Northgate LedgerBookkeeping & month-end close · Austin, TX
(512) 555-0148Book a fit call
Book a fit call20 minutes · no pitch

Vendor bills

Card ····3318

Job costing

Receipts

Operating

  1. Materials$8,320
  2. Equipment rental$3,150
  3. Fuel & vehicle$2,480
  4. Insurance & bonding$2,900
  5. Software, phone, misc.$1,550
Operating$18,400

Tax reserve

  1. Federal estimate$6,900
  2. TX franchise tax$1,250
  3. Sales & use tax$1,450
Reserved$9,600

Payroll

  1. Crew wages$24,150
  2. Employer taxes$4,910
  3. Workers' comp accrual$2,740
Payroll$31,800

Bank activity

  1. ACH DEP · HARROW PROPERTY GRP$40,825
  2. TRANSFER FROM SAVINGS ····4021$12,475
  3. ACH DEP · CALDWELL MUNICIPAL AP$26,900
  4. DEP · ORTIZ RESIDENTIAL GRP$12,475
  5. ACH · RETAINAGE REL JOB 118$4,000
Deposits, less transfers$84,200

Invoices

  1. Harrow Property Group$40,825
  2. Caldwell Municipal$26,900
  3. Ortiz Residential Grp$12,475
  4. Retainage release$4,000
Invoiced$84,200

Month-end close and bookkeepingfor construction firms in Texas.

You get a closed month and three numbers you can use — by the 10th.

Book a fit call20 minutes · no pitch
  • CPA firm
  • 40+ Texas construction firms
  • TX · OK · NM

 One month · one construction client 

 Step one · Sort 

A month arrives like this.

Invoices, a bank feed, a payroll run, a folder of receipts. It lands the same way every month, and on its own it tells you nothing.

First, find out what you are holding.

Five documents, five totals, each one named and dated. Nothing can be checked against anything until this part is done — and this is the part most books never get.

 Step two · Reconcile 

Every line has to be found twice.

Once where it was invoiced, once where the money landed. The transfer below is the same $12,475 to the cent — and it is not a customer paying you.

Invoices issued

Vega Ridge · March

  1. Harrow Property Group$40,825.00#2214 · Phase 2 framing
  2. Caldwell Municipal$26,900.00#2215 · Site prep, Lot 7
  3. Ortiz Residential Grp$12,475.00#2216 · Remodel, final draw
  4. Retainage release$4,000.00Job 118 · held since Nov
Invoiced$84,200.00

Bank activity

Operating ····8802 · deposits

  1. ACH DEP · HARROW PROPERTY GRP$40,825.00Mar 04
  2. TRANSFER FROM SAVINGS ····4021$12,475.00Mar 11
  3. ACH DEP · CALDWELL MUNICIPAL AP$26,900.00Mar 18
  4. DEP · ORTIZ RESIDENTIAL GRP$12,475.00Mar 23
  5. ACH · RETAINAGE REL JOB 118$4,000.00Mar 29
Deposits, less transfers$84,200.00

 Step three · Allocate 

So how much of it is actually yours?

Not the bank balance, and not the total invoiced. Three claims come out of a month before anything is left: the crew, the costs, and tax that was never yours to spend.

And some of it was never yours.

Sales tax you collected for the state, and what the year will owe. It is sitting in the account right now, looking exactly like money.

Now count what nobody has a claim on.

This is the figure you can plan against.

The same number, produced the same way, on the same date every month. Hire on it, buy equipment on it, or take it home.

  1. Payrollmet on the 15th and the 30th−$31,800
  2. Operatingmaterials, rentals, fuel, cover — already gone−$18,400
  3. Tax reservecollected on the state's behalf−$9,600

Checked, to the centWhat is left

$84,200$52,400$34,000$24,400

The account still holds both of these. Only one of them is yours.

29¢ of every dollar that came in — and this part is safe to spend.

 Step four · Close 

Then the month is shut.

Every document accounted for, every figure agreed twice, nothing left open and nothing waiting on you to remember it.

Closed, dated, and filed.

One folder for the month, with the three numbers printed on the front. You never have to open it — that is the whole point of paying somebody to close a month.

And the next one already has a date.

Not "when we get to it". The same working day, every month, whether or not you chase anyone.

What you are buying

A system that runs, not a favour you have to ask for.

Everything on this list happens whether or not you remember to send anything. It is the same list every month, and it is the reason the tenth is a date rather than a hope.

Close checklist · standard

construction firms · monthly retainer

03

Every week

  • Bank and card feeds coded to the right job
  • Receipts and bills captured — and chased when they are missing
  • Vendor bills queued for your approval, not paid behind your back
07

Every month

  • Every account reconciled to the statement, line by line
  • Payroll journal posted, including the workers’ comp accrual
  • Job costing updated — materials, labour and equipment, by job
  • Retainage tracked, billed and released
  • Sales and use tax accrued so it is never spent by mistake
  • The period closed and locked, so nothing moves behind you
  • Three numbers in your inbox by the 10th
03

Every quarter

  • Estimated tax figures, for you and for your CPA
  • Sales tax return prepared and filed
  • WIP schedule your bonding agent will accept
03

Every year

  • Books handed to your CPA closed and tied out
  • 1099s prepared and filed
  • Fixed asset and depreciation schedule reconciled

Trades we close for

  • General contractors
  • Framing and structural
  • Electrical
  • HVAC and mechanical
  • Concrete and sitework
  • Roofing
  • Specialty subs

What you already run

  • Procore
  • Buildertrend
  • Knowify
  • Foundation
  • QuickBooks
  • Sage 100

We read your job costs out of whatever you use and tie them back to the ledger. Nobody is asked to change systems to become our client.

What it costs

A fixed monthly figure, quoted before you commit.

Never billed by the hour. An hourly bookkeeper is paid more the longer your books take, which is the wrong way round for both of us.

What arrives, every month
Month-end reportMarch

  1. Did we make money?

    $24,400

    kept, after payroll, costs and taxes set aside

  2. Is there more in the bank than last month?

    +$5,300

    more in the account than on March 1

  3. Did anything go missing?

    $177,000

    on both sides — nothing unaccounted for

Sent April 10One page · plain English · the working behind it on request

Books

A contractor under $1M, running payroll somewhere else.

$450/month

Includes

  • The weekly and monthly list, in full
  • Sales and use tax accrued
  • Year-end handover to your CPA

Not included Payroll, WIP and the quarterly filings

Most start here

Books & payroll

Everything above, plus the crew and everything the crew brings.

$850/month

Includes

  • Payroll journal and workers’ comp accrual
  • Quarterly estimates and sales tax filed
  • 1099s at year end

Not included Job costing and the WIP schedule

Full close

Job costing, retainage and a bonding agent who wants a WIP schedule.

$1,400/month

Includes

  • Costing by job, every month
  • WIP and retainage schedules
  • A thirty-minute review call each month
  • How it is priced

    On how many transactions and how many jobs you run — not on how long it takes us.

  • How long it holds

    Fixed for twelve months from the day you start.

  • How to leave

    Month to month after the first quarter. No notice period, no exit fee.

Book a fit call20 minutes · no pitch

Who we are

One person does your books, and you know which one.

Not a pool, not a ticket queue, and not somebody different every quarter. When something looks wrong you text a name.

I spent nine years closing books inside a general contractor before I started doing it for other people. Everything on this site is how I wanted it done when it was my job.

Dana WhitfieldFounder · Northgate Ledger

  • Certified Public Accountant · Texas
  • QuickBooks Advanced ProAdvisor
  • Xero Certified
  • Closing books since201511 years
  • Contractors on the books40+construction firms
  • Licensed and servingTX · OK · NM

How we handle your access

  • Read-only bank feeds. We can see the transactions; we cannot move a cent.
  • No shared passwords, ever. If somebody asks you for one, it is not us.
  • Documents go through your portal, not through email attachments.
  • Named people only. You know who has access, and it changes when you say so.

What they say

  • Dale OrtizOwner, Vega Ridge Builders

    2 months ago

    We found out at the end of a job that two change orders had never been billed. That was the last month before Dana. It has not happened since, and I stopped opening QuickBooks at eleven at night.

    General contractor · 8 on the books

  • Marcus HarrowPresident, Harrow Property Group

    5 months ago

    My bonding agent asked for a WIP schedule and I did not have one. It arrived four days later and I have had one on the tenth of every month since.

    Framing and structural

  • Rosa CaldwellOwner, Caldwell Mechanical

    a year ago

    I was paying an hourly bookkeeper $1,100 in a bad month and $300 in a quiet one, and I never knew which it would be. A fixed number I can put in the budget was worth more than the saving.

    HVAC and mechanical

Before you ask

The questions a contractor actually asks.

Not "what is bookkeeping". These are the six that decide whether somebody who has never done a job-costed month can be trusted with yours.

01Do you do AIA billing and retainage?

Yes. G702 and G703 out of whatever you bill from, and retainage tracked as its own receivable rather than buried in the invoice total — so at any point you know what is held, on which job, and how long it has been sitting there. Released amounts get billed the month the architect signs off, not the month somebody remembers.

02I already run Procore. Do I have to change software?

No, and we would talk you out of it. We read job costs out of what you already use and tie them back to the general ledger. Procore, Buildertrend, Knowify, Foundation, Sage, plain QuickBooks — the close looks the same from our side. Changing systems mid-year costs you a clean set of comparatives and buys you nothing.

03What about certified payroll on public jobs?

WH-347 weekly, wages by classification, fringe handled properly rather than lumped into the base rate. We prepare it and you sign it, because the statement of compliance is yours to make. If you are on a Davis–Bacon job and nobody has been filing, tell us on the call — that is a conversation about exposure, not bookkeeping.

04Can you keep the Texas franchise tax COGS subtraction available to us?

That is most of why costs get coded the way they do here. Construction gets a cost-of-goods-sold subtraction that most service businesses cannot take, and it is lost when labour, materials and subcontractors sit in one bucket called "expenses". We keep them separated all year so your CPA can take it in May without reconstructing anything.

05My last bookkeeper walked out mid-year. Can you clean it up?

Usually. Catch-up is quoted separately from the monthly retainer, and we tell you how many months are actually broken before you commit rather than after. If the answer is that the year needs rebuilding from the bank feeds, we say that on the call and give you the number.

06What happens when my bonding agent or a lender asks for something?

You forward the request and we produce it — WIP schedule, work on hand, aged receivables, whatever the form wants — inside two business days. We do not represent you to a surety or a bank, and we will not sign anything as your accountant; we hand you the schedule and the working behind it.

The next step

Bring last month. We will tell you what is wrong with it.

Twenty minutes on a call, and a one-page note on what we found in your books — yours to keep whether or not you hire us.

  1. 1

    The call20 minutes

    You talk, we ask about your jobs and what software you already run. If we are not the right fit we say so on the call rather than after it.

  2. 2

    The lookOne page back

    Read-only access to last month, nothing else. You get one page on what we found — the errors, what they cost, and what we would do first.

  3. 3

    The first closeInside 3 weeks

    If you go ahead, your first month is closed inside three weeks. After that it is the tenth, every month, without being asked.

Or call(512) 555-0148

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