Construction Business QuickBooks CleanupFor Texas owners who build

Steven Palmieri works as the Tax CFO and the Entrepreneur's CFO on construction files. The practice is in Dallas. Texas owners meet us by video and a shared file, and the close falls on the day you set. We do not keep a second office in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, or out in the counties. For readers outside Dallas and Fort Worth, the honest line is that we are all Texans, and the books still close on the same day whichever side of the state the crew is on.

Inside Dallas and Fort Worth we can talk about the places the way neighbors do, because the practice sits on this side of the Metroplex. Everywhere else we will not claim a Tuesday on your river or a Saturday at your fair. The wink is the same. A place you know is a way back to the file, and then we look at the job.

On a private Texas job where a mechanic's lien could still be claimed, the owner reserves a tenth of the contract price for the whole time the crew is working and for the 30 days after the work is done. When the paper never states a price, that same tenth is taken from what the work is worth. Texas names that held slice funds required to be reserved, and the job cost report keeps it waiting beside the job that earned it.

If you are the contractor, it may be money you expect and do not have. If you are the owner, it may be money you are holding back. Either way it is not free cash and it is not finished profit. We show it as the waiting amount it is, and the month can still close while a punch list is open. Every Texan who has waited on the last slice of a job knows the feeling. The work looks done. The money is not in hand. We treat that feeling as a line on the balance sheet, not as a story you have to retell in April.

The first cold morning a Texas crew reaches for a hoodie, a pour often slips. Everyone on the job feels that. The books should feel it too. An idle day is time on that job, not a vague extra in the bank account. We would rather show a job that ran long than a job that looks perfect beside a bank account that does not.

A written pay request on a Texas private job starts a clock the books have to keep. The owner who got that request, for an amount the contract already allows, covering work that was properly done or materials that are suitably stored, has until the 35th day to pay, after taking out anything the statute lets them hold. Once that payment lands, the contractor has 7 days to pass each subcontractor the share of their own work. The tier under them gets the same 7 days.

A file that ignores those dates turns collections into memory. We want the request, the date it was received, the date the money moved, and the date the subs were paid. Suitably stored or specially made materials can be part of a proper request. A pile of gear in a yard can also be a pile nobody has agreed to pay for yet. Every Texan who has walked a yard full of material bought ahead of a start date knows the itch to call it progress. We share that itch and then we look for the request.

A Texas house billed as one price, with labor never stated apart from the materials built into the job, is not taxed the same way as a bill that shows the split. On that one-price contract the builder pays tax when the supplies and materials are bought, and the customer is not charged tax on top. When the contract divides the price, or the bills are required to show the split, the builder may buy those materials with a resale certificate, collect tax from the customer on the materials and on some services that are stated apart, and leave the construction labor outside that collection. The materials line has to be at least as large as the supplier invoice under it. A smaller line leaves the drawer with nothing that matches.

Repair, remodel, and restoration on Texas property that is not a residence is taxed on the entire charge, labor together with materials, whether the bill is one price or split. That side includes an office, a restaurant, a farm building, a hospital, a plant, a parking lot, and a retention pond. A family dwelling is the other side. A hotel, and a dwelling rented for less than 30 days, also miss the labor exemption that a house can have. Upkeep that is scheduled, on something that is not broken, is a third path and needs a contract or other proof that the work repeats. Tax is paid on what you buy to do that upkeep. Parts that become part of the property are taxable. A coat of paint that really is upkeep is labor outside the tax. A new roof, or paint that goes past upkeep, is repair or remodel.

The contract and the Comptroller's published treatment decide that path. A prettier account name does not. Every Texan who has priced both a house and a storefront has felt this fork. We feel it in the file. The tax bucket is chosen by the paper, not by the account that happened to be nearby.

Texas does not put a tax on a person's wages the way many states do. Many companies here are taxed on a margin, and that tax is the franchise tax. A limited liability company or a corporation that does business here generally files. A builder who never formed a company, and who still works as a sole owner, generally stays off that filing. When yearly revenue for a 2026 or 2027 report stays at or under 2,650,000 dollars, that report carries no franchise tax, and the long form is not the one that goes in. What still goes in, even when no tax is owed, is the short public information report or the ownership report, unless the Comptroller has already said that company may skip it. A company that skips the short report can lose the ability to do business in this state.

Most years that filing has to be in by the fifteenth day of May. When that day is a weekend or a holiday, the next business day is the one that counts. Most builders are not a retail counter, so the rate they meet is 0.75 percent of margin. A company that truly sells goods at retail or wholesale can meet 0.375 percent instead. The name painted on the door of the truck is not how the rate gets chosen. We read what the company actually sells, and we would rather close the months than invent a margin from a file that does not tie. The franchise report is not a cover that says the figures were examined. An examined cover is still signed at a firm that holds the license to sign one.

A wage file in Texas needs the state unemployment account and the habit of a quarterly wage report. Those are setup facts. The owner already has someone who runs payday, and that person keeps running it. Our piece is standing the wage file up so the hours can be seen. Workers compensation is a choice in this state, not a tax we collect. If you have a policy, the premium needs a home in the books that is not a random job. If you do not, that is your decision and we will not invent a policy line.

Trucks, trailers, and the tools that stay with the company are business property. Texas expects that list in the spring. A stack of titles in the door pocket of a work truck is not a list. We keep the list current through the year so spring is a copy, not a hunt. Every Texan with a work truck knows that spring list. We know it as a file that should already exist in January. The first cool week after a long summer, the week a crew finally works a full day without watching the heat, is a good week to have that list already true.

Fair Park sits just east of downtown, and a lot of its buildings went up for the Texas Centennial. When the State Fair opens, usually on the last Friday in September, those buildings fill with people who came for the midway, the livestock, and Big Tex. That Friday is a night we look forward to as well, lights and all, from this side of Dallas. You see the lights. We see the concrete and wonder what life is left on a set of books, and whether the job that poured a slab like it still has a cost code.

East of the downtown freeway, Deep Ellum runs out toward Exposition, and the old warehouses there are still a place people go for music. Bishop Arts, over in north Oak Cliff, is a short grid of shops and galleries around Bishop and Davis. People in north Oak Cliff still give directions as if Bishop Arts were its own town, long after the annexation pulled it into Dallas. Crews work all of those streets. The books do not care about the neighborhood. They care whether the invoice hit the job. On a Dallas job the 10 percent holdback is easy to spend in your head because the next start is already loud. On the balance sheet it is not spent. Fair Park will open again next September whether the file is ready. We would rather meet that weekend with jobs that already show their costs.

The Fort Worth Stockyards are the old livestock market north of downtown. The stock show and rodeo, formally the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show, has run every year since the late nineteenth century, traditionally from the middle of January into February. Cowtown Coliseum still holds weekly rodeos. We like that the pens have a printed season. A construction file needs the same kindness, or the holdback sits in the wrong account until spring.

Sundance Square is the downtown district named for the Sundance Kid, and the Water Gardens fill the south end near the convention center. The Kimbell and the Modern bring people to the Cultural District. Crews work both sides of downtown and far beyond them, from a house near that district to a shop floor anywhere the work is. The books should be able to say which job a load of steel belonged to, without a story about which side of town the truck was on. The stock show ending does not close a set of books. The pens will have another January. A set of books does not get that kind of reset.

Every Texan can picture Houston in March, when the livestock show takes over a stretch of days that the organizers print in advance. We like a printed end. An open job cost with no end date is how a year closes on a guess. Readers outside Dallas and Fort Worth are still Texans with us about that printed week. We do not claim a seat in the stands, and the practice keeps no office on the ship channel.

The ship channel, the port, the medical center, and the energy corridor are real places and real jobs. Inside the Loop or out on the Katy Freeway, the paper is the paper. A summer day in Houston can stop a crew earlier than the schedule hoped. That lost hour belongs on the job. A plant turnaround and a house remodel can hit the same bank account in one week. They do not share a Texas sales tax path, and they should not share a junk account either. From a Houston job the call shows the shared file, and there is no desk of ours on that water.

The River Walk sits a level below the street, a pair of sidewalks linking the theater, La Villita, and the rest of that bend. Fiesta arrives in April and the city leans into it, parades and all, whether a pay application went out. We like a festival that has a known month. Every Texan who has walked that lower path knows you can hear the street and still be somewhere else. A deposit can feel like that. Anyone outside Dallas and Fort Worth is still a Texan in this conversation about the walk, and the practice has no trailer and no shop on that water.

The Alamo and Market Square will still be there in the morning. The aging on the draw will not fix itself. A house and a restaurant remodel within a short drive of the river do not share a sales tax path. Ten percent still waits while the work is going and for 30 days after, where a lien could be claimed. Fiesta week is a bad time to pretend that slice is already spent. We work with owners in San Antonio by video. A job downtown and a job outside the loop follow the same 35 day and 7 day clocks once the request is proper.

Barton Springs, in Zilker Park, stays cool all year because the Edwards Aquifer feeds it. People in Austin count on that. A job cost should have the same steadiness from June to December. Lady Bird Lake, which a lot of people still call Town Lake, sits right there. The skyline changes. The need for a cost that ties does not. South Congress fills up. Sixth Street, once Pecan Street, stays loud. We are all Texans about those places. We talk about them from the page, not as neighbors who swim there on Tuesday.

The Trail of Lights fills Zilker for a couple of weeks in December. It is a cheerful deadline that arrives whether the file is closed. We would rather meet that month with jobs current and the bank matched. Austin adds work faster than most back offices can name it. We retire the names that have no balance and no recent life. A slipped afternoon on a roof is time on that job. We work with owners in Austin by video, and a video call does not slide the day you named for the close.

The other pages on this address stay with the job, the draw, the bank, and the close, in words any builder in the country can use. This page is where the Texas clocks live, so they are not handed to an owner whose state wrote a different percent. Bring the contract, the last draw, and the bank statement for the month you stopped trusting. If a field change was agreed beside a slab and never written down, say that in ordinary words.

A cleanup counts the costs that already landed on the wrong accounts. The Tax CFO move, on a Texas construction file, is to put the next bill on the right job while the month is still open, so the holdback, the sales tax path, and the margin are not a surprise in May. That decision belongs with Steven Palmieri and the people who close the month with you.