Construction Company Bookkeeping For Contractors All Across The USA Including Alaska And Hawaii

Construction Terms And Definitions

Written by Randal DeHart | Wed, Nov 09, 2011

Over The Past 30+ Years - I have accumulated a variety of terms to describe the construction industry. Some of them are intended to be funny, some are serious and the rest are entertaining. Please treat them accordingly.

If You Have - Any others you would like to share please leave a comment below

80/20 Rule – 80% of a contractor’s wealth and wellbeing comes from 20% of their activities

24 Hour Bookkeeper - Bookkeeper that sits in your office quietly, no watering, no feeding, available to work around the clock, never wastes company time surfing the web or chatting on cell phone

Aggravation Box - Computer with construction accounting software operated by a trainee

Auction - End result of working in the business, focusing on the wrong stuff and bad financial reports

Auditor - Person who goes in after the war is lost and bayonets the wounded

Assets of Company - Cash / Receivables – Payables / Trucks / Tools / Equipment / Material

Assets of Firm - Cash / Business Process / Sales Process / Client List / Predictable Cash Flow

Bad Bookkeeping - Saving money in the wrong place and making decisions on garbage reports

Bad Bookkeeper - Wealth prevention tool keeping contractors from earning more than bookkeepers

Bad Numbers - Lead to bad decisions / cash shrinks / business unstable / bankruptcy or failure

Bankruptcy - Result of saving money on bookkeeping and making decisions on garbage reports

BCA Business Coach - Someone who helps you raise your level of thinking and income

BCA Staff Member - Cheerful, well paid, thinking, responsible adult, Mastermind Team member

BCG Matrix - Graphical representation of Cash Cows / Rising Stars / Question Marks / Dogs

Bid - A wild guess carried out to two decimal places

Bid Collector - Customer looking for cheap contractor

Bid Opening - A poker game in which the losing hand wins

Black Box - Computer with construction accounting software operated by a trainee

Bookkeeper Training Contractor - Bookkeepers who train the boss to let them come in late, leave early, call friends and relatives, take long breaks, get paid more and do less and less.

BPMBusiness Process Management for construction company owners to grow passive income streams

Business Failure - No meaningful financial and project management records in the calendar quarter preceding the failure

Business Life Cycle - Start small / grow big / lose shirt / shrink back to small business

Business Plan - A plan to have accurate financial reports to base long and short term decisions on

Business Process Management - Develop a construction business that generates passive income

Business Roundtable - Little round table in tavern with pitcher of beer and four contractors strategizing

Cheap - Not enough time or money to do it right first time; but plenty of time and money to do it over

Chaos - Always on the dollars coming in; never on the money going out

Client - Someone who buys construction services and is more concerned about quality than price

Comfort Zone - Success you have now since that is what you feel you deserve no more / no less

Company Bookkeeper - Expensive luxury for construction companies that do not know about outsourcing

Completion Date - The point at which liquidated damages begin

Contractors - The people who makes civilization possible by building and maintaining structures

Contractor Gambling - One project away from making it big or going broke

Contractor Chaos - Contractor netting <$100K doing everything his way; especially the bookkeeping

Contractor Cheap - Amateur with customers from Hell and host of the game show “Low Price Leader”

Contractor Income - The average income of the six people they spend the most time with

Contractor Rich - BCA client earning $100K-$200K by building a client base to sell and service

Contractor Student - BCA client net <$100K learning how to get Rich then Wealthy

Contractor Successful - Contractor using timely accurate financial reports to base their decisions upon

Contractor Volume - Loses money on every sale and tries to make it up with a volume of new work

Contractor Wealthy - BCA Client earning $200K + Investing 50K with 100 clients to service

Construction Bookkeeping - System for setup and maintaining construction bookkeeping

Construction Bookkeeping And Accounting - System for setup and maintaining construction accounting

Construction Accountant – Someone who turns piles of numbers into meaningful trends

C.P.A. - Someone who is qualified to do tax returns and we refer a lot of business to the ones tha only do tax returns.

C.P.A Construction Consultant - Someone who has seen a bunch of tax returns and thinks they know how to run a construction business. More dangerous to the contractors financial health than a drunken car salesman on a backhoe at a gas station, in the dark, digging up live fuel lines.

C.P.A Doing Construction Bookkeeping - QuickBooks setup to make doing tax returns easy while greasing the rails for the contractor to go down the tube and go broke by focusing only on reducing taxes not cash flow and profitable jobs.

Critical Path Method - A management technique for losing your shirt under perfect control

Customer - Someone who buys construction services and is more concerned about price than quality

Delayed Payment - A tourniquet applied at the bank balance of any contractor who will allow it

Delusional - Contractor going to learn to use QuickBooks effectively in a few months

Developer - Company looking for a few, good, low priced, high volume contractors they can school

Displaced Aggression - Being angry at someone due to events/circumstances from elsewhere

Engineer's Estimate - The cost of construction in heaven

Expensive - Goods or services that no matter how cheap they are; do not work

Experience - What you get, when you get, what you don’t want

Failure - A few errors in judgment repeated everyday

Fear - What initiates change or stops progress

Five At Five For Five – The five reports at five o’clock for five minutes that tells you how your business is doing

Fifteen Minutes Too Late - If you think you should fire somebody, you’re already 15 minutes too late

Fully Burdened Rate -Includes all the costs of keeping an employee on the payroll, not just wages

Hard Work - Expressway to Retired

Income - Working for daily money

Insanity - Hiring and firing cheap in-house bookkeepers over and over and over expecting useful reports

Inexpensive - Goods or services that do work beyond the warranty period

KPI - Key Performance Indicators if viewed daily and understood leads to wealth

Lawyer - Person who goes in after the auditors to strip the bodies

Leveling - When two or more people spend time together the group will level to the strongest personality

Listening - Contractor who asks their client what materials and results they want and give it to them

Little Leaks - Sink the construction business because they are easy to ignore like what ten minutes is costing your company

Liquidated Damages - A penalty for failing to achieve the impossible

Low Bidder - A contractor who is wondering what he left out

Mastermind Team - BCA Staff and Clients who mentor BCA contractor clients

MAP – Marketing / Accounting / Production / formula for success

MR>MC - Wherever marginal revenue exceeds marginal cost do the job

No Financial Reports – Driving on the highway, at night, windows blacked out and being surprised by the crash

Non-Construction Accountant – Dim-bulb trying to jam retail accounting methods into construction accounting

Not Listening - Contractor who gives their clients what the contractor likes not what the client wants

OSHA - A protective coating made by half-baking a mixture of fine print, red tape, split hairs and baloney

PAM – Production / Accounting after checks bounce and letters for back taxes / Marketing word of mouth

Pioneer - Contractor with flaming arrows in the back from asking the bookkeeper for accurate reports

Poor Contractors - Have hundred dollar conversations with their mentors and attend the business round table

Process - System to produce predicable quality results and reap dividends for the owners

Process Development - Do it, Document it, and Delegate it

Project Manager - The conductor of an orchestra in which every musician is in a different union

Project Management - Combination of skills and construction project software

QuickBooks For Contractors - Accounting software for construction companies

Rain Maker - The person in the contractors firm that acquires new clients

Purpose of Firm - Acquire clients and satisfy their needs

Remodel House - Forming (Honeymoon), Storming (demolition), Norming (Rough-In), Performing (Paint)

Retail Bookkeeper - Worked at store somewhere, thinks all accounting is the same, expensive lesson for contractors

Retired - Means you got tired of them, or they got tired of you

Rich - Income exceeds outgo

ROI - Risk of Incarceration; in most cases the business owner is responsible for unfiled taxes and missed payments, not the bad bookkeeper

Salesperson - Amateur sorter

Sales Process - Documented system for acquiring new clients for the Firm

Solution - Properly setup and maintained QuickBooks For Contractors file

Sorter - Professional Rain Maker

Strategic Bookkeeping Services - Bookkeeping services for construction that understands and applies principles of profit and growth strategies

Strategy of Preeminence - Contractor with the clients best interests in mind

Strike - An effort to increase egg production by strangling the chicken

Success - A few simple disciplines practiced everyday

SWOT - Knowing the company’s Strengths / Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats and what to do about it

Tax Preparer Doing Construction Bookkeeping - QuickBooks setup to make doing tax returns easy while greasing the rails for the contractor to go broke focusing only on reducing taxes not cash flow and profitable jobs.

Tenant Improvement – Bid, award contract, work day and night, pressure, pressure, pressure, done!

The Contractors Accountant – Someone who cares about contractors and their well-being, Randal DeHart

Warranty Work - The project that never ends

Wealthy Contractors - Work on building relationships and innovating (faster/better/cheaper)

Wealthy Contractors - Have million dollar conversations with their mentors

Wealth - Not working because you have enough cash to live the rest of your life

Working On Wrong Stuff – You can’t get rich with your head in the ditch

 

Outsourced Construction Accounting Services

Outsourced Construction Bookkeeping Services

 

QuickBooks Expert Specializing In Construction Bookkeeping Services

 

About The Author:

Randal DeHart, PMP, QPA is the co-founder of Business Consulting And Accounting in Lynnwood Washington. He is the leading expert in outsourced construction bookkeeping and accounting services for small construction companies across the USA. He is experienced as a Contractor, Project Management Professional, Construction Accountant, Intuit ProAdvisor and QuickBooks For Contractors Expert. This combination of experience and skill sets provides a unique perspective which allows him to see the world through the eyes of a contractor, Project Manager, Accountant and construction accountant. This quadruple understanding is what sets him apart from other Intuit ProAdvisors and accountants to the benefit of all of the construction contractors he serves across the USA. Visit http://www.fasteasyaccounting.com/randal-dehart/ to learn more.