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Construction Accounting Software for Subcontractors

“I don’t know if we’re making money on our jobs. Labor is all over the place, and I can’t tell where we’re winning and where we’re losing.”

If that sounds familiar, the problem isn’t your estimating or your crews. It’s that your labor, materials, equipment, and budgets live in five different places. CrewCost brings them together so electrical, HVAC, plumbing, concrete, and other specialty contractors can see how every job is tracking against the estimate — while there’s still time to do something about it.

Five Systems. No Answers.

You have a time tracking app. You have QuickBooks. You have a spreadsheet for pay applications and another one for WIP, if you do WIP at all. What you don’t have is one place that tells you whether the job is on budget. By the time the numbers come together, the job is finished, the margin is gone, and there’s nothing left to fix.

See Labor vs. Budget Before the Job Is Gone

Your estimate said 1,200 hours. Your time app says you’re at 1,150. So why is the labor line blown? Because hours aren’t cost. CrewCost puts labor on the job the way you estimated it, so you can see exactly what happened.

  • Hours vs. budget and dollars vs. budget, side by side, by cost code
  • Regular hours and overtime hours broken out — so you know when overtime busted a budget that was fine on hours
  • Burden included in job cost, not sitting in overhead
  • Updated every week from integrated time tracking, not at month end

Stop Underbilling. Fix the Cash Flow Problem You Can Control.

Subs get paid last. You can’t change that. What you can change is billing for the work you’ve actually put in place — and most subs on QuickBooks are underbilled without knowing it. CrewCost gives you WIP reporting out of the box.

  • Over/under billing by job, every month, no spreadsheet
  • Percent complete based on real cost to date, not a guess
  • Retainage receivable tracked on the balance sheet — no QuickBooks workarounds, no side ledger
  • The WIP schedule your bonding agent and banker ask for, ready when they ask

Pay Applications Built From the Work You Put in Place

Every month someone spends days figuring out how much to bill and rebuilding it in the format the GC wants. CrewCost builds the pay app from your schedule of values and the work completed, in an AIA-style format, so you bill on time and bill everything you’re owed.

  • Schedule of values built from the job budget; change orders roll in automatically
  • Cost-based percent complete shown right beside each line, so you know what you’ve earned before you decide what to bill
  • Enter your percentages, and the pay application is done
  • Retainage withheld calculated on every billing, so you always know what’s still owed
  • Never miss the 25th again because the numbers weren’t ready
purchase order in crewcost
Manage your projects and your business, all in one place.
CrewCost connects accounting with job costing and time tracking in one cloud-based application that gives you complete visibility into the health of your business, plus the data you need to proactively adjust bids and improve margins.
Job Costing
Get real-time visibility into the profitability of each job.
See Job Costing in CrewCost
Time Tracking
Track your labor costs using our best-in-class mobile app.
See Time Tracking in CrewCost

Finally, an Option Between QuickBooks and a Legacy ERP

Most subs stay on QuickBooks because the alternatives are a twenty-year-old desktop product or an enterprise system they can’t afford. CrewCost is the third option.

01
Built for Construction

Job costing, retainage, progress billing, and WIP work out of the box. AI-powered AP captures supplier bills from your inbox and matches them to POs and cost codes.

02
Priced for Growing Subs

Implementation included, no setup fees, live in days. A fraction of the cost of Sage Intacct or Foundation.

03
Modern, Cloud-Based, Procore-Ready

Access from the field with no VPN. If your GCs run Procore, jobs, contracts, invoices, and costs sync natively.

Put CrewCost to work

And make sure your hard work doesn’t go to waste. See how our cloud-based construction accounting, job costing, and time-tracking tools can improve your cash flow and bottom line. 

crewcost dashboard array bofy

FAQs

How do I know if a job is on budget before it’s finished?

Every cost hits the job as it happens: labor from integrated time tracking, supplier bills from AI-powered AP, subcontracts and POs as committed costs. The job budget shows estimate vs. actual by cost code in real time, so an owner or controller can see a job drifting in week three instead of discovering it at closeout.

What does the labor report actually show?

Hours vs. budgeted hours and dollars vs. budgeted dollars, by cost code, with regular and overtime hours broken out and burden included. That’s how you tell the difference between a job that was under-estimated and a job that was fine on hours but got killed by overtime.

What is WIP reporting and why does it matter for a subcontractor?

A work-in-progress report compares what you’ve billed on each job to what you’ve earned based on cost to date. If you’ve earned more than you’ve billed, you’re underbilled — financing the GC’s project with your own cash. Most subs on QuickBooks have no WIP report and don’t know they’re underbilled. CrewCost produces it automatically.

How is retainage handled?

Retainage withheld by your GC or owner is calculated on every pay application and tracked as retainage receivable on the balance sheet — no QuickBooks workarounds or side spreadsheets. If you carry tier-two subs, the retainage you withhold from them is tracked as retainage payable the same way.

How does progress billing work?

You set up the prime contract with its schedule of values once. Each month you enter percent complete (and stored materials, if applicable) and CrewCost generates an AIA-style pay application with retainage calculated automatically. Change orders roll into the contract, so the billing always matches the current contract value.

Does CrewCost work for electrical, HVAC, mechanical, plumbing, and concrete contractors?

Yes. Any subcontractor that holds prime contracts, bills progressively, carries retainage, and runs crews uses the same workflows. Electrical, HVAC, mechanical, plumbing, concrete, glazing, roofing, and similar specialty trades are all a fit.

Do we need Procore, and can we switch from QuickBooks mid-year?

No Procore required — CrewCost is a complete construction accounting system on its own, and if your GCs run Procore the native integration keeps everything in sync. Switching from QuickBooks is cleanest at the start of a year, and CrewCost supports mid-year migrations as well. Implementation is included, and most subs are live in days.

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