Updated April 2026 · Reviewed by Cory Salisbury, Construction Financial Specialist
Remodelers and general contractors deal with fast-moving projects, tight margins, constant change orders, and subcontractor management across multiple active jobs. Salisbury Bookkeeping provides fractional CFO services designed specifically for remodelers and GCs earning $500K–$10M, including real-time job costing, change order tracking, sub pay management, and WIP reporting that shows true profitability per project.
(385) 374-9295
You're juggling three kitchen remodels, a master bath gut job, and a full home exterior. Margins are thin. Change orders keep coming. You don't actually know which jobs are making money until the invoice is cashed—and by then it's too late.
Unlike large commercial builders working one massive project, you're managing 4–8 active jobs at any given time. Each one needs separate job coding, material tracking, and labor allocation. Your bookkeeper is buried.
The client asks for an extra $3K in upgrades. You scribble it on the back of a napkin. Six weeks later, you realize it never made it into the invoice or job costing. That margin just disappeared.
Time and materials projects require real-time material purchases and hourly labor tracking. One missing receipt or misallocated hour throws off profitability reports for the entire month.
You're paying five different subs on different schedules, in different formats, all pulling from your cash flow. No clear sight line into who's been paid what or what you still owe.
Lumber prices swung 40% last year. Your estimates are locked in at old prices. How much of that price shift is eating into your margin? You have no idea.
A "quick fix" here, a "while we're in there" there. Before you know it, you've put in 15 extra hours and written off $8K in materials because "it wasn't worth the hassle to invoice."
Real-time visibility into job profitability. Every change order tracked. Every sub payment managed. Cash flow you can actually predict.
Every material purchase, every labor hour, every sub cost is coded to the exact job and phase. You know your true job cost before the final invoice. No more surprises.
Change orders are logged the moment they're approved—not weeks later. No more forgotten upgrades. Every change rolls into billing automatically, and your job margin stays accurate.
We handle the complexity so you don't have to. Materials are itemized, labor is tracked, and billing formats match your client contracts. Every hour, every receipt, captured.
Know exactly what you've paid, what you owe, and what's still pending on each job. Sub payables are tracked by job, scheduled intelligently, and reported so you never short-pay or overpay.
See the profit or loss on every job at any moment. Know which projects are on track and which ones are in danger. Make strategic pricing decisions based on real data, not gut feel.
It's not just software. You get a real CFO reviewing your job costs monthly, spotting margin leaks, advising on pricing, and helping you scale profitably to 7 figures.
Monday 8 AM: You receive three change order requests. One is verbal. One is a text. One is an email. You approve them all and tell your bookkeeper "just handle it."
Monday 5 PM: Your bookkeeper asks which job the electrical upgrade goes to and what the cost is. You don't know. She estimates and codes it wrong.
Wednesday: A sub shows up and demands partial payment before finishing the tile. You write a check for $4K, hoping it covers what you owe.
Friday: You invoice the homeowner $35K but realize later you never captured the $3K change order. Your margin is now a 2% loss on that job. You don't find out until month-end close.
Monday 8 AM: You log into your BuilderCFO dashboard and see all three change requests in the pending queue. You approve them in 60 seconds. They auto-sync to your job and your billing system.
Monday 5 PM: The electrical upgrade is automatically coded to Job 2847—Kitchen Remodel, Electrical Phase. Cost is captured real-time from the vendor invoice.
Wednesday: Your sub payment report shows you owe exactly $4,100 on this job. You pay the right amount. Your CFO alerts you that the tile is running 12% over budget—time to talk to the sub about pacing.
Friday: You invoice the homeowner $35K + the $3K change order = $38K. Your job margin is 24% as expected. No surprises. You sleep well.
We integrate the tools you already use—or help you switch to the ones that actually work.
The backbone of your accounting. We set it up for construction from day one: job classes, cost codes, real-time profit & loss by project.
Your job management system. We integrate it with QuickBooks so that every purchase order, change order, and sub payment syncs automatically. No manual entry. No reconciliation headaches.
Your fractional CFO's command center. Real-time job costing, cash flow forecasts, WIP reports, and profitability by project—all in one place. You can log in anytime and see the truth about your business.
Learn more about our complete tech stack and integrations.
Each segment has unique challenges. Each one gets a tailored approach.
Spec inventory, lot costs, and large per-unit margins.
Large-dollar contracts, prevailing wage, and bonding requirements.
Land development, holding costs, and inventory valuation.
Plumbing, electrical, HVAC—high-margin, fast-paced service work.
Remodeler bookkeeping requires multi-job job costing, change order tracking, subcontractor management, and WIP reporting—none of which a standard bookkeeper handles. A general accountant might miss material price swings, uncaptured extras, and scope creep that erodes your margins on every project. Remodeler-specific systems (like those we use) code every penny to the right job and phase so you can see profitability instantly.
Spreadsheets are a red flag. They're error-prone, slow to reconcile, and hard to scale. By the time a job is done and you're trying to figure out profitability, it's too late to fix pricing on the next one. We migrate your data to integrated job costing in Procore/Buildertrend + QuickBooks, so all job costs are real-time and tied to your bank transactions.
Yes. We track every sub invoice, code it to the right job, schedule payments intelligently, and maintain a lien waiver checklist so you're never exposed. We also help negotiate sub payment terms and flag when a sub is pulling more than their contract allows on a given job.
Our process logs change orders into your job management system the moment they're approved—not weeks later. They auto-sync to your billing invoice, so every extra dollar is captured. We also do a monthly change order reconciliation to catch any that slipped through the cracks.
WIP (Work in Progress) is the revenue and cost of jobs still under way. A WIP report shows you the profit or loss on every active job at any moment—before invoicing, before cash hits your account. It's the truth about your business. Without it, you're flying blind. With it, you can spot margin-killer jobs early and adjust pricing on future work.
We work with Procore, Buildertrend, and other established platforms. If you're happy with your system, we'll integrate it with QuickBooks so your job data flows seamlessly. If it's time to upgrade, we'll guide the switch and handle the data migration.
Get real-time job costing, change order tracking, and a fractional CFO partnership built for remodelers and GCs earning $500K–$10M.
Schedule Your Free ConsultationQuestions? Call us: (385) 374-9295 or email cory@salisburybookkeeping.com
