Accounting software for construction companies should feature tools that meet industry-specific needs for budgeting, job costing, project tracking and reporting.
On top of having to respond to changes in material costs, project scope and labor, construction projects must take multiple types of expenses into account and assign them to jobs accordingly. Throw in equipment cost allocation and things get even more complicated. The best accounting software will make it easy to record cost of goods sold, get the most out of your equipment and monitor project costs so you don’t go over budget.
Here are some of the top picks for construction accounting software products.
Our Nerdy picks for
Customer service
BQE CoreOur pick for
Best overall
Sage 100 Contractor
Learn more
on Sage 100 Contractor's secure website
Starting at
N/A
Quote-based.
Promotion
N/A
Pros
- Industry-specific reports.
- Job costing tools let you track individual jobs or groups of jobs.
- Unlimited users; ability to set customized permissions for each.
- Equipment Management add-on helps assign equipment costs to jobs and track maintenance schedules.
Cons
- Quote-based pricing makes it difficult to compare to the competition.
Our pick for
Customer service
BQE Core
Starting at
N/A
Quote-based.
Pros
- Built-in time and expense tracking.
- Customizable dashboards, plus reports on utilization and billable work.
- Phased billing capabilities.
- Job costing tools.
Cons
- Quote-based pricing makes it difficult to compare to the competition.
Our pick for
Integrations
QuickBooks Online
Learn more
on QuickBooks Online's secure website
Starting at
$30/month
Additional pricing tiers (per month): $60, $90, $200.
Promotion
50% off
for first three months or free 30-day trial.
Though QuickBooks Online has strong job costing, project management and progress billing features, it’s probably not powerful enough to support your construction company’s accounting needs alone. With its five-star rating, however, it can be a great foundation as long as you subscribe to an add-on or two for things like progress invoicing and change orders.
Pros
- Integrates with more than 750 apps, including Knowify for Contractors, Buildertrend and CoConstruct.
- Project profitability tracking and job costing in the Plus plan and up.
- Create budgets and monitor actual spend with reports.
- Built-in time tracking in Essentials plan and up.
Cons
- Lack of industry-specific reports.
- May require industry-specific integrations.
Our pick for
Desktop option
QuickBooks Enterprise
Starting at
$1,410/year
Additional pricing tiers (per year): $1,830; $2,250; $4,400. Adding users or cloud access costs extra.
Promotion
30-day free trial
Unlike QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Enterprise is desktop-based and offers industry-specific reports for a handful of industries, including construction. You’ll get access to a Contractor Chart of Accounts and reports for job status, costs by job, unpaid bills by job, unassigned job expenses and more. Subscribers have the option to add more users and cloud access as their company grows.
Pros
- Industry-specific reports.
- Job costing tools.
- Ability to keep track of change orders.
- Built-in mileage tracking.
Cons
- Limited to Windows users.
- Annual subscription prices rise if you need more than one user or require cloud access.
How to choose construction accounting software
In addition to your standard profit and loss statement and balance sheet, here are some other reports and features to look for:
- Job costing: Job costing lets you assign expenses to each individual job. Without job costing, you have no way of knowing which jobs — or which types of jobs — are most profitable for your construction company.
- Project management: Project management is more than just knowing what phase each job is in, even though that in itself is extremely important. Proper project management helps you appropriately allocate resources to the various jobs your construction company has going on at any given time. It also allows you to forecast your needs for projects in bid.
- Budget and completion analysis: Budget and completion analysis lets you see how your construction projects are proceeding from a budget standpoint. In order to maximize your profitability on a job, you want to deliver it under budget and on time. Without this analysis in your construction accounting software program, you can be left guessing on whether or not this will happen.
- Change order tracking: A construction project without change orders is rare. If you can’t track your change orders, you could easily leave money on the table or have to make costly changes to work that is improperly done.
Also consider whether you prefer an all-in-one product, like Sage 100 Contractor, or a more customizable but less specialized solution, like QuickBooks Online, that can integrate with hundreds of other apps.
A version of this article was first published on Fundera, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.
Last updated on November 1, 2022