WIP and Job Costing

WIP Schedules and Job Costing for Contractors

See what every job has cost, what it will earn and whether your billing is ahead or behind, every month while the work is still running.

Sound Familiar?

If two or more of these sound familiar, let’s talk.

What We Do

Job Costing and a WIP You Can Trust

Construction job costing tracks every cost on a job, from labor and materials to equipment and subcontracts, against that job’s budget, so you can see its profit while it’s still running. We set up your job costing, build your WIP schedule every month and walk you through what it shows.

Job costing we set up

A job cost structure in your accounting software that matches how you estimate
Labor, materials, equipment and subcontract costs coded to the right job
Change orders tracked against the job budget
Job cost reports and profit and loss by job
Review of G702/G703 AIA pay applications

Your WIP every month

A WIP schedule that ties to your financial statements
Cost to complete checked with your project managers
Over and under billings by job
Gain and fade analysis
Backlog and aged pending change orders
A monthly meeting to walk you through the numbers

Learn more in our guide to the construction WIP schedule, download our free WIP schedule template, or see all our construction services.

Why It Matters

Why the System’s Math Isn’t Enough

Most accounting systems figure cost to complete as the budget minus cost to date. Put a $10,000 drywall budget in, spend $8,000, and the system says $2,000 is left. If the job is only 30% done, your project manager may tell you $6,000 is left.

That’s why we update the WIP with your project managers every month instead of accepting what the system says. You see a job fading while there’s still time to price a change order, push back on a supplier or fix the schedule.

What the WIP Shows You

Profit by Job

Which jobs are making money and which are slipping.

Over and Under Billing

Whether your billing is ahead of the work or behind it, job by job.

Profit Fade

Jobs whose expected margin is shrinking, caught while you can still act.

Backlog

The work and revenue still ahead, for cash planning and bonding.

Results

Results for Contractors

Rebuilt the financials and reestablished the bonding and bank lines for a company that had gone more than 2 years without financial statements.

Meet Alan

Led by a Former Construction CFO

Alan G. Lefkowitz, CPA, founded CFO Strategies in 2009 and has more than 30 years of financial leadership experience. For over 10 years he was CFO of mid-sized construction and real estate companies, overseeing the financial performance of major New York projects, including the Yankee Stadium and the Goldman Sachs office tower. Today he and his team bring that experience to contractors who need CFO-level help without a full-time hire.

From First Call to Monthly Reporting

1. Book a Call

Tell us about your company, your software and what isn’t working.

2. Free Cash Flow Review

We look at your books, WIP and cash position and tell you what we’d fix first.

3. Cleanup and Setup

We clean up what needs fixing and set up job costing and monthly reporting.

4. Monthly Reporting

Every month you get clear reports on job profitability, WIP and cash.

We can usually start within a couple of weeks, after a short review of your books. See how it works or view our pricing.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Straight answers about job costing and the WIP.

What is construction job costing?

Tracking every cost on a job, including labor, materials, equipment and subcontracts, against that job’s budget, so you know how each job is doing while it’s still running.

What’s the difference between job costing and a WIP schedule?

Job costing records what each job has cost. The WIP schedule uses those costs with the contract amounts and estimates to show each job’s percent complete, earned revenue, over or under billing and expected profit.

How often should the WIP be updated?

Every month, with your financial statements, using cost to complete estimates from your project managers.

Do you build the WIP inside our accounting software?

Usually we build it outside the system from data pulled out of it. Some clients want it in both, and we can do that too.

Can you fix a WIP schedule nobody trusts?

Yes. We clean up the job costs, rebuild the WIP and tie it to your financial statements, as a one-time project or as part of monthly reporting.

Which accounting software do you work in?

QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Sage 100 Contractor, Sage 300 CRE, Foundation and Sage Intacct. See what we do in each one.