops the allowance log and the ledger from telling two different stories about the same slab of quartzite.
One allowance number that the field, the office and the owner all read the same way.
Once the coding is right, the monthly pack stops being a formality you file and starts being how you decide what to take on next:
You can see what this looks like in practice in our construction bookkeeping case studies.
Yes, and catch-up is the most common way a Scottsdale contractor starts with us. We take the bank and credit card statements, the vendor bills, the subcontractor invoices and the owner draw history, then rebuild the period month by month rather than dumping it into a single adjusting entry. Every cost is posted to the job and cost code it belongs to, so when the catch-up is finished you do not just have a filed return, you have job profitability for work you already completed. Most catch-ups run two to six weeks depending on how many months and how many active jobs are involved.
An allowance is three numbers that have to stay linked in the books: what the contract allowed, what was actually spent, and what is billable back to the owner as an overage. We set up each allowance as its own cost code inside the job, post supplier invoices for tile, stone, plumbing fixtures, appliances, cabinetry and lighting straight against that code, and carry the running variance. When the owner picks a slab that costs more than the allowance, the overage is recorded as a receivable that week rather than surfacing at closeout. That is the single largest source of unbilled revenue on a luxury custom build in Silverleaf, DC Ranch or Desert Mountain.
Cost-plus and construction-management agreements give the owner or their representative the right to inspect the job cost backing your fee, so every line has to survive being read by someone who did not incur it. In practice that means each posted cost carries the vendor document behind it, the job and cost code are assigned at entry rather than corrected later, and reimbursable costs are kept clearly apart from general overhead the contract does not allow you to bill. We also keep the fee calculation reproducible from the ledger. When an owner audit arrives, the answer is a report, not a week of reconstruction.
Yes. That is the default QuickBooks configuration and it is wrong for a custom builder. We rebuild the chart of accounts around direct job cost, add an item or cost code list that matches how you actually estimate, convert each project to a job with its allowances as sub-items, separate retainage receivable from ordinary receivables, and set bank feed rules so recurring suppliers land in the right place without a decision every time. Existing history is re-mapped where it can be. Both QuickBooks Online and Desktop are supported, and we work in your file rather than moving you to something new.
Arizona taxes the contractor rather than the customer, through transaction privilege tax on contracting income, and Scottsdale adds a city rate collected through the Arizona Department of Revenue under the Model City Tax Code. For a bookkeeper that turns into two habits. First, contracting income is recorded by jurisdiction and classification as it is billed, so the TPT return is a report instead of a reconstruction. Second, exemption documentation is collected and filed against the job: a subcontractor working under a prime contractor should hold the prime contractor certificate, Arizona Form 5005, before the invoice is entered without tax.
Every contractor working in Scottsdale holds a license from the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, and the license classification and bond are tied to the volume of work you perform. That makes revenue by classification a bookkeeping question, not just a reporting one, because a builder whose volume has grown past the bond band it was licensed under usually discovers this at renewal. Residential licenses also carry the Residential Contractors Recovery Fund assessment. We code license fees, bond premiums and general liability and workers compensation cost to overhead deliberately so your burden rate reflects them.
Arizona is a right-to-work state with no state prevailing wage law, so almost all Scottsdale work is open shop and there are no union trust remittances to reconcile. Certified payroll under the federal Davis-Bacon Act only applies if the job carries federal money. What remains is still real work: paid sick leave accrual under the Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act, an annually indexed state minimum wage, Arizona withholding elected as a percentage of gross wages on Form A-4, and the requirement that every hour lands on the job and cost code it was worked on rather than in a single payroll expense account.
Worker classification and vendor compliance are bookkeeping controls, and on high-end Scottsdale work the sub list is long: pool and water feature crews, landscape and hardscape, millwork and finish carpentry, tile and stone setters, low-voltage and automation installers. We hold the file open on each vendor, so a W-9 and a current certificate of insurance are on record before the first payment is released, and we track payments by vendor across the year so 1099-NEC preparation in January is a print run. Where a vendor looks more like an employee than a subcontractor, we flag it rather than quietly paying it.
Retainage is recorded as its own receivable at the moment the billing is entered, split by job and contract, never left inside ordinary accounts receivable where nobody chases it. Arizona lien rights depend on a preliminary twenty-day notice measured from when you first furnished labor or materials, and the Arizona prompt payment statutes run their clocks from the date a billing is submitted. Both of those are date problems, which makes them bookkeeping problems. We record the first-furnishing date and the billing submission date on the job so your attorney or your office has real dates to work from.
Bookkeeping is the record: coding, reconciliations, allowance and draw entry, accounts payable and receivable, payroll posting, and a monthly close that actually lands. Construction accounting sits on top of it and produces work in progress schedules, revenue recognition, tax planning and CFO-level review. Most Scottsdale contractors need the record fixed first. Start with the free Audit: send your QuickBooks file and one recent job, and we will tell you what is miscoded, what it is hiding and what catch-up would take. After that it is a flat monthly fee, so a phone call does not start a clock.
FinTruction handles construction bookkeeping across Arizona. Pick your city for coding, reconciliations, allowance and draw entry, and a monthly close that arrives on time.
This page is about the day-to-day record keeping: coding, reconciliations, allowances, AP and the monthly close. Once that is running, our Scottsdale construction accounting service adds WIP schedules, revenue recognition, tax planning and CFO-level review on top of it.
Construction Accounting in Scottsdale
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Working across the state? Construction accounting in Arizona
Send us your QuickBooks file and one recent job with its allowance schedule. We will tell you what is miscoded, what the allowances are hiding, and exactly what catching up would take. The Audit is free and there is no obligation attached to it.
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