Sherpa · Accounting + Finance + Tax

Accounting, finance, and tax for residential construction.

Andthe trade and home-service businesses around it.

An outsourced accounting department built for residential builders and the trade businesses that work alongside them. Year-round tax advisory. Three service tiers, from clean books through fractional-CFO depth — same fluency in WIP and AIA billing as in dispatch and recurring service revenue.

Take the 2-minute fit assessment
MARQUEEINDUSTRY 01
High-End Residential Construction
Custom-home builders. Multi-unit developers. Renovation GCs. Typically $2M–$20M.
Adjacent industries we serve
02
Construction
03
The Trades
04
Home Services
What we do

We close your books accurately, forecast your cash, and own your tax calendar year-round.

Practice 01 · Accounting

Construction‑ready financials. Job costing & WIP you can trust.

We build your accounting around how you estimate, manage, and profit from jobs — with a dependable monthly close and the construction accounting playbook in place from day one.

JOB COSTINGMONTHLY / PROJECT-LEVEL
  • Cost code structure aligned to your estimates
  • Committed cost & change order tracking
  • Over / under billing visibility
  • Job margin reporting by job
Practice 02 · Finance

Cash flow built for the way construction works.

Billing schedules, collections, and cash forecasting aligned with the realities of your jobs. AIA and milestone billing kept on track. Lien waivers and COIs built into the AR workflow. 13-week cash forecasting. Quarterly bond-ready financial packages.

CASH FORECAST HORIZON13 WEEKS
  • AIA, draw & milestone billing tracking
  • Lien-waiver & COI workflow
  • Retainage & receivables visibility
  • Quarterly bond-ready financial packages
Practice 03 · Tax

Year-round tax planning, not just tax filing.

Quarterly planning. Estimated payments mapped throughout the year. Tax-saving opportunities identified before year-end — while there is still time to act. Multi-entity coordination built in. Available with any accounting package or as a standalone service.

QUARTERLY PLANNING4 / 4 QUARTERS
  • Estimated tax payments planned ahead
  • Equipment purchase & depreciation planning
  • Owner compensation & entity strategy
  • Tax-saving opportunities identified before year-end
By the numbers

Built on real construction‑accounting experience.

YEARS OF COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE
120+
Construction‑accounting
CLIENT REVENUE UNDER MANAGEMENT
$184M
Aggregate, current clients
MONTH-END CLOSE
5 bus. days
Average across the book
CONSTRUCTION OR TRADES
92%
Of clients
GOOGLE RATING
4.9
Across 38 reviews
Who we serve

Built specifically for residential construction and home service trades.

INDUSTRY 01MARQUEE
High-End Residential Construction
Residential GCs and multi-unit developers building above the median spec line. The marquee niche we are built around.
Typical owner · $3M–$10MSee the residential page →
Industry 02
Construction
Commercial subs and specialty contractors.
→
Industry 03
The Trades
Electrical, plumbing, HVAC, mechanical, roofing, masonry.
→
Industry 04
Home Services
Pest, lawn, cleaning, restoration, remodeling, service-fleet.
→
Services · Three tiers

Financial support built for where your construction business stands — and where it's headed.

Tier 01 · Foundation

Construction‑ready accounting. Clear monthly reporting.

Starting at$800/ mo

For contractors who need reliable monthly financials built around the way construction businesses operate. Typically $1M–$3M in revenue.

  • Construction-specific chart of accounts
  • Dependable month-end close
  • Monthly financial reporting built for owners
See full Foundation detail →
Most common
Tier 02 · Growth

Run the business from real numbers — not gut feel.

Starting at$2,000/ mo

For growing contractors who need job-level margin visibility, billing discipline, and better cash-flow control. Typically $3M–$10M in revenue.

  • Everything in Foundation
  • Job costing, WIP & margin visibility
  • AIA / milestone billing, AR & lien-waiver workflow
  • Monthly Pulse Report & quarterly performance review meetings
See full Growth detail →
Tier 03 · Acceleration

CFO-level financial leadership for what comes next.

Starting at$6,000/ mo

For established builders managing a growing pipeline, larger projects, and higher‑stakes financial decisions. Typically $8M+ in revenue.

  • Everything in Growth
  • + 13-week cash & working capital planning
  • Backlog, WIP & margin‑fade analysis
  • Project pipeline, inventory & capital planning
See full Acceleration detail →
Tax

The natural companion to any plan — or an engagement of its own.

Every tier above is built to carry tax cleanly. Layer it onto Foundation, Growth, or Acceleration and your books and your tax position finally move as one — no February surprises, no scramble. Already have solid books? Tax stands on its own, too.

  • Year-round advisoryPlanning that runs all year, not a once-a-spring filing
  • Quarterly planning & estimatesEntity structure, distributions, and estimates on cadence
  • Multi-entity & owner coordinationBusiness and owner returns coordinated under one roof
See the Tax page
Artifact

The Pulse Report. Your business, one page, every month.

The Pulse Report gives you a clear monthly view of the numbers that matter most in residential construction — gross margin, cash position, backlog, job performance, billing exposure, and what needs attention next.

Delivered with plain-English commentary from your Sherpa manager:

What improved. What slipped. What to do next.

FoundationMonthly financial summary built for owners
GrowthFull Pulse Report with job-level performance visibility
AccelerationFull Pulse Report + 13-week cash and working capital forecast
SHERPA · PULSE REPORT
VOL 04 · APRIL 2026
PR-0426-LCB · CONFIDENTIAL
Larkin Custom Builders
PERIOD · APR 01 — APR 30, 2026
GROSS MARGIN
28.4%
▲ +2.1 pts
BACKLOG
$4.2M
▲ +$340k
AR > 60 DAYS
$185k
▼ +$42k storm
WIP OVER-BILL
$92k
▼ Watch

Two open jobs are carrying $128k of unbilled change orders. Bill them this week.

Margin is up on the Hillcrest and Riverbend jobs. AR aging is up because two GCs slipped from net-30 to net-60 this period — we'll send a soft reminder Monday. Backlog is healthy through Q3. Cash runway holds at 7.2 months.

CLOSED ON 5TH BUS. DAY · MAY 7, 2026MARC AMES · FRACTIONAL CFO
Tool partners we run alongside
QuickBooksKarbonBuilder TrendsProcoreJobTreadFoundationSage 300 CRECompanyCamBill.comQuickBooksKarbonBuilder TrendsProcoreJobTreadFoundationSage 300 CRECompanyCamBill.com
Honest placeholder · client logos to come
A real client  ·  placeholder until on-record

Buttoned-up in the field. Now buttoned-up in the books, too.

Dan runs Larkin Custom Builders, a residential GC in Charlotte, NC doing $5.2Mannually. He came up out of the trades. He runs his jobs the right way. He couldn't tell us what each project actually earned, the bookkeeper was two months behind on AR aging, and his CPA showed up in February to deliver a tax surprise.

We came in quietly over 8 weeks. We rebuilt WIP, cleaned up two years of retention, stood up AIA billing on cadence, and put quarterly tax planning on his calendar.

Our team

A senior bench, built so no account ever rides on one person.

Our team has spent their careers in construction-adjacent accounting — CPAs, fractional CFOs, senior managers, tax leads, and WIP specialists who speak the work as a first language. Behind every engagement is a depth of qualification you rarely find under one roof, organized so the right specialist is always on your books.

01

Every discipline under one roof

Senior managers, CPAs, a dedicated tax lead, fractional CFOs, and WIP specialists work your account together — not a single generalist stretched across everything.

02

Construction is the native language

WIP, AIA, retainage, lien waivers, and bonding-line readiness. It's how the team thinks day one — not a learning curve we bill you to climb.

03

Built for continuity

A senior manager owns the relationship; specialists run the work behind them. High-touch where it counts, with no single‑person dependencies.

Are we a fit?

We only sign you on when we're certain we can help your business grow.

If we can't, we'll tell you on the first call. We won't waste your time, your money, or your energy.

The quiz is two minutes.

Take the 2-minute fit assessment Talk to a Sherpa manager

Five questions. No email required to take it. If you're a fit, the last screen is a calendar. If you're not, we'll tell you why and what we'd recommend instead.