Industries — Contracting
Built for running bills, retention and variations.
Work-in-progress tracked honestly, retention held correctly, and subcontractor withholding handled without a scramble at filing time.
Overview
Construction and contracting don't fit a standard sales ledger. A job runs for months, gets billed in stages against a running bill, a percentage of every certified payment is held back as retention until completion, and a variation order changes the contract value partway through without anyone updating the original budget.
EZ Books tracks work-in-progress by project, not just by month, so a job that's 60% complete shows 60% of its revenue recognised — not the full invoice value the moment a running bill goes out. Retention held on each certified payment is tracked separately from cash actually received, so it doesn't get counted as collected revenue before it actually is. A variation order updates the project's contract value as a distinct line, so the original budget and the revised one are both visible, not merged into one number that hides how much the job has actually grown.
On the tax side, payments to subcontractors typically carry a withholding obligation you're responsible for deducting and depositing. We handle that as part of tax filing, matched against your actual subcontractor payments each month, not reconstructed at year-end from memory.
The specific pain, and how we answer it
- A job billed in stages shows the full invoice as revenue the moment the running bill goes out, overstating what's actually earned.
- Work-in-progress is tracked by project, so revenue recognised matches the percentage of the job that's actually complete.
- Retention held back on certified payments gets counted as collected revenue before it's actually received.
- Retention is tracked separately from cash received, so it only counts once it's actually released to you.
- A variation order changes the contract value partway through, and the original budget stops meaning anything.
- Variations post as a distinct line against the project, so the original and revised contract value are both visible.
- Subcontractor withholding gets reconstructed at year-end instead of deducted correctly on every payment.
- Withholding is calculated and deposited against each subcontractor payment as it happens, matched during monthly tax filing.
What we’d set up
Talk to someone who knows contracting
Tell us how your business actually runs — we'll tell you exactly what we'd configure.