Roofing is material-heavy, crew-heavy, and insurance-driven. Generic bookkeepers record supplement checks as ordinary income and lump shingles in with nail-gun belts. That poisons your job margins and puts you at risk every time a carrier asks to audit a claim. Here is how trade-native bookkeeping handles a roofing business.
A general bookkeeper sees a check from a homeowner and calls it income. A roofer knows that check might be a deductible collection, an ACV advance from the carrier, or a deposit on a job that starts next month. Each one is a different entry, and recording them the same way means your P&L is wrong before the first shingle is nailed.
An insurance job does not pay all at once. The homeowner pays the deductible. The carrier releases an ACV payment. A supplement gets approved weeks later and triggers a second carrier check. Then the RCV holdback arrives after the job closes. A bookkeeper who records the first check as full revenue and ignores the rest leaves you guessing whether the claim actually paid what you expected. We track each payment to its source and recognize revenue when it is earned, so your job-level profit on insurance work is real.
We set up Class or Location tracking in QuickBooks so every roof carries its own materials, crew labor, sub costs, and dump fees. That separates tear-off-and-replace jobs from new construction, and insurance work from retail cash jobs. On the Crew plan and up, that view is part of every monthly close, so you stop guessing which type of job makes you money.
Shingles, underlayment, and flashing are job materials that belong in cost of goods. A nail gun, ladder, or dump trailer is equipment or a fixed asset. Merge them and your job margins are understated, your depreciation is wrong, and your cost of goods swings wildly with material prices.
A supplement approved by the carrier in month two of a three-month job is not fully earned income on the day the check clears. Recording it that way overstates revenue in one period, understates it in another, and gives you a profit number that does not match what actually happened on the job.
A deductible collected from the homeowner is not your revenue yet. A deposit on a contracted job is a liability until the work is done. Both sit on the balance sheet until earned. Booking them directly to income is one of the most common roofing bookkeeping errors, and it makes your cash position look stronger than it is.
Roofing runs on 1099 crew labor. Lead installers, tear-off crews, and specialty subs each need a W-9 and a running payment total tracked through the year. Catch it at filing time and you are chasing missing tax IDs under a deadline instead of confirming clean numbers.
Yes. We track each payment leg separately: deductible, ACV release, supplements, and RCV holdback. Revenue is recognized when it is earned, not when the first check clears. That keeps your job-level profit on insurance work accurate.
Shingles, underlayment, flashing, and other job materials are categorized as cost of goods so they tie to each job. Nail guns, ladders, and dump trailers are tracked as tool expense or fixed assets. Both your job margins and your depreciation stay correct.
Yes. We set up Class or Location tracking so every job carries its own labor, materials, and subcontractor cost. You see profit by job type, tear-off vs new, and insurance vs retail, on the Crew plan and up.
Deposits on contracted jobs are recorded as a liability in QuickBooks until the work is performed. We move the amount to revenue as the job is earned so your P&L reflects completed work, not cash collected.
We collect W-9s, track payments to each sub through the year, and prepare 1099 totals so January is a confirmation rather than a scramble. Full 1099 filing support is included on the Shop plan.
Yes. On the Crew plan and up we sync your field-management or CRM tool to QuickBooks so deposits, invoices, and job costs reconcile instead of drifting apart.
Always. We work inside your own QuickBooks Online subscription. If you ever leave, you keep the file and a clean set of workpapers. No proprietary ledger, no hostage data.
Yes. Our 6-month prepaid option includes a catch-up cleanup so you start current. We scope the backlog up front so there are no surprises.
Trade-native categories, job costing, and a CPA-reviewed close by the 15th. You keep your QuickBooks file.