Templates
For the people who'd rather handle it themselves. Fourteen workbooks, every one out of real bookkeeping work: an estimate that converts margin to markup, a WIP schedule your bonding agent will accept, 1099 tracking that doesn't fall apart in January. Excel files that also work in Google Sheets. Instant download, nothing shipped — and every one comes in a dark edition too.
Every workbook comes in two palettes: the standard cream-and-green, and a dark edition with charcoal-green sheets and amber input cells for anyone who works at night. Same tabs, same formulas, sold separately.
Built around how construction actually bids, bills and gets paid.
Estimate & Bid, Invoice & Draw Schedule and Change Order Log together — the three workbooks that decide whether a job makes money. The bid price becomes the contract sum; an approved change order is the only thing that moves it.
Percentage-of-completion the way your lender, bonding agent and CPA expect it. Over- and under-billings by job, earned revenue, backlog, projected margin, and the adjusting journal entry ready to post. Flags loss jobs and nearly finished jobs you haven’t billed.
Also in dark mode
Build the estimate line by line from your own price book — 36 cost codes across 13 divisions — then add labor burden, contingency, overhead and profit. Shows margin converted to markup, because the two are not the same number and confusing them costs contractors a year.
Also in dark mode
A schedule of values a lender expects to read: percent complete by line, retainage held separately on completed work and stored material, and a nine-line application for payment where only one figure is yours to type.
Also in dark mode
Budget each job by category, log costs as you pay them, and see projected profit per job. Projected profit uses the higher of budget or actual, so an overrun shows up immediately instead of hiding behind costs you haven’t spent yet. Only approved change orders hit the contract.
Also in dark mode
Every change logged from the day you price it. Ages anything sitting unanswered past two weeks, flags what was approved and never invoiced, and rolls up the revised contract per job — which is usually the most expensive number nobody is tracking.
Also in dark mode
W-9s, insurance certificates, licenses and payments in one place. Flags who needs a 1099-NEC at the 2026 $2,000 threshold, excludes card and payment-app spend that goes on a 1099-K, and warns you 30 days before a COI or license expires. Oregon CCB and Washington L&I fields built in.
Also in dark mode
Set the books up, keep the cash straight, and close the month and the year without surprises.
Chart of Accounts, Bank Reconciliation and the Year-End Close & 1099 Checklist together — set the books up, tie them out every month, and close the year without finding out in March what you missed.
Income and expenses in one place, categorised the way a Schedule C or an 1120-S actually wants them. A profit and loss that builds itself, month by month, and a categorisation that your tax preparer will recognise instead of re-doing.
Also in dark mode
Profitable businesses still run out of cash. Enter your recurring cash in and out once — weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, quarterly — and see every week’s ending balance for the next three months, with your lowest projected balance and every week below your cushion flagged.
Also in dark mode
28 steps in the right order, from bank feeds to locking the books, with where each task lives in QuickBooks Online. Tasks that don’t apply don’t count against your progress, and the dashboard shows what’s still open for any month you pick.
Also in dark mode
37 tasks in seven sections, in the order the year actually closes, plus the 1099-NEC workup that decides your January — every vendor, how you paid them, their entity type, and who is still missing a W-9.
Also in dark mode
Two columns, bank side and book side, with deposits in transit and outstanding checks worked out for you. The difference line goes green at zero and tells you what to look for when it doesn’t — which is the part most templates leave you to guess.
Also in dark mode
115 accounts an accountant would actually set up — numbered, typed, given a normal balance, and pointed at the tax line your preparer will use. Plus a checks tab that catches duplicate numbers and untyped rows before you import any of it.
Also in dark mode
Your two biggest costs, every week. Food, beverage and labor against your own targets, with last week, the last four weeks and year to date on one dashboard — plus what a single point of prime cost is worth to you in dollars.
Also in dark mode
Who owes you, and how late. Enter the invoice and the payment; status, due date, balance and aging work themselves out. A real accounts receivable aging by client — current through over 90 days — plus the average number of days people actually take to pay you.
Also in dark mode
Every client and lead, what each is worth to you in a normal month, and how long it has been since anyone spoke to them. Any active client past sixty days of silence turns red. Follow-ups carry a due date, and every client carries the source that brought them in.
Also in dark mode
Every business mile logged the way the IRS asks for it: date, odometer, and a real business purpose on the same line as the deduction. The standard rate lives in one cell, so January is a one-number update.
Also in dark mode
Before you buy anything
Twelve things that are wrong with most contractor books, and how to tell whether yours have them. It'll show you which of these templates you actually need — or whether you need any of them.
I do this work monthly for contractors across Oregon and Washington — job costing set up properly, books closed on a schedule, 1099s ready in January.