Bookkeeping, explained by the entry.
Most accounting guides explain theory. These show the actual transaction: what happened, what the entry looks like, and where contractors get caught.
Journal entries for the transactions contractors actually have: deposits, subs, materials, trucks, owner money. Every entry shown in full.
How to record a customer deposit
A customer deposit is not income yet. Here is the exact journal entry, why it goes to a liability account, and what happens to it when the job finishes.
Updated July 27, 2026How to record a payment to a subcontractor
The journal entry for paying a sub, how it differs when the cost belongs to a job, and what you have to track during the year so 1099 time is not a scramble.
Updated July 27, 2026How to record materials bought for a specific job
The journal entry for job materials, why the receipt should hit the job and not a general supplies account, and how to handle materials you buy but do not use.
Updated July 27, 2026How to record a work truck bought with a loan
The journal entry for a financed vehicle, why the loan payment is not an expense, and how to split each payment between principal and interest.
Updated July 27, 2026How to record a business expense you paid for personally
You grabbed job materials with your personal card. Here is the journal entry, why it goes to owner's equity, and the mistake that costs you money.
Updated July 27, 2026
What job costing is, how work in progress behaves on your balance sheet, and how to tell whether a finished job actually made money.
What is job costing?
Job costing explained for small contractors: what it tracks, the three things it needs to work, and a full worked example from first receipt to final margin.
Updated July 27, 2026What work in progress means on a contractor's books
What WIP is, why unfinished job costs belong on your balance sheet instead of your profit and loss, and the year-end problem it solves.
Updated July 27, 2026
Running the numbers
Running the numbers on a contracting business
Markup versus margin, why profitable jobs still run you short on cash, and the arithmetic that decides whether a year of hard work leaves anything behind.
Markup vs margin
The two formulas, a conversion table, and the specific arithmetic mistake that quietly prices contractors below the margin they think they are earning.
Updated July 27, 2026Why profitable jobs still leave you short on cash
Profit and cash are measured at different moments. Here is why a good year on paper can still mean an empty account, and the four timing gaps that cause it.
Updated July 27, 2026
A note on what these are. 9 guides written by the team building WIPKeep, an AI bookkeeping tool for contractors. They describe standard double-entry bookkeeping, and they are educational rather than tax or accounting advice. Where a rule depends on your entity type or your return, we say so and point you at your tax preparer instead of guessing on your behalf.