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A close calendar you can plan around
A written cutoff, a written close schedule, and a delivery date that does not drift. Your team knows what is due and when, and so do we.
Most contractors do not have a slow close because their bookkeeper is slow. They have a slow close because the field has not stopped feeding them costs. This is the month-end close we run for contractors on Procore and QuickBooks, in a defensible order, from the field cutoff to the locked period. Steal it, or hand it to us.
Every contractor we meet believes their month-end close is an accounting problem. It almost never is. Walk the timeline backwards from a close that landed on the 22nd and you will find the same story: a superintendent turned in three weeks of receipts in a shoebox, a foreman's timecards were approved late, a subcontractor invoice for $180,000 of work performed in April showed up on May 14th, and two change orders that were verbally approved in the field were still sitting in Procore as pending. The bookkeeper was not the bottleneck. The bookkeeper was waiting.
This matters more in construction than anywhere else because of how job costing works. In a normal business, a late invoice is a timing annoyance. On a job, a cost that lands in the wrong month does not just move a number between periods. It corrupts costs to date on that job, which corrupts percent complete, which corrupts earned revenue, which corrupts your work in progress schedule and your over/under billing, which is the report your surety and your bank are reading. One late sub invoice can flip a job from underbilled to overbilled and back again, and nobody will believe your numbers again for a quarter.
So a real Procore close has an order to it, and the order matters. You cannot reconcile the Procore budget to QuickBooks until every cost that belongs to the period is actually in QuickBooks. You cannot trust the cost data until the bank and credit cards are reconciled, because that is the step that proves nothing is missing. You cannot run a WIP until the costs and the billings are both complete and the estimates are refreshed. And you should not lock anything until the job margins have been looked at by someone who would notice if one of them were lying. Below is the whole sequence, and what each step is actually protecting.
A month is closed when every transaction that belongs to the period is recorded in the period, every account is reconciled to a statement, the job cost detail in your general ledger agrees with the Procore budget, and the period is locked so nobody can quietly change history. Anything less than that is a draft, and a draft is not something you hand to a bank.
The complication for a Procore contractor is that the truth is split across two systems that were never designed to be one. Procore owns the project: the budget by cost code, the commitments out to subs, the change orders, the owner prime contract and the billings against it, the daily logs, and the field timecards. QuickBooks owns the accounting: the general ledger, the bank and credit card accounts, accounts payable and receivable, payroll, and the financial statements. Procore has no general ledger, which is why the does Procore replace QuickBooks debate resolves the way it does. Neither system alone can tell you whether the month is closed.
That means the close has a step that a non-construction close does not have: a formal reconciliation between the Procore budget and the QuickBooks job cost detail, line by line, cost code by cost code, until every variance is either explained or fixed. Skip that step and you will keep two versions of the truth and pick whichever one you like better.
Trusted by 25+ Construction Businesses
The order is not arbitrary. Each step depends on the one before it, and doing them out of sequence is how teams spend two days chasing variances that were caused by a transaction that had not been entered yet. Day targets assume a close you want done in eight business days.
Nothing else in this list works until the field stops feeding you the previous month. Timecards approved through the last day of the period. Daily logs completed, because they are your evidence for what was actually performed and when. Receipts and credit card slips out of trucks, out of shoeboxes, and into the system. Delivery tickets and material invoices captured. Equipment and fuel logged to jobs. Put a hard date on it, put it in writing, and make it a condition of the superintendent doing their job, because everything downstream is being held hostage by the person still driving around with April in the glovebox. This is the real bottleneck in almost every contractor we audit, and it is the only step on this list that a bookkeeper cannot fix for you.
Every direct cost and every subcontractor invoice for work performed in the period has to be entered, coded to the correct job and cost code, and dated into the period, not into the month the paper arrived. Chase the subs who have not billed. Accrue what has genuinely been performed but not invoiced, because a job that has consumed $180,000 of subcontractor work and shows no cost is a job that is lying to you about its margin. Check the invoice against the commitment: if a sub bills more than their subcontract plus approved change orders allows, that is not an accounting question, that is a change order that never got processed.
Payroll for the period recorded, and labor hours costed to the right job and cost code, at a fully burdened rate. Gross wages alone are not the cost of an employee. Employer taxes, workers compensation, general liability, benefits, and paid time off all belong on the job, and if you are only costing gross wages your job margin is systematically overstated on every labor-heavy job you run. On prevailing wage work, confirm the classifications and fringe treatment are right while you still have time to fix them, because certified payroll reporting is built on the same hours you are costing now.
Every bank account, every credit card, and every line of credit reconciled to the statement. Do this before you reconcile anything to Procore, not after. Reconciliation is the step that proves the cost data is complete, and if you go hunting for Procore-to-QuickBooks variances while three credit card charges are still unrecorded, you will burn a day chasing a variance whose cause is simply a missing transaction. Prove the books are complete first, then compare them to something.
Owner invoices and progress billings for the period recorded in the books, tied back to the schedule of values and the prime contract, with the retainage portion split out rather than buried in the receivable. Confirm the billing in Procore and the invoice in QuickBooks are the same number for the same period. Billings drive the over/under calculation just as much as costs do, and an unposted draw will make a job look underbilled when it is not.
This is the step everyone skips and everyone pays for. Walk every open job's commitments and change orders and confirm each one is in the status that reflects reality. A change order that has been performed in the field but sits as pending or draft in Procore is not in the budget, so your revised contract value is understated, your budget is understated, and the cost that is about to hit will look like an overrun on a job that is actually fine. The opposite error is just as bad: an approved status on work that was never authorized inflates the budget and hides a real overrun. Get the statuses honest before the budget is used for anything, and understand what each status is doing to the numbers in Procore change order accounting.
Now, and only now, put the two systems side by side. Job-to-date cost per cost code in Procore against the job cost detail in QuickBooks, and chase every variance until it has a name. The usual suspects are a cost coded to the wrong job or the wrong cost code, a cost sitting in an overhead account that should have been a job cost, a cost code that exists in one system and not the other, a commitment recorded in Procore that never became a bill, or a bill that landed in the wrong period. Do not net variances against each other and call it close enough. A $10,000 variance and a negative $10,000 variance that happen to cancel are two separate errors, and both of them are wrong on the job level where the decisions get made. The full diagnostic list is in why your Procore budget does not match QuickBooks.
Two separate ledgers, and they must be reviewed separately. Retainage receivable is the money the owner is holding on you, and it should be a distinct asset account, not a lump inside AR, so you can see the balance and its age per job. Retainage payable is the money you are holding on your subs, and the risk is releasing money you should still be holding, or holding money that was contractually due at your sub's completion. Confirm the balances agree with the commitments and the billings, and confirm nothing was released without the lien waiver in hand. Retainage in both directions is covered in Procore retainage.
With costs, billings, and commitments all complete, go get the estimate at completion refreshed on every open job. This is a conversation with the project managers, not an accounting exercise, and it is where the accuracy of the whole schedule actually lives, because percent complete is costs to date over the EAC and a stale EAC makes the entire schedule lie. Then run the work in progress schedule: contract value including approved change orders, costs to date, EAC, cost to complete, percent complete, earned revenue, billings to date, and the over or under billing. Tie earned revenue to what is being booked and confirm the over and under billing amounts land on the balance sheet as costs in excess of billings and billings in excess of costs. The service side of that is Procore WIP and over/under reporting.
Do not close on numbers nobody looked at. Pull gross margin by job and compare it to the bid margin and to last month. Then investigate the outliers, in both directions. A job whose margin jumped is usually a job with missing cost, not a job that suddenly got profitable. A job whose margin collapsed is either a real overrun you need to know about today or a coding error you need to fix before it goes out the door. A job at exactly bid margin, month after month, is often a job nobody is actually costing. This step is the one that catches the errors that survived every other step.
Financial statements produced, job cost reports and WIP delivered, and then the period locked in QuickBooks with a closing password so nobody can post into a month you already reported on. This last part is not bureaucracy. An unlocked period means the report you handed your surety on Tuesday can be a different report on Friday, and that is how a contractor loses credibility with the people who decide their bonding capacity.
The same sequence, in one screen. This is the version worth printing and taping to the wall.
The reconciliation step is where closes go to die. Nearly every variance between the Procore budget and the QuickBooks job cost detail has one of a handful of causes, and knowing them turns a two-day hunt into an hour.
| What you see | What it usually is | Where you fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Cost in QuickBooks, nothing in Procore | Coded to the wrong job, or dumped in an overhead account instead of a job cost account | Recode the transaction in QuickBooks, then confirm the job cost account mapping |
| Cost in Procore, nothing in QuickBooks | A commitment or a field-entered cost that never became a bill, or a bill entered after the cutoff | Enter the bill and date it into the correct period |
| Right job, wrong line | Cost landed on a cost code that exists in QuickBooks but not in the Procore budget, or vice versa | Align the cost code lists, then recode. This is cost code cleanup territory |
| Budget looks too small for the work performed | An executed change order still sitting as pending or draft in Procore | Move the change order to the correct status so the revised budget reflects reality |
| Labor cost looks far too low | Only gross wages are hitting the job. Burden is sitting in overhead | Set up a burden allocation so taxes, comp, and benefits land on the job |
| Variance appears and disappears each month | Timing. Costs are being dated when the paper arrives, not when the work happened | Fix the AP cutoff and accrue performed but unbilled work |
| Everything ties, but the margin is impossible | Cost is complete and billing is not, or an EAC has not been touched since the bid | Post the missing draw, refresh the estimate at completion with the PM |
Trusted by 25+ Construction Businesses
We would love to tell you that hiring the right accountant collapses your close from twenty days to eight. Sometimes it does, and when the books are genuinely a mess it does. But if your close is late because a superintendent hands in receipts whenever he remembers, because timecards get approved on Wednesday of the following week, and because your biggest sub bills you on their own schedule, then the constraint is not in accounting at all. It is upstream, in the field, and the fastest close in the world cannot start before its inputs arrive.
So the highest-leverage change most contractors can make has nothing to do with software. It is a published field cutoff date, enforced by the owner and not by the bookkeeper, with receipts, timecards, daily logs, and delivery tickets due on a date that does not move. Then a standing call with your subs about billing on time, because the sub who invoices you six weeks late is putting their cost in the wrong month of your financial statements. That is a management decision, and it is free.
What a construction accountant does change is everything downstream of the cutoff: the coding, the accruals, the reconciliation between Procore and the general ledger, the burden allocation, the retainage ledgers, the WIP, and the discipline of a locked period. That is real work, it is skilled work, and most contractors are doing a rough version of it in a spreadsheet at ten at night. If you want that part handled every month, that is our Procore bookkeeping service. If the two systems are not even talking to each other yet, start with Procore and QuickBooks integration.
The whole sequence above, run for you every month, on a flat monthly fee, by people who work inside Procore and QuickBooks every day.
A written cutoff, a written close schedule, and a delivery date that does not drift. Your team knows what is due and when, and so do we.
Every direct cost and sub invoice coded to the right job and cost code, in the right period, with accruals for work performed and not yet billed.
Bank accounts, credit cards, and lines of credit reconciled to statement, so the cost data is provably complete before anything is compared to Procore.
Job-to-date cost per cost code compared line by line, every variance named and fixed rather than netted away.
Labor loaded with true burden onto the jobs, retainage receivable and payable held in their own accounts and aged by job.
Estimates refreshed with your PMs, the WIP schedule run and tied out, and job margin reviewed so the outliers get caught before you report on them.
P&L, balance sheet, job cost reports, and WIP delivered, then the period locked with a closing password so the numbers stay the numbers.
A plain-English note each month on what moved and what needs your attention, and no meter running when you call to ask what a number means.
Tell us where your close falls apart. We will Audit your books against your Procore jobs, tell you honestly whether the problem is the field, the coding, or the reconciliation, and show you what it would take to close in eight days instead of twenty. No cost, no obligation.
You keep your Procore and your QuickBooks. We bring the construction accounting and the monthly close that makes the two of them agree. For more of the mechanics, start at the Procore resource hub.
Get a Free Books AuditA well-run contractor closes in five to ten business days. If you are closing on the twentieth or later, the cause is almost always upstream of accounting: timecards approved late, receipts turned in late, or subcontractor invoices arriving weeks after the work was performed. Fix the field cutoff and the close usually collapses on its own, because the bookkeeping work itself is not what takes two weeks.
Cutting off the field. Timecards approved through the last day of the period, daily logs complete, receipts and delivery tickets in, equipment and fuel logged to jobs. Nothing else on the checklist can be trusted until the inputs have stopped arriving, and this is the one step your bookkeeper cannot do for you. It has to be enforced by the owner.
Because Procore has no general ledger and QuickBooks has no field data, so neither system alone can tell you whether the month is complete. The reconciliation compares job-to-date cost per cost code in Procore against the job cost detail in QuickBooks and forces every variance to have a name. Without it you keep two versions of the truth and pick whichever one you prefer, which is how jobs finish upside down without warning.
Before, always. Bank and credit card reconciliation is what proves your cost data is complete. If you start hunting for Procore-to-QuickBooks variances while unrecorded credit card charges are still floating, you will spend a day investigating a variance whose only cause was a missing transaction. Prove the books are complete first, then compare them to something else.
The right answer is to stop being surprised by it. If the sub performed the work in the period, the cost belongs in the period, so accrue it based on the commitment and the work actually performed rather than waiting for the paper. A large sub invoice landing in the wrong month distorts costs to date, percent complete, earned revenue, and over/under billing on that job, which is a far bigger problem than an accrual estimate being a little off.
Because the status drives the budget. A change order that was performed in the field but still sits as pending or draft in Procore is not in your revised contract value or your budget, so the cost that is about to hit will look like an overrun on a job that is actually fine. The reverse error, an approved status on work that was never authorized, inflates the budget and hides a real overrun. Fix the statuses before you use the budget for anything.
It stops history from changing. Set a closing date and password in QuickBooks after the package goes out, and nobody can quietly post a transaction into a month you have already reported on. Without it, the WIP schedule you gave your surety on Tuesday can be a different schedule on Friday, and that is how a contractor loses credibility with the people who set their bonding capacity.
Usually, yes. Wild swings are almost always cost recognized in the wrong period, labor hitting the job without burden, a draw that was never posted, or an estimate at completion that has not been touched since the bid. Reviewing gross margin by job before you close, and investigating the outliers in both directions, is what catches those. A margin that suddenly improved is far more often missing cost than good performance.
Yes. That is the service. We run the full sequence every month, reconcile Procore to your general ledger, maintain the retainage ledgers, refresh estimates with your project managers, produce the WIP, review job margin, deliver the package, and lock the period. It is a flat monthly fee, and it starts with a free Audit so we can scope it honestly.
Real results from contractors we have helped untangle their books and systems.
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.
Start with a free books Audit. We will tell you honestly whether your close is being held up by the field, the coding, or the reconciliation, and exactly what it takes to fix it. No obligation.
Tell us where Procore and your accounting system stop agreeing. We will look at your actual job data and show you exactly what is broken, at no cost.
