What Construction Bookkeeping Costs (2026)
Updated 2026-10
The ranges
Engagements start at $250 a month. Across the market, monthly bookkeeping for a small contractor generally runs from around $400 to $1,500, with payroll adding to that according to headcount and the number of states. Cleanups are quoted as projects and range from a few hundred dollars for a few months of a one-truck operation to five figures for a multi-year rebuild of a company with payroll and open jobs.
Those are wide ranges because the work varies widely. What follows is what moves a company along them.
What moves the monthly number
Transaction volume
The number of bank and card lines to code each month. A one-truck handyman at eighty lines and a twelve-person GC at eight hundred are different months of work.
Open jobs and cost codes
Job costing is the construction premium. Three open jobs costed in eight codes is modest; fifteen open jobs with committed-cost tracking and a monthly WIP schedule is the top of the range.
Payroll
Headcount, pay frequency and states. Six people, one state, biweekly is a small addition. Twenty people across three states with class-code splits for workers’ comp is a substantial one.
Field software to reconcile
A dispatch or project tool that produces invoices and takes payments adds a monthly reconciliation, and the first few months usually surface fee errors worth more than the reconciliation costs.
The state of the books on day one
Current and clean, the monthly fee starts immediately. Behind or wrong, a cleanup comes first.
How a cleanup is quoted
Your bookkeeper looks before quoting: read access to the bank and card accounts and the existing file, a short measurement of months, accounts, transactions and whether payroll and open jobs are involved. Then a project quote with three parts.
- A deposit up front, covering the first block of work
- A monthly retainer while the catch-up runs, so the cost is predictable rather than one large invoice at the end
- The ordinary monthly fee once the books are current, with the structure fixed so the problems do not recur
If there is a date, say so. A tax deadline or a loan application changes the order of work, and your bookkeeper will say whether the date is reachable after seeing the statements rather than promising it beforehand.
Worked examples
These are illustrations of where companies tend to fall, not quotes. Every engagement is priced after your bookkeeper has seen the books.
What is included, and what is extra
Included in a monthly engagement: reconciliations, coding to jobs, statements, job cost and WIP reports, ageing reports, the year-end package for your tax preparer, and a person to ask. Payroll is quoted alongside.
Extra, and quoted when needed: a mid-month WIP schedule for a lender, a rebuild of a damaged file, migration from Desktop to Online, and historical 1099 or payroll corrections.
Is it worth it
The honest test: do the books currently tell you which jobs made money, whether any job is under-billed, and what the company owes and is owed including retainage? If yes, you may not need this. If no, the cost of not knowing is usually a single mispriced job, and a single mispriced job on most contracting companies is worth more than a year of bookkeeping. For a one-person business with a few dozen transactions a month, your bookkeeper will tell you to wait.
| Company | Monthly books | Payroll | Cleanup, if behind |
|---|---|---|---|
| Handyman, one person, no payroll, 80 lines a month | $250–$350 | — | A few months: low hundreds |
| Service plumber, 2 trucks, dispatch software, 4 on payroll | $400–$700 | modest | A year behind: low thousands |
| Remodeler, 6 open jobs, 8 staff, deposits and change orders | $700–$1,100 | moderate | Eighteen months with open jobs: mid thousands |
| GC, 15 open jobs, 20 staff in 2 states, bonding line, WIP monthly | $1,100–$1,500+ | substantial | Two years with payroll: five figures |
Where to go next
Common questions
Is there a setup fee?
For a company whose books are current and well structured, no. Where the structure needs rebuilding, the first month includes that work and is quoted with it.
Is the $250 minimum negotiable?
No. It is the floor at which your bookkeeper can do the work properly. If your books are too small to need it, your bookkeeper will say so.
Monthly or annual contract?
Monthly. The relationship continues because the reports are useful, not because a contract says so.
Does the price include the tax return?
No. Your bookkeeper prepares the year-end package for your preparer and works with them; the return itself is their fee.