Job costing, retainage, contractor 1099s, California license compliance, and tax planning for owner-operated contractors and specialty trades operating in Santa Barbara, Goleta, Carpinteria, and Montecito. One firm running your QuickBooks, planning your tax, and on hand for the decisions that move the business.
Contractor accounting in Santa Barbara is uniquely punishing for generic bookkeeping. Job costing, retainage, change orders, deposits, materials timing, and progress billing all break a vanilla QuickBooks setup. You end up with a P&L that's directionally honest but operationally useless — fine for taxes, useless for running the business.
Our practice is built for contractors. The chart of accounts is structured around jobs. Class and project tracking are configured before the first transaction is categorized. WIP, retainage, and progress billing are handled inside QuickBooks Online — not in a side spreadsheet that goes stale.
And because we also handle your tax planning and CFO advisory, the books are built for the work that comes after. Truck purchases, equipment Section 179, S-Corp comp planning, and California contractor licensing renewals all happen on a calendar — not at year-end.
Without per-project tracking, you cannot tell which jobs are making money until it's too late. We build job costing inside QuickBooks Online from day one.
Subcontractor 1099s end with missed forms and IRS notices for too many Santa Barbara contractors. We onboard subs cleanly, collect W-9s, and file 1099s on calendar.
Contractor S-Corps usually overpay or underpay reasonable comp by a wide margin. A defensible reasonable-comp study saves five figures of self-employment tax annually.
The Santa Barbara construction market is unique: high-end residential, custom homes in Hope Ranch and Montecito, design-build remodels, specialty trades supporting the wine country, and developers building on tight Central Coast lots. Each comes with its own accounting wrinkle — cost basis, soft costs, holding periods, and California TOT compliance for short-term rental builds.
Our practice has worked across these patterns. The chart of accounts, the project structure, and the tax plan are not generic — they're built around how the Santa Barbara construction market actually moves money.
