#construction

Construction

Accounting practices for construction businesses including job costing, WIP schedules, and retainage

June 4, 202614 min read

OSHA's Proposed Heat Standard: A HIIPP Compliance Playbook for Construction, Restaurant, and Warehouse Employers

OSHA's proposed federal heat rule sets 80°F and 90°F triggers requiring water, shade, paid breaks, acclimatization, and a written HIIPP. Five state plans — California (Cal/OSHA 3395 and 3396), Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Maryland — already enforce binding heat illness standards. Here's the compliance playbook construction, restaurant, warehouse, and delivery employers can build today under the General Duty Clause.

Mike Thrift

complianceconstructionrestaurant

June 3, 202612 min read

Residential Roofing and Storm Restoration Bookkeeping: A Practical Guide for Re-Roof Crews and Insurance-Claim Specialists

How residential roofers and storm restoration contractors should handle ASC 606 variable consideration, Section 460 elections, supplemental claim revenue, customer deductibles under state law, OSHA fall protection costs, and the KPIs (squares per crew-day, gross margin by channel) that separate profitable shops from busy ones.

Mike Thrift

bookkeepingconstructionjob-costing

June 2, 202613 min read

Custom Home Builder Bookkeeping: Section 460, Job Costing, Retainage, and NAHB Benchmarks

How independent residential GCs and custom home builders should structure their books — Section 460 method election, phase-level job cost categories, deposit and retainage handling, mechanics lien waiver discipline, warranty reserves, and the NAHB KPIs that matter.

Mike Thrift

constructionjob-costingbookkeeping

June 2, 202613 min read

Solar Installer Bookkeeping: ASC 606, Section 48E ITC Adders, and Life After the Section 25D Residential Sunset

How residential and commercial solar EPCs should structure ASC 606 performance obligations, document the Section 48E domestic content and energy community adders, reserve for workmanship warranty per kilowatt, and survive the post-Section 25D residential market in 2026.

Mike Thrift

solarbookkeepingtax-credits

June 1, 202614 min read

Custom Cabinet and Millwork Shop Bookkeeping: ASC 606, Job Costing, and Section 179

How custom cabinet and architectural millwork shops should account for long-lead contracts under ASC 606, allocate CNC machine-hour burden, hold customer deposits as liabilities, reserve for hardwood yield loss, and expense equipment under the 2026 Section 179 limit of $2.56M.

Mike Thrift

bookkeepingmanufacturingjob-costing

May 23, 202620 min read

Roofing Contractor Bookkeeping for Storm Restoration: ACV, RCV, Mortgage-Endorsed Checks, Supplements, and Warranty Reserves

A working guide to bookkeeping for storm-restoration roofers — splitting insurance and retail revenue, tracking ACV and recoverable-depreciation receivables, modeling mortgage-endorsement float, booking supplements as scope adjustments rather than new sales, accruing 1–3 percent workmanship warranty reserves, and applying Section 179 to trucks, dumpsters, and tear-off equipment.

Mike Thrift

constructionjob-costingbookkeeping

May 22, 202612 min read

AIA-Style Progress Billing With Forms G702 and G703: A Contractor's Guide to Schedule of Values, Retainage, Change Orders, and ASC 606

How AIA Forms G702 and G703 work together, how to build a defensible schedule of values, handle retainage and change orders on the continuation sheet, and reconcile progress billings to ASC 606 revenue recognition for U.S. general contractors.

Mike Thrift

constructionjob-costingrevenue-recognition

May 19, 202611 min read

Markup vs. Margin: The Pricing Mistake That Quietly Costs Small Businesses 7 Points of Profit on Every Sale

Markup and margin share a numerator but not a denominator, and the gap can quietly cost a contractor $99,000 a year. A plain-language guide to the conversion math, a target-margin lookup table, and why retailers, contractors, and restaurants keep underpricing jobs.

Mike Thrift

pricing-strategiesprofit-marginssmall-business

May 19, 202616 min read

Solar Installation Contractor Accounting: Customer Deposits, RECs, PPAs, and Passing Through the Section 48 ITC Without Triggering Recapture

A solar installer's bookkeeping playbook — customer deposits under ASC 606, REC inventory, PPA classification under ASC 842, the 50% basis reduction on the Section 48 ITC, Section 6418 transferability mechanics, and the five-year recapture clock that survives a sale of the business.

Mike Thrift

constructionbookkeepingtax-credits

May 18, 202612 min read

Section 45L Before the Lights Go Out: How Builders and Developers Can Still Claim $2,500 to $5,000 Per Unit Before June 30, 2026

Section 45L pays builders and developers $500 to $5,000 per energy-efficient home, but the One Big Beautiful Bill Act ends the credit for homes acquired after June 30, 2026. A practical guide to ENERGY STAR versus Zero Energy Ready certification, prevailing wage rules on multifamily, the LIHTC basis carve-out, and the Form 8908 mechanics that decide whether the credit survives audit.

Mike Thrift

tax-creditstax-complianceconstruction

May 17, 202611 min read

How to Read a Construction WIP Schedule: Percentage-of-Completion, Over- and Under-Billing

A construction WIP schedule recognizes revenue as work is performed using cost-to-cost percentage-of-completion, then exposes over- and under-billing on every job — the report banks and surety underwriters read before the income statement.

Mike Thrift

constructionjob-costingrevenue-recognition

May 17, 20269 min read

Job Costing for Contractors: Labor Burden, Cost Codes, and Committed Costs

Job costing assigns every dollar of cost to the job that caused it. Fully burdened labor runs 30 to 50 percent above base wage, overhead is applied with a predetermined rate, and committed costs reveal a budget overrun before the invoices arrive — read the variance column weekly.

Mike Thrift

job-costingconstructiontrades

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