Arizona trades contractors
Know which jobs actually made money.
Monthly bookkeeping for Arizona trades contractors — clean books, job-level profit, and a year-end file your CPA will actually thank you for.
Read-only access. I can’t change anything in your books.
Profit by month
Top jobs by profit
| Desert View Buildout | $14,280 |
| Scottsdale Remodel | $9,140 |
| West Valley Addition | $6,905 |
| Mesa Office TI | $3,420 |
Job costing summary
- Revenue
- $186,400
- Job costs
- $141,660
- Margin
- 24.0%
Monthly checklist
- Bank reconciled
- Cards reconciled
- Costs tied to jobs
- 2 receipts open
Sample report — your numbers, your jobs.
- Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
- Trades only — HVAC, plumbing, electrical, concrete, remodel
- QuickBooks subscription included
- Benson, Arizona
The problem
You’re busy. The books are behind. And the numbers don’t tell you anything.
Most of the contractor books I see have the same four things wrong with them — and none of them are the owner’s fault. You were on a roof, not in QuickBooks.
- Nothing is tied to a job. Material and labor go into one bucket. At the end of the year you know you made money, or you didn’t. You can’t say which job did it.
- The bank hasn’t been reconciled in months. Every report built on top of that is a guess wearing a suit.
- Subs paid over $600 with no W-9 on file. You find out in January, when there’s no time left to chase them.
- Your CPA charges you to clean it up. Then charges you again to do the return. You paid twice for the same mess.
What you get
Books that answer questions, not just balance.
Every month, on the same day, whether or not you ask.
Profit by job
Every material and labor dollar tied to the job it belongs to. Six months in, you can see which kind of work actually pays — and bid the next one on something better than a hunch.
Cash position, 30 days out
What’s in the account, what’s due in, what’s due out. A projection from known items — not a promise, but enough to know whether payroll clears.
Who owes you, and what to do
Not just an aging table. One sentence per overdue customer: who, how much, how many days, and whether to call this week.
A plain-English summary
A short note in the email telling you what happened this month and the one thing worth doing about it. No jargon. Readable on a phone between jobs.
1099s handled in October
W-9 chasing starts in the fall, not the week before the deadline. Subs you paid by credit card don’t get a 1099 from you — that catches a lot of people out.
A clean file for your CPA
Reconciled, documented, with the open questions listed up front instead of buried. Cheaper returns, fewer April phone calls.
How it works
Four steps. The first one is free.
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Free books review
You give me read-only access for 20 minutes. I can’t change anything in there — I can only look.
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You get a report
Three pages on what’s actually in your books, with real numbers. If they look fine, I’ll tell you they look fine.
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We talk for 20 minutes
I walk the three biggest things, tell you flat what it costs to fix, and you decide. No pressure, no range, no hourly.
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I take it from there
Books done monthly, reports the same day every month, and one person who remembers what happened on the Hendricks job in March.
Pricing
One monthly price. QuickBooks included.
No setup fee on monthly service. Month to month — 30 days’ notice either way, and your data is always yours.
Foundation
Owner-operator, one truck, under 100 transactions a month.
$325/mo
Includes QuickBooks Essentials
- Categorized and reconciled monthly
- P&L and balance sheet by the 12th
- Plain-English monthly summary
- Receipt chasing
- Year-end file for your CPA
Builder
One to three trucks, payroll, subcontractors.
$550/mo
Includes QuickBooks Essentials or Plus
- Everything in Foundation
- Cash position and 30-day outlook
- Who owes you, with an action list
- Payroll tie-out and sub tracking
- 1099 prep and filing included
- Quarterly check-in call
Contractor
Crews and multiple jobs running at once.
$925/mo
Includes QuickBooks Plus
- Everything in Builder
- Job costing — profit per job
- Job margin trend, rolling six months
- Revenue mix by job type
- Arizona TPT prep
- Monthly 30-minute review call
The QuickBooks subscription is part of the price. You were already paying Intuit somewhere between $75 and $115 a month, plus a bookkeeper on top. This is the same money with one invoice — and no software vendor to manage. If we ever part ways, you take over the billing and keep every bit of your data.
Add-ons, cleanup, and one-time work
| Job costing added to Builder | +$200/mo |
| Job costing added to Foundation (needs Plus) | +$225/mo |
| Collections follow-up | +$100/mo |
| Monthly review call | +$150/mo |
| Additional entity | +$150/mo |
| TPT filing prep | +$75/filing |
| Cleanup or catch-up | Flat quote after the free review |
| QuickBooks setup or migration | $500–1,200 |
Cleanup is always quoted as one flat number after I’ve seen the books — never an hourly rate and never a range. Half up front.
Who I am
I’m Chey. I do your books.
Not a call center, not a rotating team. One certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor who learns your business and stays with it.
I work with Arizona trades contractors specifically — which means I know the difference between prime contracting and MRRA, why your credit-card-paid subs don’t get a 1099, and what a retention hold does to your cash flow.
I don’t prepare tax returns and I never will. That’s your CPA’s job, and I’d rather hand them clean books than compete for the work.
— Chey Bennett Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor · Benson, Arizona
For CPAs
I hand you clean files. That’s the whole pitch.
I do monthly books for trades clients and hand you clean files at year end. I don’t do tax returns and I won’t ever ask to.
Every year-end package arrives reconciled through December, with the 1099s already filed, the payroll already tied out, and the open items that need your judgment listed on page one instead of buried in an email chain.
If you have a contractor client whose books are eating your January, I’d like to hear about it. I work remotely — video or phone, whatever’s easier for you.
Questions
The things people actually ask.
What does “read-only access” actually mean?
QuickBooks lets you grant access at different levels. For the free review I use the lowest one: I can open reports and look at transactions, and that’s it. I can’t post anything, change anything, or delete anything. You can revoke it from your own settings in about ten seconds, and I’ll walk you through how before you grant it.
My books are a disaster. Is that a problem?
No — that’s the normal case. Behind is not the same as hopeless, and I’d rather see it honestly than have you tidy up first. Cleanup gets quoted as one flat number after I’ve looked, so you know the whole cost before you commit to anything.
Do you do my taxes?
No, and that’s deliberate. I don’t prepare returns, give tax advice, or represent anyone to the IRS. What I do is keep the records accurate all year and hand your CPA a clean file, which usually makes their work cheaper. If you don’t have a CPA, I can point you to a few in Arizona who work with contractors.
QuickBooks has its own bookkeepers now. Why not use those?
Because they rotate, and they’re generalists. The person you talk to in March isn’t the person you talked to in February, and none of them know Arizona contractor rules. I’m one named person who signs the work, remembers what happened on your jobs, and knows the trades-specific things — prime contracting versus MRRA, the 35% standard deduction, which subs actually need a 1099.
What does the free review cost me if I don’t hire you?
Nothing, and you keep the report. It’s three pages on what’s actually in your books, with real numbers. If your books look fine, I’ll tell you they look fine — I’m not going to invent problems to sell you something.
Am I locked into a contract?
No. Month to month, 30 days’ notice from either side. If you leave, you get a complete exit package and you take over the QuickBooks subscription directly — the file and everything in it belongs to you, always.
You’re in Benson. I’m in Phoenix. Does that work?
Yes — the whole practice is remote, and it works the same whether you’re in Tucson, Mesa, or Flagstaff. Calls are video or phone, whichever you prefer. What matters is that it’s Arizona, because the tax rules are the part nobody out of state gets right.
How many clients do you take?
Twenty-five, and that’s a hard cap. This is built to be a small practice where every client gets real attention, not one that grows until nobody gets any. If I’m full when you call, I’ll tell you that instead of taking you on and doing it badly.
Find out what’s actually in your books.
Twenty minutes, no cost, and you keep the report either way.
Book a Free Books ReviewRead-only access. I can’t change anything in your books.