Roofing contractors
Bookkeeping for roofing contractors
Supplements approved weeks after the scope changed, material drawn before the first payment lands, retainage held long after the crew left. Roofing has the longest money tail in the trades.
The job you finished is not the job you were paid for
An insurance job never stays the size it was written. The adjuster scopes it, the carrier approves a number, your crew opens the roof, and now there is decking to replace or code upgrades nobody put in the estimate. You file a supplement. Weeks later some of it is approved, some is reduced, and some is still open.
The money arrives in three or four pieces on different days
The ACV cheque, the deductible from the homeowner, the recoverable depreciation once the carrier releases it, and whatever the supplement eventually pays. Books that record one invoice for one job cannot follow that. The job shows partly paid for months and nobody can say whether that is a collections problem, an unapproved supplement, or depreciation nobody chased.
After a storm season you have dozens of jobs in that state at once
Unchased supplements are the largest pile of money most roofers leave on the table. Not because anyone decided to leave it. Because in a busy season nobody has a list of which jobs are short and by how much.
Material draws go out before the money comes in
You draw shingles, underlayment and accessories against a supply house account days before you are paid anything. Code the draw to the supplier instead of the roof it went on and your job costs are guesswork, with the supply house statement the only record of what each job consumed.
Retainage that outlives the crew by a year
On commercial work the GC holds back a percentage until the building closes out. Your roof finished in February. The building finishes in January. That money is earned, invoiced and uncollectable for eleven months, and it does not belong in receivables pretending to be cash. Retainage is one of the five things construction books have to do that ordinary books never handle.
What changes in your file
Every job carries its claim
Original scope, each supplement filed, what was approved and what is still open, with the age of each one showing. Supplements get chased instead of forgotten.
Payments split the way the carrier pays them
ACV, deductible, recoverable depreciation and supplement recorded separately, so you can see whether the shortfall is an unpaid deductible or depreciation the carrier is sitting on.
Material draws coded to the roof
Supply house statements reconciled to jobs as they arrive, not at year end. Job costing with the real material number on it, which is the only way a bid improves.
Retainage in its own account
Aged and visible, separate from receivables.
A WIP schedule on contract work
Costs to date against contract value, with overbilling and underbilling visible. Far cheaper maintained every month than reconstructed under a deadline, and it is the same schedule behind the financial statements a licence renewal or a bond asks for.
Crew payroll and subs handled before the audit
Sub crews classified as 1099-NEC or W-2 on how the work is actually controlled, W-9s collected up front, and workers’ comp class codes kept current. Roofing carries one of the most expensive class codes there is, so a misallocation at audit hurts more here than anywhere.
Questions I get asked
How should an insurance supplement be recorded?
As a change to the job, not as a separate job. The original scope and every supplement sit against the same job, each with its own status: filed, approved, reduced or open. That gives you a list of what is outstanding and how long it has been, which is the list that gets money collected. Recorded as unrelated invoices, supplements get lost in a busy season.
My jobs sit half-paid for months. Is that normal?
For insurance work it is structural, not a failure. One roof can be paid in four pieces across several months. What is not normal is being unable to say which piece is missing.
Track ACV, deductible, depreciation and supplement separately and the half-paid jobs sort into three piles: waiting on the carrier, waiting on the homeowner, and needing a call today.
Will my retainage show up on my books?
It will once it has somewhere to go. Retainage gets its own account, aged by job and by GC. Folded into ordinary receivables it makes your cash position look better than it is, and in a storm season that gap gets large enough to matter to payroll.
Find out what the storm season actually made you
Send me your QuickBooks file. I will tell you which jobs are genuinely unpaid, which are waiting on a supplement nobody chased, and whether job costs rebuild from the supply house statements you already have.