Accounting software for construction company buyers: what to buy at 1 to 10, 10 to 50 and 50+ people, the features each stage needs, and when to switch.
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Picking accounting software for a construction company is not one decision. It is three or four decisions spread across the life of the business, and most owners make the first one by accident. You start with whatever your accountant set up, you outgrow it around the time you hire a full-time office person, and then one day you realize nobody can tell you whether the job you just finished made money.
I ran three restoration companies over 14 years, and I made every one of these mistakes. I stayed on a starter system too long, I paid for a big system before we had anyone who could run it, and I learned that the software matters a lot less than who is entering the data and how. This guide is organized by company size, because that is the honest way to buy: what a 1 to 10 person shop needs is very different from what a 50+ person contractor needs. For each stage you get what to buy, what to skip, what it costs where vendors publish it, and the signs it is time to move up.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Before you look at a single demo, answer five questions on paper. They decide which tier you belong in far better than any feature list.
| 1 | How many people touch the books? Count the owner, office manager, bookkeeper, outside accountant and any project manager who approves bills. User limits and pricing are usually set by this number. |
| 2 | How do you bill? Fixed-price residential, insurance work, T&M service calls, or AIA G702/G703 pay applications with retainage. Pay apps and retainage are where general-purpose software starts to strain. |
| 3 | Do you run payroll in-house, and is any of it certified or union? Prevailing wage and union payroll push you toward construction-specific systems sooner than anything else. |
| 4 | Do you need a WIP schedule? If a bank or bonding company asks for a work-in-progress report with over and under billings, you need percent-of-completion data the software can produce without a weekend in Excel. |
| 5 | What else has to connect? Estimating, project management (Procore, Buildertrend), time tracking, and your receivables follow-up. A system that does not connect to your field tools means double entry, and double entry means bad job costs. |
If you are not sure what makes construction books different from a regular small business, our QuickBooks for contractors setup and job costing guide walks through job costing, cost codes and progress billing in plain terms.
| Company size | Typical setup | What it must do | Usual weak spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 10 people | QuickBooks Online Plus or Advanced, maybe Xero, plus a field or billing app | Invoices, job-level profit, bank feeds, sales tax, 1099s | Cost codes and pay apps get messy |
| 10 to 50 people | QuickBooks Online Advanced or Enterprise with add-ons, or Sage 100 Contractor, Foundation, Acumatica | Cost codes, committed costs, retainage, certified payroll, change orders | Too many disconnected tools, or a big system nobody is trained on |
| 50+ people | Sage Intacct Construction, Trimble Viewpoint Spectrum or Vista, Foundation, Acumatica | WIP, multi-entity, union payroll, equipment costing, approvals, audit trail | Cost and implementation time |
At this size you are probably the estimator, the project manager and half the office. The goal is not a perfect system. The goal is books your accountant can close every month and a job profit number you trust.
For most small contractors in the US, that means QuickBooks Online. Intuit includes Projects, which tracks income, costs and labor by job, in the Plus and Advanced plans. Simple Start and Essentials do not list project profitability, so a contractor who wants job costing should start at Plus.
| QuickBooks Online plan | Regular monthly price | Users | Job costing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple Start | $38 | 1 | Not listed |
| Essentials | $85 | 3 | Not listed |
| Plus | $140 | 5 | Project profitability |
| Advanced | $340 | 25 | Advanced project financials |
Prices as listed on Intuit's QuickBooks pricing page in November 2026, before any introductory discount. Payroll and QuickBooks Time are sold separately.
Xero is a fair alternative if your accountant prefers it, and it connects to tools like Buildertrend. More construction add-ons and contractor bookkeepers work with QuickBooks, though.
Skip construction ERP at this size. I have watched owners buy a system built for 75 people, pay for setup, and then run it like a checkbook because nobody in the office has time to learn it. A clean QuickBooks file with a sensible chart of accounts and cost codes beats a big system that is half set up.
Tip: Set up a short list of cost codes on day one: labor, materials, subcontractors, equipment, permits and dumpsters, and other. You can always split them later. Recoding two years of history is the job nobody wants.
This is where most construction companies get the choice wrong in one direction or the other. You now have a full-time office manager or controller, several project managers, maybe a second crew or a service department. You have two honest paths.
Stay on QuickBooks and add construction tools around it. This works well for residential builders, remodelers and specialty trades whose billing is mostly fixed price or T&M.
The risk with Path 1 is drift. Every add-on is another place for a job number to be wrong. If you go this way, assign one person to own the integrations and check them every month.
Move to software built for contractors, where job costing, payroll and billing live in one database. This fits commercial subs, GCs and anyone with certified or union payroll.
10 TO 50 PEOPLE
Sage 100 Contractor. Sage's documentation covers job cost with budgets and cost codes, payroll that handles union and certified payroll, and equipment costing, with add-on modules for things like estimating and service receivables. Sage markets AIA billing and lien waivers on the product page. Long a common pick for mid-size contractors.
Foundation Software (FOUNDATION). Built only for contractors. Foundation lists job costing, payroll with certified payroll reports and prevailing wage support, PO and subcontracts, equipment, T&M and unit price billing, and WIP reports that flag over and under billing. It sells its own payroll service too.
Acumatica Construction Edition. Cloud ERP with a construction edition. Acumatica prices on consumption (modules and transaction volume) rather than per user, and markets unlimited users on its construction pages. Check the exact license terms, because its licensing guide lists user tiers on some editions.
| If this is true | Lean toward |
|---|---|
| Mostly residential, fixed price or T&M billing | Connected QuickBooks stack |
| Regular AIA pay apps with retainage on commercial jobs | Construction system, or QuickBooks plus a dedicated pay app tool |
| Certified, prevailing wage or union payroll | Construction system |
| Your bonding company wants a monthly WIP schedule | Construction system |
| Your bookkeeper is outsourced and knows only QuickBooks | Connected QuickBooks stack, until you hire in-house |
Whichever path you pick, the receivables side does not take care of itself. A 20-person contractor can have a dozen open invoices across homeowners, GCs and property managers at any given time. Our guide to construction accounts receivable covers how to run that side, and the aging report guide shows what to look at every Monday.
Bring one overdue invoice.
We'll show you how AR Workflow would follow up on it from QuickBooks Online, and what your customer would see.
At this size you have a controller or CFO, multiple divisions or entities, a bonding line, and probably a project management platform like Procore. The question is no longer whether you need construction software. It is which ERP fits how you operate.
50+ PEOPLE
Sage Intacct Construction. Cloud system with a dimensional general ledger, multi-entity consolidation, job costing with committed costs, AIA billing, and support for fixed price, T&M and cost-plus contracts. Sage says it creates the over and under billing entries automatically and produces WIP statements without spreadsheets. Sage and Procore offer a cloud-to-cloud connector.
Trimble Viewpoint Spectrum. Trimble describes Spectrum as web-based cloud ERP for mid to large contractors who want faster onboarding and easier daily use across office and field, with HR and payroll that handles multiple unions and a service module.
Trimble Viewpoint Vista. Trimble positions Vista for large contractors that need deep configuration, complex multi-entity accounting and heavy union, multi-state payroll.
Foundation and Acumatica also scale into this range, and both are worth a demo if you want construction depth without the largest ERP price tags.
We could not find published list prices for these products on the vendor sites in November 2026. Expect pricing to depend on modules, users or transaction volume, and implementation partner fees. Get the implementation quote in writing, including data migration and training, before you sign.
| 1 | Pick a cutover date at year end or quarter end Mid-year cutovers mean two systems for payroll tax filings and a harder audit. |
| 2 | Clean the chart of accounts and cost codes first Moving a messy chart into a new system just gives you a more expensive mess. |
| 3 | Decide what history to bring Open jobs, open AR and AP, and balances are a must. Years of closed job detail can often stay in the old system as read-only. |
| 4 | Run one month in parallel Close the same month in both systems and reconcile the differences before you turn off the old one. |
| 5 | Train the people who enter data, not just the controller Job costing is only as good as the PM coding the bill and the foreman coding the hours. |
Whatever size you are, judge accounting software for a construction company on how it handles these, in this order:
| Feature | Why it matters | When it becomes a must-have |
|---|---|---|
| Job costing with cost codes | Tells you which jobs and which kinds of work make money | From your first employee |
| Progress billing and retainage | Bills by percent complete and tracks money held back until closeout | First commercial or GC job |
| Change order tracking | Keeps approved extras tied to the contract and the invoice | When change orders are a regular thing |
| Committed costs | Shows POs and subcontracts not yet billed, so profit is not overstated | Around 10 to 20 people |
| Certified and union payroll | Required on public and prevailing wage work | First public job |
| WIP and percent of completion | Needed by banks, sureties and for accurate profit on long jobs | When you have bonding or lending |
| Integrations | Cuts double entry between field, estimating and accounting | Always |
One thing none of these systems do well on their own is chase the money. They create the invoice and record the payment. The part in between, where somebody reminds the customer, answers the question and gets the check or card payment in, is usually still a person with a spreadsheet. If you want to understand the difference between the two sides of the ledger, see accounts payable vs. accounts receivable.
To be clear about what we are: AR Workflow is not accounting software. It is not a general ledger, it does not do job costing or payroll, and it does not pay your bills. It is accounts receivable automation that works with QuickBooks Online.
Once an invoice is in QuickBooks Online, AR Workflow puts it on a follow-up schedule: automated emails, two-way texts and ringless voicemail from a dedicated number, with payment links for homeowners. An aging dashboard shows who owes what and who is being followed up on. For insurance work, adjusters get status requests, never a payment link. See how it works for construction accounts receivable and QuickBooks collections, or how automated payment reminders run.
So in a small or mid-size shop on QuickBooks Online, the stack looks like this: QuickBooks for the books, a field tool for the jobs, and AR Workflow for getting paid. Plans are $295, $395 and $495 per month, listed on our pricing page. If you are on Sage, Foundation or Viewpoint, AR Workflow is not the fit today, because it connects to QuickBooks Online.
For most US contractors with 1 to 10 people, QuickBooks Online Plus or Advanced with Projects turned on is the practical choice. It handles invoicing, job-level profit and bank feeds, and most construction add-ons and bookkeepers work with it. Add a dedicated tool if you send AIA pay apps.
Up to a point. QuickBooks works well for residential and specialty trade contractors with simple billing. It gets harder with heavy retainage, certified or union payroll, committed costs and WIP schedules. That is usually when firms with 20 or more people look at construction systems.
Switch when the workarounds cost more than the move: monthly pay apps built in spreadsheets, a separate job cost report outside the system, manual certified payroll, or a bank or surety asking for WIP you cannot produce. Plan the cutover for a year end or quarter end.
QuickBooks Online lists Plus at $140 and Advanced at $340 per month at regular price, as listed on Intuit in November 2026. Construction ERP vendors such as Sage, Foundation, Trimble Viewpoint and Acumatica quote prices based on modules, users or usage, plus implementation. Ask for a written first-year total.
Not always. QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced include project-level job costing, and construction systems include it at the core. You may add a field or project tool so hours and bills are coded to the right job when they happen.
Mostly no. Accounting software sends the invoice and records the payment, and some send basic reminders. Consistent follow-up by email, text and phone is usually a separate process or a separate tool. See our list of the best accounts receivable software.
Related reading
Your books are set. Now get paid.
Bring one overdue invoice to a demo and see what AR Workflow would send, when, and how your customer would pay.
Photo: Unsplash. Product details are from vendor websites and documentation checked in November 2026 and can change. Confirm current features and pricing with each vendor.
Sam owned and ran three restoration companies for more than 14 years and collected over $100 million in receivables. He built AR Workflow in 2020 to give contractors the collections system he wished he'd had.
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