After interviewing this contractor and his bookkeeper and conducting a thorough review of his QuickBooks for Contractor file and the QuickBooks Setup I believe this contractor had a bookkeeping troll.
This is a special type of bookkeeper who BS's their way into a job as a construction bookkeeper with little or no construction accounting skills and in a short time find themselves in over their head with no way out except to keep the game going until they are discovered.
We worked with a contractor who had been in business for over ten years and struggled to do his own bookkeeping before hiring a cheap bookkeeper which turned out to be a Bookkeeping Troll. Two years later the cheap bookkeeper had turned his QuickBooks into one of the worst disasters I have ever seen.
Several Washington State Department of Revenue sales tax reports and payments were never filed and paid. Two years of Federal 941 Payroll Tax returns and deposits were never filed or paid, over $50,000 in completed jobs were never invoiced, several bills had been paid twice and at the end he was bouncing checks every week.
He was not aware of the extent of the problem because the bookkeeper hid the bounced check notices and intercepted the phone calls from the bank, the angry merchants and suppliers by applying for new credit cards in the contractors name to finance the house of cards.
He would look at the bank balance in QuickBooks and since it always showed over $100,000 he thought life was grand! Look at me I am making all kinds of money, buying toys, enjoying fine dining, making charitable donations, and having fun!
It all came crashing down on him one sunny afternoon when his suppliers refused to sell him anything on credit and demanded cash or bank issued cashier’s checks. Later that day he tried using his credit cards to buy gas and they were all declined. At that point he knew something was very, very wrong.
The contractor contacted us for help and advice. He needed help deciding to close his business, file bankruptcy and go to work for a competitor as a superintendent or turn his business around and make a go of it.
We had quite a long honest and open conversation. I asked several deep questions and he answered all of them to the best of his ability. In the end I related how he was not alone and in fact I had experienced a few "financial challenges" during my years as a contractor. I even shared some stories (no names) of other contractors who we had worked with that had experienced similar financial trouble.
In every case where the contractor had closed his or her company and went to work for someone else it usually is a temporary stop at best until they get back into their own construction company again. And starting from scratch is much harder than turning an existing company around.
The mindset of a contractor is similar to that of a cowboy herding cats. It is in their blood to take risks, work hard, play hard, get into the mud, the blood and the beer (in my case substitute beer for Dr. Pepper), take a few punches, get up, punch back and press on until victory is achieved.
In his case I could see the fire in his eyes, hear the conviction in his voice and felt the energy of someone who has the heart of a lion so I recommended we work together and get his construction company back on the right track and start making money because he deserved to be wealthy since he brings value to other people's lives.
We immediately took over the day to day achieved bookkeeping services and the construction accounting services. Within a week we had sent past due invoices to his customers and checks began to arrive. By the second week we had reconciled his QuickBooks for Contractors to match the current bank statement and within nine months everything in QuickBooks for Contractors was current and up to date and all the tax returns had been filed.
It took almost three years of hard work on the part of him and his construction crew to raise the money and pay off all of the past due tax returns, fines and penalties, suppliers and all the credit card debt.
During that time we continued doing all the day to day construction bookkeeping services and the construction accounting services in addition to regular strategic coaching sessions.
In the years since our first meeting we have been actively involved with him in developing his construction company strategy and his business and personal finances are stabilized.
About The Author: