Renegade Bookkeeping Ltd specializes in real estate and construction bookkeeping services.  We seen all sides of the industry during our careers starting as subcontractors ourselves.  We know what it is like in the field and how hard it is to keep our books in order.

Working at an large accounting firm we completed year-end reviews and corporate taxes. After 2 years of working with local contractors and home builders we seen a need for quality bookkeepers.

In addition to performing several year-end adjustments, we also spent our time training internal bookkeepers.

As an accountant, the firm would charge out our time at over $100 an hour to the clients.  When we have to spend our time cleaning up the bookkeeping at year-end, this increases the year-end bill for our clients.

Renegade Bookkeeping Ltd is looking to decrease this issue in the real estate and construction industries by providing quality bookkeeping.  We would rather do your books correctly first, that way your accountant can spend less time cleaning them up.

Your accountant should be spending their time with you, on future growth and taxation strategies for your business.

Want to know the fastest way to see if you need our real estate and construction bookkeeping services? Look at your prior year’s adjusting journal entries your accountant performed.

If they adjusted more then 4 entries, then something was being missed.

The perfect set of books should have 2 adjusting entries.

  1. To record the dividends issued to the shareholders during the year.
  2. To record the taxes payable/receivable for the year.

Sometimes you will see an adjustment for amortization of capital assets, this is a higher level entry and most bookkeepers leave this for the accountant.  Renegade Bookkeeping Ltd tracks this for you, so no worries there.

If you are not sure if you need our services, give us a call!  We will spend some time with you free of charge to determine if our services are right for you.

Real Estate and Construction Bookkeeping Services – Common Mistakes

  1. Purchase Capital Assets

    Tools, equipment, and vehicles are the most common assets we see performing construction bookkeeping for our clients.


    Additionally, assets can be considered as an item over $500 that will last over a year. These items will need  to be setup as an asset and then amortized over the useful life of the item.

  2. Revenue Canada has a great resource page that you can reference when recording an asset.  Visit Revenue Canada’s website and bookmark the page.

  3. Selling Capital Assets

    When an asset is sold, it needs to be taken out of the books. This will usually create a gain or a loss for accounting purposes.

    Visit our page on bookkeeping for capital assets to receive a more in-depth training.

  4. Bank Reconciliations


    At the end of the month/year the bookkeeping balance needs to agree to the actual bank balance.  In addition to the outstanding cheques or deposits.

    A bank reconciliation is the process of matching each bookkeeping transaction to the actual transaction on the bank statement.

    When these do not agree, your accountant needs to reconcile it themselves (at $100+/hour), or record it to your shareholder loan account (potential higher personal taxes).

    A bank reconciliation is the process of matching each bookkeeping transaction to the actual transaction on the bank statement.

    Performing this in Sage 50 (Simply Accounting) is simple and can continue on from month to month.

    If this is a concern, we offer to reconcile your accounts at our standard rate of $35/hour which is far more cost effective then asking your accountant to perform this at year end.

    Additionally, you can follow our step-by-step training and do it yourself.

  5. Job Tracking

    Another construction bookkeeping service we offer is job tracking, this is important to keep track of your income and expenses per project.

    When these are not tracked correctly it can be the difference from making a profit and losing money on a job.

    There are two types of expenses;

    I. Fixed Expenses: these are expenses that will occur each month no matter how many jobs you have on the go (i.e. rent, utilities, some employee salaries). These typically are not attached to a job and are just considered the cost of doing business.

    ii. Variable Costs: these are expenses that are directly related to the job (i.e. supplies, material, subcontracting). These expenses would not typically happen if you were not working on that particular job.

    If you would like Renegade Bookkeeping Ltd to set this up for you, please give us a call. Additionally, this is simple to do in Sage 50 and is easy to view job reports, visit our DIY page to find more training on the subject.

  6. Questions

    If your bookkeeper isn’t asking you questions about your transactions or activities, this should be a red flag. Even the best bookkeepers need to ask questions about your operations and different transactions.

    There are so many variables that come into play with each business, it does not matter how common your business is it is still a unique entity.

    A professional bookkeeper will ask you ongoing questions to stay informed with your business and goals.  This is just something to keep in mind when working with a bookkeeper.

Call and ask about our Real Estate and Construction Bookkeeping Services!

Honestly, if you are on the fence about hiring a bookkeeper just give us a call and we can discuss your needs.  We are not going to take a job if we do not feel we can add some real value.

We hope you found this entry on real estate and construction bookkeeping services valuable.  Please like and share this post with your network or directly with anyone you think might benefit from our services.