Exterior Contractors
We track every job from deposit to final invoice. You see which projects actually made money after materials, labor, and weather delays.
The Work
Exterior contractors in Northern New Mexico work in unpredictable conditions. Winter freezes shut down roofing and painting for weeks. Summer monsoons flood job sites and push completion dates back. The window for ideal working weather is shorter than most people realize, which means you need to make money during the good months and survive the slow ones.
The financial challenge matches the physical one. Materials get delivered to scattered job sites. Crews work at multiple locations the same week. Deposits come in for jobs that won’t finish for months. Customer payments, material invoices, and labor costs all need to connect to specific projects or you’ll never know which jobs made money.
Who This Covers
Who This Covers
Roofers, stucco contractors, painters, siding installers, fence builders, deck contractors, window and door installers, gutter companies. Anyone doing exterior work on homes and buildings in Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico.
The Friction
The Friction
Materials purchased in bulk get dropped at job sites without allocation. Deposits sit in the bank looking like profit before you’ve done the work. Subcontractor invoices arrive weeks after the job is done. Weather delays throw off your schedule and your budget simultaneously.
What We Track
Every job gets its own tracking. Material purchases, labor hours, subcontractor payments, and equipment rental all tie to specific projects. When a job closes out, you know exactly what it cost to complete and what margin you actually made. This is job costing done properly, not a single “Materials” expense line that tells you nothing useful.
We also handle the compliance work that New Mexico requires. Gross Receipts Tax returns filed monthly with the correct location codes. Subcontractor payments tracked with W-9s on file before checks go out, so January 1099 filing doesn’t become a scramble. Equipment purchases set up for proper depreciation.
Job Profitability
Job Profitability
Revenue and costs tracked per project in QuickBooks. Material costs allocated to specific jobs instead of lumped together. Labor charged to the project where it was performed. You can compare the deck job in Tesuque against the one in Eldorado and see which performed better.
GRT and Contractor Compliance
GRT and Contractor Compliance
New Mexico Gross Receipts Tax returns prepared and filed correctly. Subcontractor W-9s collected and payments tracked for 1099 reporting. Equipment depreciation handled properly. The compliance pieces that create problems when ignored.
Common Problems
Material waste disappears from the records. You order 20 bundles of stucco mix, use 16 on the job, and the other four end up in the truck for the next project. Nobody tracks the carryover. Your cost on that job looks higher than it should, and the next job’s costs look artificially low. Over a year, material usage becomes impossible to analyze because nothing was allocated correctly.
Deposits create a cash flow illusion. A customer puts down $8,000 for a roofing job. That money hits your bank account and feels like income. You spend it. Then the weather delays the job for three weeks, the customer gets anxious, and you still need to buy materials and pay the crew. The deposit was never yours to spend until the work was done.
Material Tracking Gaps
Material Tracking Gaps
Bulk purchases expensed immediately without job allocation. Leftover materials moved to the next job with no adjustment. You think a job cost $4,200 in materials when the real number was $3,600, and you can’t figure out why your bids keep coming in too high.
Seasonal Cash Blind Spots
Seasonal Cash Blind Spots
Busy months generate cash that gets spent before slow months arrive. No visibility into how much profit was actually made during the season versus how much was deposits for uncompleted work. December hits and there’s no cushion because the numbers were never clear.
What Changes
You bid based on history instead of guesses. You finished four stucco jobs last year with similar square footage. You know exactly what materials cost, how many labor hours they took, and what margin you made. The next bid for a similar job uses real numbers, not estimates you hope are close enough.
Seasonal planning becomes possible. You see how much actual profit accumulated during the busy months, not just cash in the account. You know what’s coming in for jobs in progress versus completed work. When January rolls around, you’ve set aside reserves based on real numbers instead of hoping the bank balance holds out.
Accurate Bidding
Accurate Bidding
Historical job data shows what similar projects actually cost. Material estimates based on real usage, not supplier quotes. Labor hours from completed jobs inform future scheduling. You stop leaving money on the table or underbidding jobs that should have been profitable.
Weather-Ready Finances
Weather-Ready Finances
Cash reserves built during productive months based on actual profitability. Deposits tracked separately from earned revenue. You see the slow season coming with time to prepare instead of realizing the problem when the account runs low and the crew still needs to get paid.
Santa Fe's Small Business Bookkeeper
The Next Step:
A Quick Conversation
Tell us about your business and what you're dealing with. We'll listen, ask a few questions, and give you a straightforward quote.
