Finding some certainty can make all the difference in the unpredictable construction business world. While the future remains a mystery, budgeting and cash flow forecasting tools can significantly reduce uncertainty, allowing you to anticipate challenges, learn from past events, and enhance your ability to navigate your business.

Budget vs. Cash Flow: The Crucial Distinction

A common misconception is that a budget and cash flow are interchangeable. A budget is a projection of future possibilities, enabling you to consider various sales and expense scenarios. On the other hand, a cash flow provides a record of actual expenses and sales revenue that flow into and out of your business each month. Although they often deal with the same data, their applications differ.

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Topics: Cash Flow, Construction Accountant Who Listens, Construction Company Cash Flow, Contractor Tips, Construction Business Budget, Budget Vs. Cash Flow

When a business starts, it’s natural for the owner to be a jack-of-all-trades. You may not have the capital to hire specialists or access the technology to help you. As your business grows–or as you look to take a minor role in your construction company–you may find the industry has become over-reliant on you, which makes it difficult for you to take a step back. 

Have you M.A.P.ped your business yet? Consider this before retreating and delegating:

• Marketing - never sells more than Production can provide; on-time and on-budget
• Accounting - manages the money to maintain operations and produce a reasonable profit
• Production - delivers the project intending to exceed customer expectations

As you know, we are big on Marketing, Accounting, and Production; having a basic operation manual in place for your office, remote, and field employees pays off in the long run.

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Topics: Construction Strategy, Systems And Processes, Construction Company Cash Flow, Contractor Tips, Contractor Guidance

The daily processes and transactions involved in operating a general maintenance and repair contracting business can mean long hours of repetitive tasks and occasional oversights due to human nature. These days, you can use technology to take care of almost any issue facing your business.

Automating these tasks can result in significant savings in resources and eliminate mistakes caused by human error. The key, however, is to know which tasks should be automated and which ones warrant staff intervention and guidance. Let's discuss some of them:

 

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Topics: The Contractors Account, Cloud Based Bookkeeping Services, Outsourced Accounting For Contractors, Systems And Processes, Construction Company Cash Flow, Contractor Guidance

Most contractors are skilled technicians who learned their tradecraft in an apprenticeship program taught by a Master Technician, experience, or combination of these methods. 

 

There is a way to learn to operate your contracting company from a Master Contractor.

 

With time, they developed a Paradigm, Mindset, Understanding, whatever word makes the most sense to you about how construction companies operate based upon their experiences.

 

In their experience, production, getting work done is the most important part of the business because they always do as employees. 

 

Since all learning is based upon connecting new things to things we already understand, most contractors fall into the trap of only doing what they know and not learning what they don't know.

 

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Topics: The Contractors Account, Cloud Based Bookkeeping Services, Outsourced Accounting For Contractors, Systems And Processes, Construction Company Cash Flow, Contractor Guidance

There is a natural ebb and flow in the business cycle, which in regular times operates, somewhat predictable.

 

In normal times, contractors who pay close attention to their Five Key Performance Indicators financial reports and stay aware of the macro global economy and the microlocal economy can plan and earn an expected profit after paying themselves a reasonable salary.

 

The past two years have been anything but ordinary, and frankly, we are having a tough time with the economic forecasts models we follow, including our internal ones.

 

Something similar occurred from 1976 to 1980, and suddenly in early 1981, the national and global economy began to turn around, and there was a severe shortage of contractors and qualified construction workers.

 

 

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Topics: The Contractors Account, Cloud Based Bookkeeping Services, Outsourced Accounting For Contractors, Systems And Processes, Construction Company Cash Flow, Contractor Guidance

As a Construction Contractor, much of your world is Outside The Box. You make what seems impossible and turn it into a finished product; the whole house remodel, kitchen or bath remodel, new roof, install an attic fan, replace windows, deck, patio, hot tub, swimming pool, children's backyard playhouse. 

 

The Handyman Contractor fixes "Things," which are very important to the clients who need them—fixing a door, hanging a closet rod, moving something, removing something. Compared to a Whole House Remodel, it may seem like you are not doing anything. The reality is that to the person who needed the work done that a few simple little things may change their whole world for the better. Your Work as a Handyman Contractor brings joy to their life. Be Proud of it. No job is insignificant, and no construction business is too small for us.

 

I want to be the person who says Merry Christmas! You have earned it. 

 

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Topics: The Contractors Account, Invoicing, Cloud Based Bookkeeping Services, Outsourced Accounting For Contractors, Systems And Processes, Construction Company Cash Flow, QuickBooks Construction Accounting, accounts receivable for contractors, Contractor Guidance

If you've been considering making a move to a cloud-based accounting system, you're not alone. Cloud technology has impacted many business functions, including efficiently managing your business's financial aspects.

 

Cloud-based accounting moves your accounting from being hosted on your computer's hard drive to an online platform. Cloud-based platforms like QuickBooks and Xero offer important features that save you time and money, freeing you to focus on other essential construction business activities.  

 

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Topics: The Contractors Account, Invoicing, Cloud Based Bookkeeping Services, Outsourced Accounting For Contractors, Systems And Processes, Construction Company Cash Flow, QuickBooks Construction Accounting, accounts receivable for contractors

Hiring Vs. Outsourcing

 

Are you thinking of hiring a bookkeeper? After reading this, you may think it is not as good an idea as it seems. In addition to the costs of advertising, reading many fiction stories (resumes), interviewing candidates (like a brand new car on the showroom floor), job-seekers are the best they will ever be during the interview. After that, it is all downhill, and the only question is how fast.

 

We interviewed hundreds of candidates for Construction Bookkeeping positions, and 90% of them said they could do the job - if we trained them.

 

What does it cost to have a bookkeeper on your payroll?

 

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Topics: The Contractors Account, Systems And Processes, Construction Company Cash Flow

Creating invoices and receipts is vital to successfully running a business. You need receipts to track your purchases and expenses. Your clients need invoices for their tax purposes and to manage their finances. Paper receipts and invoices have been around a long time, so many people are used to them and may even resist moving away from them. 

Thanks to technology, paper receipts and invoices are becoming more a thing of the past. There are environmental reasons for the move. Paper invoices require millions of trees and billions of gallons of water to produce, and they emit carbon dioxide (CO2), so going paperless can be a good thing for the environment.

The Old Way Contractors Invoiced the jobs was sometimes just as much or more work than doing the job itself.

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Topics: The Contractors Account, Invoicing, Systems And Processes, Construction Company Cash Flow, accounts receivable for contractors

Every contractor has a Job Costing Library; some keep it in their head, some keep it on paper with names like completed jobs, bids, estimates. Other contractors keep it in their QuickBooks For Contractors' software records. Still, other contractors rely on places like RS Means for comprehensive databases of construction costs. These are similar to the "Flat Rate Books" used by car repair shops for decades.

 

A tiny fraction of contractors understand the actual value of a customized cost library and invest the time, energy, and resources to build and maintain one. Having done several, I can tell you it is a painful, arduous task. I will tell you a story to make it crystal clear.

 

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Topics: The Contractors Account, Systems And Processes, Construction Company Cash Flow