Job Costing Services for Project-Based Businesses
Job costing built into your regular bookkeeping: every expense and payment tagged to its project inside QuickBooks Online, so you see profit per job and per customer every month. Any industry that works project by project.
Adham Abadier, CPA - California License #158599. QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor.
Profitable Overall, Losing Money on Half Your Jobs? We Find Out Which Half.
Job costing means tracking revenue and every cost — labor, materials, subcontractors, direct expenses — at the individual project level instead of one company-wide pile. Catalyst CPA builds job costing into your monthly bookkeeping using in-house automation inside QuickBooks Online, supervised under California CPA license #158599, so you get a per-project profit report every month without buying separate software.
A company P&L can look healthy while two of your five projects quietly eat the margin the other three earned. If your books cannot tell you what any single job cost, every bid you price is a guess built on the last guess. That is the problem we solve — and we solve it inside the books you already keep, not in another app you have to pay for and feed.
Job Costing Problems We Fix
If any of these sound familiar, your books are hiding the number that matters.
All Revenue in One Bucket
Sales hit one income line, so a great month can hide a terrible project. We split revenue by job and by customer.
Costs Never Tied to the Job That Caused Them
Materials, contractor bills, and direct labor posted company-wide. Without cost tagging there is no such thing as a job margin.
No Per-Customer Profitability
Your biggest client may be your least profitable one. Per-customer reporting answers that with numbers instead of a feeling.
Quotes Priced on Gut Feel
If you do not know what the last job actually cost, the next bid inherits the error. Historical job costs make estimates defensible.
Paying for Job-Costing Software on Top of Bookkeeping
Dedicated platforms commonly run $99-$199+ per month before per-user fees. We do the same tracking inside QuickBooks Online as part of the bookkeeping.
WIP and Percentage-of-Completion Never Computed
Long jobs spanning months need earned-revenue math, or the financials swing wildly with billing timing. We compute it monthly where it applies.
Month-End Reports That Say Nothing About Projects
A P&L and balance sheet are not enough for a project business. We add the job profitability layer your decisions actually run on.
How Our Job Costing Works
Project accounting runs $500–$1,200/month depending on job volume and number of active projects, quoted flat after a free review — call (951) 223-1826.
Every Expense Tagged to Its Project, Automatically
Our in-house automation tags each expense, bill, and payment to its job and customer as it lands in QuickBooks Online — not in a quarterly cleanup after the detail is forgotten.
Per-Job P&L Every Month
Each project's revenue, costs by type, and margin, delivered monthly. Finished jobs get a final scorecard; open jobs show cost-to-date.
Budget vs. Actual Per Project
Estimates loaded against actuals, so a job drifting over budget shows up while there is still time to change course or bill for it.
Percentage-of-Completion & WIP Where It Applies
For long-running contracts we compute earned revenue and over/under-billings monthly — the view lenders and sureties expect and owners need.
CPA Oversight That Asks the Right Questions
A licensed CPA reviews the project numbers and asks what the software never will: where is the change order, why is this job unbilled, which cost is missing.
Who We Do Job Costing For
Any business that earns money project by project can know profit project by project.
Construction & Trades
Contractors get the full treatment — WIP, retainage, progress billing — on our dedicated construction bookkeeping page.
Marketing & Creative Agencies
Profit per client and per campaign, contractor and freelancer costs tied to the engagement they served.
Architects & Engineers
Phase-level tracking on long design contracts, consultant costs matched to the project, milestone billing reconciled.
Event Companies
Each event as its own mini-business: venue, vendors, staffing, and rentals costed against that event's revenue.
Custom Manufacturers & Fabricators
Materials and shop labor tracked to the order, so custom work is priced from real cost history instead of habit.
Landscapers
Install projects costed individually, maintenance routes tracked as recurring revenue with their own margin.
IT & Consulting Firms
Engagement-level profitability with subcontractor and license costs assigned to the client that consumed them.
Film & Media Production
Per-production cost tracking across crew, equipment, and post — the report a producer and an investor both understand.
Job Costing — Frequently Asked Questions
What is job costing in bookkeeping?
Do I need special job-costing software?
What do job costing services cost?
What is percentage-of-completion versus completed-contract?
How fast can you set up job costing on my books?
Does it work with my invoicing or project app?
Know What Every Project Really Costs.
Book a free 30-minute review. We will look at your file, show you what per-project reporting would look like on your actual jobs, and quote a flat monthly fee.