Bookkeeping Questions? We've Got Answers.

A bookkeeper tracks every dollar coming in and going out of your business. That means recording invoices, categorizing expenses like materials and fuel, matching your bank and credit card statements, and giving you reports that show what you made on each job and across the whole business. For a trades business, good bookkeeping also means tracking job costs separately, so you know which types of jobs make money and which ones quietly drain it.

Bookkeeping is the day to day work: recording transactions, reconciling accounts, and keeping your financial data clean and current. Accounting takes that data and uses it for bigger picture work like tax strategy, financial statements, and planning. Think of bookkeeping as accurate game film, and accounting as the coach using that film to call plays. Most contractors fall behind on the bookkeeping first, which makes good accounting impossible later.

Weekly, at minimum. Waiting until tax time to sort through a year of receipts and bank statements almost always means missed deductions, mixed up job costs, and a stressful scramble. Weekly updates also mean you always know your real cash position, not a guess based on your bank balance.

At a minimum, keep your bank and credit card statements, invoices you send and receive, receipts for materials and equipment, payroll records, and mileage logs for your work vehicles. If you use subcontractors, keep a signed W-9 on file for each one. The IRS generally expects records kept for at least three years, longer if you claim a loss.

Job costing means tracking the materials, labor, and other costs for each specific job, not lumping every expense into one pile. Without it, you might see a healthy bank balance and assume business is good, while one or two underpriced jobs are quietly eating your profit. Job costing shows you exactly which jobs, customers, or types of work are worth taking on again.

It usually comes down to what happened behind the scenes: material costs that ran over the estimate, a crew that took longer than planned, a callback that ate into the margin, or change orders that never got billed. If you are not tracking costs by job, you will not see any of this until your overall numbers look off, and by then it is hard to tell which job caused it.

Profit is what is left after subtracting your costs from your revenue, on paper. Cash is what is actually sitting in your account right now. A job can be profitable on paper while you are still waiting 30 or 60 days to get paid, and meanwhile you still have to buy materials and pay your crew. Good bookkeeping tracks both, so you are never surprised.

Spreadsheets can work for a very small, simple operation, but they fall apart once you have multiple jobs running, subcontractors, and a crew. QuickBooks Online automatically pulls in your bank and credit card transactions, tracks profit by job, and generates reports in a few clicks. It is also what most CPAs and lenders expect to see.

Yes. Using classes, locations, or the projects feature in QuickBooks Online, you can tag every income and expense to a specific job, then run a report that shows exactly what you made or lost on it. This is one of the most useful features for a trades business, and one of the most commonly set up wrong, so it is worth having it configured correctly from the start.

Yes. QuickBooks Online is cloud based, so you and your bookkeeper can both log in and see the same real time data from anywhere, on your phone or laptop. You are never locked out of your own numbers.

Generally yes, if you paid an unincorporated subcontractor for services and the total for the year meets the IRS reporting threshold. That threshold recently changed: for payments made in 2026 and later, it rose from $600 to $2,000 per subcontractor per year. Always collect a signed W-9 from every subcontractor before you pay them. Rules like this can change, so confirm with your CPA before filing.

For 2026, the IRS standard mileage rate for business driving is 76 cents per mile as of July 1, 2026 (it started the year at 72.5 cents before the IRS raised it mid year). Whichever rate applies to your miles, keep a log with dates, destinations, and business purpose. Talk to your CPA about whether the standard mileage rate or actual vehicle expenses make more sense for you.

Clean books will not prevent an audit, but they make a huge difference if one happens. If every transaction is categorized correctly, reconciled against your bank statements, and backed up with receipts and W-9s, an audit becomes a paperwork exercise instead of a scramble to reconstruct a year of financial history from memory.

That is the goal. When your books are reconciled and current all year, your CPA can move straight into tax prep instead of spending billable hours cleaning up categorization errors first. That usually saves you money on your CPA bill too.

It depends on the size of your business and how much support you need, from basic transaction recording to full reporting and dashboards. TruePoint offers a few service tiers built around what a growing trades business actually needs. The easiest way to get an exact number is a free 30 minute consultation.

Yes, this is one of the most common situations we help contractors with. TruePoint offers a free 1-month catch-up bookkeeping offer to help clear out the backlog and get you current, so you can start fresh instead of feeling behind before you begin.

Book a free 30-minute consultation and we will walk through where your business stands right now, what is working, and what is quietly costing you money. No pressure and no obligation.