By when should a contractor expect completed bookkeeping each month?

Bill BrownFounder of ServiceTitan Hacks community (9k+ pros) | INC 5000 Contractor | Helping contractors win with AI & Automation

Why Most Contractors Pick the Wrong Bookkeeper

12 Aug 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:14

This YouTube discussion explains how contractors should choose a bookkeeper. Key recommendations: prefer a bookkeeper who uses accrual-basis accounting (not merely copying bank/credit-card transactions), departmentalizes transactions (uses classes to produce gross profit margins by department such as service vs install for HVAC), and provides completed books by about the 10th of each month assuming timely receipt of source information.

Questions this video answers

By around the 10th of the month, assuming the bookkeeper has all required information.

So if you're a contractor and you're looking for a bookkeeper, how do you find that? Because it seems to me like you need that in order for you to be able to do your job.
Here's what we're looking for in terms of what we consider good bookkeeping in our industry. There's cash basis accounting and there's accrual basis accounting. And without getting too theoretical here, most bookkeepers will do their job on cash basis, which just essentially means that they are taking the transactions that are running in and out of your bank account the whole month and in and out of your credit card statements all month. And, and they're just duplicating that information into QuickBooks. Accrual is identifying the difference between an expense where we used a card and as well as a point of sale purchase from a bill from a vendor. The other thing that we want our bookkeeper to do is departmentalize our numbers so that we can see a gross profit margin between service and install if we are in H Vac. And so we want to be able to utilize classes to be able to get to gross profit margin by department. So if you can find a bookkeeper who is going to do accrual basis accounting for you, who is going to utilize your classes in a way that you can get a gross profit margin by department and is going to do all of that by around the 10th of the month, assuming that they have all the information that they need, it Good, that's good.