Titan Management Solutions

The answer

Bookkeeping cleanup for contractors

A firm quotes $1,500 to $3,500 to clean up a year of a contracting business, and takes three to eight weeks. The work itself is not mysterious. Read the bank and card statements, put every line in a contractor chart of accounts, and tie each month out to the ending balance the bank printed.

Titan does that from your statements for a fixed public price, and closes your first month free so you can read it before you decide. Below: the chart of accounts we use for trades, and the six lines that get miscategorized most.

Titan, for comparison

  • Up to 6 months behind$499
  • Up to 12 months behind$999
  • Up to 24 months behind$1,899
  • Your first month, closed and tied out$0
Close one month free

01 / Market rates

What a firm charges a contractor for cleanup.

Prices for a shop with roughly 50 to 300 transactions a month, starting from bank and card statements. Payroll allocation and multi-state licensing push every row up.

1 to 3 months behind

Typical quote$300 – $500
Timeline3 – 8 weeks

4 to 6 months behind

Typical quote$500 – $1,500
Timeline3 – 8 weeks

Twelve months behind

Typical quote$1,500 – $3,500
Timeline3 – 8 weeks

Two years or more

Typical quote$3,500 – $10,000+
Timeline3 – 8 weeks

Trades tend to land at the top of each range for one reason: volume. A crew of six running fleet cards and daily supply-house charges produces more lines a month than an agency with the same revenue, and cleanup is priced by lines, not by sales.

02 / Chart of accounts

What a contractor's books are made of.

This is the chart we load when you confirm the trade. Job costs sit in the 5000 block, separate from overhead in the 6000 block, so gross margin on the work is readable in every period.

4000Contract income

Progress payments and final invoices from an owner or GC

4100Change orders

Extras billed after the original contract, kept separate on purpose

4200Service and repair

Callbacks, warranty work, small time-and-material jobs

5000Job materials

Lumber yards, supply houses, HOME DEPOT, SITEONE, FERGUSON

5100Subcontractors

Every payee you pay to do work — totalled by payee for the year

5200Equipment rental

SUNBELT, UNITED RENTALS, a scissor lift for a week

5300Permits and inspections

City and county building departments, plan review fees

5400Dump fees and disposal

Landfill, roll-off containers, hazardous disposal

5500Small tools and consumables

Blades, bits, fasteners, anything under your capitalization floor

6000Vehicle fuel

Fleet cards and pump charges, split from personal driving

6100Vehicle repairs and insurance

Tires, service, commercial auto premiums

6200Liability and workers comp

General liability, workers compensation, annual audit true-ups

6300Licenses and bonds

Contractor license renewal, bid and performance bonds

6400Wages and payroll taxes

Payroll provider drafts, split between net pay and tax deposits

6500Office, software and phone

Estimating software, job management, cell plans

6700Bank and card fees

Monthly service charges, card processing on customer payments

1500Equipment

A purchase over your capitalization floor — an asset, not an expense

2100Customer deposits

Money collected before the work is done. A liability until earned

3900Owner draws

Transfers to yourself. Not an expense and never in the P&L

Electricians, plumbers, HVAC, roofing, concrete and landscaping all get the same skeleton with the vendor patterns of their trade. If our guess at your trade is wrong, one dropdown fixes it and the month recloses.

03 / Where cleanups go wrong

Six statement lines that get miscategorized.

  • A supply-house charge that belongs to a job

    Every contractor's largest expense line is materials, and it arrives as one card charge with no job on it. We book it to job materials and keep the vendor and the date, so you can assign it to a job later without re-reading the statement.

  • A subcontractor paid like a vendor

    Payments for labor and payments for materials both look like checks. We separate them and total each payee for the calendar year, which is the list your preparer asks for at 1099 time. We do not file the forms.

  • A tool purchase that is really an asset

    A $12,400 mini excavator and a $240 impact driver are the same kind of statement line and two different accounts. Anything near your capitalization floor comes back as a flag rather than a guess.

  • An owner draw booked as an expense

    Transfers to a personal account are the single most common way a contractor's P&L ends up wrong. Draws belong in equity. Booking them as expense understates profit and the balance sheet will not close.

  • A customer deposit booked as income

    A deposit collected in December for a job that starts in March is a liability in December. Getting this wrong moves revenue into the wrong year, which is the version of the error that matters most.

  • Fuel and truck costs mixed with personal driving

    Fleet cards and personal fill-ups run through the same account at most small shops. We flag the pattern instead of quietly splitting it, because only you know which trip was which.

04 / One line, three accounts

When we do not know, we say so.

A single charge from a big-box supplier can belong to three different accounts, and the statement does not say which. That line becomes a flag with our best guess and the alternatives, not a silent decision.

2024-03-14Flagged
HOME DEPOT #4412 SPOKANE WA1,204.50
5000Job materials

Our guess — 71.0% confidence

5500Small tools and consumables

Also possible

1500Equipment

If a single item over your floor

One tap picks the account. The reports recompute and the flag count falls. A month with 14 flags is 5 minutes of work, and next month there are fewer because we remember your vendors.

05 / Titan's price

Public, fixed, and payable on this page.

Catch-Up 6

Up to 6 months behind

83.17 per month closed

$499

Buy

Catch-Up 12

Up to 12 months behind

83.25 per month closed

$999

Buy

Catch-Up 24

Up to 24 months behind

79.13 per month closed

$1,899

Buy

Close one month free before you buy anything. Drop one statement and read the closed month, tied out to the ending balance your bank printed.

06 / Questions

The rest of what contractors ask.

How much does bookkeeping cleanup cost for a contractor?
A bookkeeper or firm charges $300 to $500 for one to three months behind, $1,500 to $3,500 for a full year, and $3,500 or more past two years, quoted after a discovery call and delivered in three to eight weeks. Titan charges $999 for up to 12 months, which is $83.25 per month closed.
Do you use a contractor chart of accounts?
Yes. When we read your first statement we name the trade we think you are in and you confirm or change it in one dropdown. The chart above is what a general contractor gets, with job costs held separately from overhead so gross margin by period is readable.
Can you do job costing?
Not from bank statements alone. A statement says you spent 1,204.50 at a supply house on 2024-03-14. It does not say which job. We keep the vendor, date and description on every line so the assignment is possible later, and we say plainly what we cannot know.
What about my subcontractor 1099s?
We total payments by payee for the calendar year and hand that list over with the ledger. Deciding who is a contractor and who is an employee, and filing the forms, is your preparer's job and not ours.
I only have bank and credit card statements. Is that enough?
Yes, that is the normal case and the whole product is built for it. Bank and card statements as PDF or CSV from any US bank. Receipts help clear flags faster but are not required to close a month and tie it out.
What if I am behind two years, not one?
Catch-Up 24 covers up to 24 months at $1,899. If we find activity older than the statements you gave us, we say so before you pay and price only the additional months at the same public table rate.
Will my CPA accept this?
That is who we design for. Every figure in every report traces to the source line on the statement you uploaded, each categorization carries our confidence, and the handoff export is built for a preparer to import. We are not accountants and we do not sign returns.

Read one month of your own books first.

One statement, one closed month, a contractor chart of accounts, tied out to the figure your bank printed. No call, no card.

Close one month free

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