Most contractors change accountants three or four times on the way up, and every switch costs history. This is the whole lifecycle of a construction business with one CPA on it. The thread running through all five phases is your job-cost record, because everything else is built on top of it.
A generalist CPA can file your return. What they cannot do is set up your first year so that costs attach to jobs from the first transaction, or carry that history far enough forward that it is worth something when a bank, a surety, or a buyer finally asks to see it.
Job-cost history cannot be manufactured after the fact. It starts in phase 01, becomes readable in 02, compounds through 03 and 04, and in phase 05 it is a meaningful part of what the business is worth. Every downstream thing a contractor eventually wants, accurate bids, a credit line, bonding capacity, a defensible valuation, is priced off that same record. That is the whole case for one CPA across the arc: the work compounds.
Entity selection and the S-corp question answered against your actual numbers. A chart of accounts and job-cost structure built for construction from the first transaction, so costs attach to jobs before there is any history to lose. Books kept current, payroll set up correctly, your return and estimates handled.
A first year set up wrong is three years of cleanup later. Personal and business money mixed, costs recorded without ever attaching to a job, an entity election made by default. It all comes due at the exact moment you need numbers you can trust.
The work that turns a bookkeeping file into a reporting system. Costs coded to jobs, a burdened labor rate that reflects what an hour actually costs, your first real WIP schedule, and an estimated cost at completion that gets maintained instead of admired. Retainage and billings finally treated correctly.
Books that record history instead of reporting position. You find out a job lost money once it is finished, the good jobs and the bleeders are averaged together, and the monthly P&L moves with the draw schedule rather than the work.
The ongoing monthly relationship. Close, job costing, WIP, over- and under-billings, cash-flow visibility, and financial statements at the assurance level your surety and your bank actually ask for. Tax planning that runs through the year instead of arriving in April.
Profit fade nobody catches until closeout, and unbilled work surfacing in a package you did not review first. A WIP schedule that will not hold up is how contractors both misprice the next bid and quietly lose a credit line they already had.
Larger single-job and aggregate limits, and the working capital to support them. Multi-entity structure where it genuinely earns its keep. Equipment and fleet financing. Multi-state registration, certified payroll, and the reporting a controller-level operation needs.
Job costing that held at three million quietly stops holding at fifteen, so growth just makes the blind spots bigger. Splitting into entities casually fragments the balance sheet a lender or surety underwrites, and by then the structure is expensive to unwind.
Sale, or ownership transition to a partner, a key employee, or family. Stock versus asset sale and what each does to your tax bill. Installment structure and timing. Basis, and the gift and estate tax consequences of transferring ownership, all handled as tax and advisory work, with your attorney drafting the documents. Valuation of the business for tax and planning purposes, where WIP, backlog, equipment, and bonding capacity all distort the number a rule of thumb would give you.
A deal structured for the buyer's tax position instead of yours, and a valuation argued from a rule of thumb because the job-cost history will not support anything better. Where bonding matters, it has to be addressed before the transfer, since a company that cannot bond its own backlog is worth materially less than the number on the page.
The cost history either starts on day one or it does not start at all. A chart of accounts built around jobs from the first transaction is what makes every later number possible. Nobody reconstructs year one afterward.
This is where the record becomes readable. Percent complete, earned revenue, over and under billings. Everything downstream reads off this, including the financial statements a bank or a surety will eventually ask for.
Every clean close adds to the record. Margin by job type, profit fade caught in month two instead of at closeout, over and under billings that reconcile. This is also the exact file your bank and your surety read.
More jobs, more crews, more states, and the same discipline. The reporting has to scale with the work, because the cost of a bad estimate scales with it too.
The record is the asset. Backlog quality, margin history, and a WIP schedule a buyer's accountant can verify are what a valuation actually rests on. Fifteen years of clean job costing is worth real money on the day you sell.
One unbroken line across all five phases. The job-cost record is started, made readable, compounded, scaled, and eventually sold. Every phase either adds to it or quietly takes from it, and the things it pays for later, credit, bonding, and a defensible valuation, are all downstream of it.
You do not need the whole arc on day one. You need a first year that doesn't have to be torn out later. That is a starter tier: real CPA work, scoped to a contractor who isn't carrying WIP schedules and assurance engagements yet.
Priced as a starter tier for a contractor in year one or two. When the work gets bigger and you need a WIP schedule, reviewed statements, or a first bond, the engagement steps up with you. The books never get rebuilt, because they were right the first time. See how pricing works.
Nobody is turned away for showing up at phase 03. Contractors come to us mid-arc all the time, usually because a bond renewal, a bank covenant, or a buyer's diligence request forced the issue.
Coming in later means the first stretch is cleanup, and we will tell you that in the proposal rather than after. The arc still works. It just starts with catching the history up. See what each engagement covers.
Succession and ownership-transition work here is tax and advisory work. We handle the tax consequences of how a transfer is structured, basis and gift and estate tax considerations, installment timing, and valuation of the business for tax and planning purposes. We do not practice law and we do not draft wills, trusts, buy-sell agreements, or purchase documents. That is your attorney's work, and we coordinate with them directly so the tax plan and the legal documents actually agree.
Valuation on this page means valuation prepared for tax and planning purposes. Where a transaction or a dispute calls for a formal appraisal by a credentialed appraiser, we say so and help you engage one.
Phases 02 through 04 reference reviewed and compiled financial statements. Assurance services (reviews, compilations, and agreed-upon procedures) are not available in every state. Ask us whether we can perform an assurance engagement in your state before you rely on one being available.
