Built for the way
contractors actually run.
Job-cost accounting, contractor-aware CFO advisory, and proactive tax strategy for licensed CSLB contractors in Santa Barbara, Goleta, Carpinteria, and Montecito.
Three places contractors lose money — and almost none of it shows up in QuickBooks the way it should.
WIP, retainage, and deposits.
Money is in the bank but not yet earned. Money is earned but withheld as retainage. Off-the-shelf QuickBooks doesn’t distinguish between the two — and most contractors are managing both on instinct. A proper WIP schedule turns that instinct into a number you can show a banker.
Subs, 1099s, and the worker-classification cliff.
The line between sub and employee is a California-specific minefield (AB 5, prevailing wage, workers’ comp). One audit reclassifies five years of 1099s into W-2s. Clean documentation, correct W-9 collection, and the right structure for each crew make this a non-event.
Tax strategy timed to jobs, not the calendar.
Equipment buys, vehicle depreciation, Section 179, S-Corp comp adjustments — all driven by jobs that close at unpredictable times. Year-round tax planning catches the openings in Q2 and Q3; a March-only preparer misses every one of them.
One firm covering the books, the cash, and the tax — built around your jobs.
Job-Cost Bookkeeping
QuickBooks Online configured for contractor reality — classes by job or by division, items mapped for true cost of goods, retainage tracked properly, sub 1099s clean by year-end. Monthly close by the 10th.
Contractor CFO
Job-by-job gross margin reporting. Thirteen-week cash flow that survives draws and retainage. Bid review on the larger projects. Capacity modeling on the next hire, the next truck, the next office lease.
Tax Strategy
S-Corp election and reasonable comp. Section 179 timing on trucks and equipment. Accountable plans for owners. Retirement plan design that actually fits a contractor’s income shape. Federal and California, filed together.
Three tiers. Fixed monthly fees. No hourly surprises.
Most contractors land on the middle tier. All engagements start with a thirty-minute discovery call and a written scope before any work begins.
Job-Cost Bookkeeping
- QuickBooks Online setup or rebuild
- Monthly close by the 10th
- Job-cost reporting per project
- Sub 1099 management & year-end filing
- California sales/use tax filings
- Quarterly tax tie-out
Books + CFO
- Everything in Tier 01
- Monthly contractor CFO advisory
- 13-week cash flow forecast
- Job-margin & WIP reporting
- Bid review on projects $50K+
- Hiring & equipment capex modeling
Full Service
- Everything in Tier 02
- Federal & California tax filings
- S-Corp optimization & reasonable comp
- Section 179 & vehicle depreciation
- Retirement plan design
- IRS / FTB representation included
What is the real gross margin on your last job?
Enter the numbers from a recent project. The estimator strips out the costs most contractors leave inside overhead — equipment, fuel, foreman time — and shows true job-level margin against industry benchmark.
Estimate only. True margin includes allocated overhead, warranty reserve, and bid contingency burn — modeled in detail during onboarding.
Three differences that matter on a job site.
Same hands, every week.
The person on your discovery call is the same person closing your books in October and answering your text when a draw doesn’t reconcile. No partner-to-junior handoff. The roster is intentionally small to keep it that way.
EA-licensed, federally.
Enrolled Agent — the highest credential the IRS awards, with unlimited representation rights in audits, appeals, and collections. The same authority as a CPA in front of the IRS, with a deeper specialization in tax. More on EA vs CPA.
Pattern recognition from Intuit.
Years inside Intuit looking at thousands of contractor books taught the practice exactly where the damage usually comes from — a QuickBooks integration sold as a quick fix, an S-Corp run like an LLC, a job-cost setup that never quite tied to revenue. Recognized early, designed around.
Licensed by the CSLB. Built by an owner.
General contractors, specialty trades, builders, and remodelers across Santa Barbara County. If you carry a CSLB license and run your shop like a business, the work translates.
What Santa Barbara contractors typically ask.
Do you handle prevailing-wage projects?
Yes. Certified payroll reporting, fringe benefit accounting, and the documentation trail California prevailing-wage projects require — built into the monthly close, not bolted on at year-end.
Will you set up job costing inside our QuickBooks file?
Yes — and it’s the first thing we do in onboarding. Classes or projects depending on volume, an items list that maps to true cost of goods, retainage tracked correctly, change orders billed cleanly.
Can you handle sub 1099s, W-9 collection, and AB 5 classification?
Yes. W-9s collected on intake. 1099 NEC filed on time. And before a sub is hired, a worker-classification review against AB 5 (the ABC test) so you don’t find out at audit that five years of subs should have been W-2s.
Do you file my CSLB license renewal or bond paperwork?
The CSLB renewal itself goes directly to the contractor — but we coordinate the financial statements, prior-year tax returns, and surety paperwork your bond company asks for.
What does engagement typically cost?
Most Santa Barbara contractors fit Tier 02 (Books + CFO at $2,250/mo to start), with engagements scaling on revenue and crew size. Larger builders with multi-million-dollar jobs or multi-entity structures land in Tier 03.
Are you accepting new contractor clients right now?
Selectively. The roster stays small on purpose. The fastest way to know is a thirty-minute discovery call.
Schedule a thirty-minute
discovery call.
Schedule a Consultation
Info@ConvenientAccounting.com · Santa Barbara, California