Electrical
Accounting and tax strategy built for electrical contractors
An electrical job can run for months before it closes, and the money shows up in draws with retainage held to the end. We build the books, the job costing, and the tax plan around how contract work actually pays, so you see the margin before closeout, not after.
What a general accountant misses
The money problems that are specific to electrical
Long jobs, draw billing, retainage, and change orders make electrical work its own kind of accounting. Generic bookkeeping tracks the bank balance and misses where the margin actually lives.
Job costing across long projects
Labor, wire, gear, and change orders stack up over months. Without job-level costing, you learn a project lost money after it is already closed and paid.
Progress billing and retainage
Commercial work bills in draws and holds five to ten percent retainage until closeout. Revenue on the books is cash you have not received, and that gap is where contractors get squeezed.
Change orders that never get billed
Scope grows, the crew does the work, and the change order never turns into an invoice. Every unbilled change is margin you earned and gave away.
Material price swings
Copper and gear prices move. A job bid months ago can go underwater by the time you buy the material if the estimate was not built with room to flex.
Trucks, tools, and depreciation
Service trucks, lifts, and tools are major capital outlays, and how you depreciate them moves your tax bill. Section 179 and bonus depreciation only pay off when the timing is planned.
How we help
A finance department that speaks electrical
Job costing that holds up
Every hour, every reel of wire, and every change order tied to the job, so you know the real margin long before closeout instead of hoping it worked out.
Progress billing and retainage
Draws, retainage, and closeout tracked so you always know what is billed, what is held, and what has actually landed, and you can plan cash around it.
Change-order discipline
A process that makes sure approved change orders reach the invoice, so the extra work your crews already did turns into revenue instead of a write-off.
Truck and equipment depreciation
Section 179 and bonus depreciation on trucks, lifts, and tools, timed to your income and your tax year so a big purchase lands the deduction where it counts.
Cash flow around draws
Forecasting that knows your draw schedules and retainage, so payroll and material buys are covered in the stretch between payments.
Entity and year-round tax
An S-Corp structure where the profit supports it, plus quarterly planning that acts on deductions and credits while there is still time to use them.
Proven where it counts
One obsession: keeping more of what you earn.
Why Today CFO
Why electrical owners work with us
We understand contract work
Job costing, progress billing, retainage, and change orders are the whole game in electrical. We track them the way the work actually runs, not with generic books.
Depreciation planned, not guessed
Trucks, lifts, and tools are large deductions. We time them against your income so the write-off shows up in the year you need it most.
Run by an operator, not a filer
Tom built and sold a company before starting Today CFO. He has met payroll and carried real risk, so he reads a job the way an owner does, watching the margin move, not just filing the result at year end.
Straight answers
Electrical accounting and tax questions
Why do electrical contractors need job costing?
An electrical job can run for months, piling up labor, wire, gear, and change orders the whole way. Without costing at the job level, you find out a job lost money only after it closes. Real job costing shows you the margin while you can still do something about it.
How does retainage affect an electrician's cash flow and taxes?
Commercial work usually bills in draws and holds five to ten percent retainage until the job closes out. That is revenue on paper you have not collected yet. If your books and your cash forecast do not separate billed from received, retainage quietly ties up the cash you need for payroll.
What happens to unbilled change orders?
Scope creeps, the crew does the extra work, and the change order never makes it onto an invoice. That is pure margin gone. We put a process around change orders so approved extra work actually reaches the bill instead of the write-off column.
Can electrical contractors write off trucks and equipment?
Section 179 and bonus depreciation let you deduct qualifying trucks, lifts, and tools in the year they are placed in service instead of spreading it over many years. Because the benefit depends on the timing against your income, we plan equipment purchases during the year rather than reacting at filing time.
Should my electrical business be an S-Corp?
For a profitable owner, an S-Corp election can reduce self-employment tax by splitting pay between reasonable wages and distributions. Whether it helps, and by how much, depends on your profit and how you pay yourself. We run the numbers before recommending any change.
See what proactive tax strategy is worth for your electrical business
Our calculator gives you a personalized estimate based on your revenue, entity type, and business complexity. Find out what you could keep with a plan built around how contract electrical work actually pays, in under two minutes.
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