Built for residential builders. Not adapted for them.
WIP schedules, retainage tracking, AIA billing, job-cost ledgers, change-order logs, draw management, and year-round tax planning — all run by a senior manager who already speaks residential.
A complete accounting practice, tuned to how residential cash moves.
Three practices — accounting, finance, tax — delivered as one team, calibrated for builders who bill on progress, hold retainage, and chase draws.
Residential bookkeeping that reconciles.
Every transaction coded to the right job, the right cost code, the right phase. Your books close by Day 5 so you can bid the next month from real numbers, not last quarter's guesses.
- Job-cost ledger by cost code
- WIP schedule, updated monthly
- AIA billing & draw management
- Retainage tracking per contract
- Change-order log reconciliation
Cash on the calendar, not on hope.
A rolling 13-week cash forecast tied to your draw schedule, your sub payment calendar, and your retainage release dates. You see the gap before it opens.
- Rolling 13-week cash forecast
- Draw-schedule integration
- Sub payment calendar
- Retainage release tracking
- Backlog & pipeline reporting
Year-round planning, not seasonal filing.
Quarterly tax projections built on your actual job margins. We model 179D, R&D credits, entity-structure optimization, and estimated payments — four times a year, not once.
- Quarterly tax projections
- Entity-structure optimization
- 179D & R&D credit modeling
- Estimated payment scheduling
- Year-end package (federal + state)
Seven problems we see constantly, each with a documented answer.
Margin looks fine until the job is done.
You don't run a WIP schedule. Estimated vs. actual costs drift apart for months. You find out you lost money after the final draw.
Monthly WIP with variance flags.
We build a WIP schedule for every active job, updated at close. Over-billings and under-billings surface on Day 5, not Day 90.
Retainage ages out and nobody chases it.
$180k in retainage across four jobs. Two of them finished six months ago. Nobody sent the release request.
Retainage aging report with auto-alerts.
Every retainage balance gets an aging clock. When it crosses the contractual release date, your manager flags it in the Pulse Report.
Change orders live in email, not in the ledger.
The field approved $42k in extras. The bookkeeper never saw the email. The owner finds out at tax time.
Change-order log tied to the job ledger.
Every approved CO gets a line in the job-cost ledger the week it's signed. Revenue and cost move together.
Draws go out late because billing data is stale.
The PM waits for the bookkeeper. The bookkeeper waits for receipts. The draw request goes out ten days late.
Draw-ready billing by Day 7.
We close by Day 5, reconcile cost-to-date by Day 6, and hand your PM a draw-ready AIA package by Day 7.
Sub invoices sit in a drawer until someone panics.
You're net-30 with your subs, but your AP process is net-whenever. Lien notices show up. Relationships fray.
Sub payment calendar synced to draws.
Sub invoices get coded, approved, and scheduled against your draw receipts. Cash out follows cash in.
Tax is a once-a-year fire drill.
Your CPA sees your books in February. Estimated payments are guesses. Entity structure hasn't been reviewed since you started.
Quarterly tax projections on real margins.
We model your tax exposure every quarter using actual job margins, not last year's return. Estimated payments are right-sized. 179D and R&D credits are identified before year-end.
The owner is the accounting department.
You're reconciling on Sunday night. You're the one chasing the GC for the draw. You're the one pulling numbers for your CPA.
A full team, not a freelancer.
A senior manager, a staff accountant, and a tax advisor — all fluent in residential construction, all on your account.
He knew the jobs were profitable.He just couldn't prove it until the Pulse Report.
Marcus Reyes runs Reyes & Sons Builders, a $6M residential GC in Austin, TX. Three generations of craft, twelve active jobs, and a bookkeeper who was always two months behind.
By the time Marcus saw his numbers, the job was already framed. He couldn't course-correct because the data was historical, not operational. Sherpa closed his books by Day 5, built a WIP schedule for every job, and put quarterly tax planning on his calendar.
Your whole business on one page, calibrated for residential builders.
- Gross margin by job, trended over 6 months
- WIP over/under billing, flagged at threshold
- Retainage aging with release-date alerts
- AR aging by GC, with collection notes
- Cash runway in weeks, tied to draw schedule
- Backlog and pipeline coverage ratio
- Change-order revenue recognized vs. pending
- Owner commentary in plain English
One page. Every month. On Day 5. The senior manager who writes it has closed books for builders like you for years.
SHERPA · PULSE REPORTHow a $6M builder got his Sundays back.
Twelve active jobs. One part-time bookkeeper, two months behind. The owner reconciled bank accounts on Sundays. Tax estimates were last year's numbers plus 10%. Retainage from two finished jobs — $184k — had never been billed.
- Closed the books by Day 5, month one
- Built WIP schedules for all 12 jobs
- Filed retainage release requests ($184k)
- Set up 13-week cash forecast
- Ran first quarterly tax projection
Clean close on Day 5. Retainage collected within 45 days. Cash forecast caught a $220k gap two months before it would have hit. Tax estimates right-sized — no April surprise. The owner hasn't touched QuickBooks since.
Generalist firms have to translate your business. We already speak it.
“The senior manager on your account has seen your problem before.”
Sherpa Accounting Management
You'll bid the next job from real data.
Clean books by Day 5. A WIP schedule for every active job. A 13-week cash forecast tied to your draw schedule. Quarterly tax projections built on actual margins. And a Pulse Report that tells you what to do next — in plain English, every month.
No pitch deck. No generic proposal. We'll send you a sample Pulse Report for a builder your size, walk through the numbers, and tell you honestly whether Sherpa is the right fit. If it's not, we'll say so.
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.