The Contractor Chart of Accounts. The QBO foundation most contractors never had.
QuickBooks Online ships with a generic chart of accounts — it can't tell you what a job cost or whether it made money. This one can. A ready-to-import chart of accounts built for general contractors: job-costing-ready cost of goods, revenue split the way you bid, and Profit First bank accounts already mapped.
"QuickBooks can't tell you if a job made money — unless the accounts are built for it."
A quick take from Joe on the one setup decision that makes every job report after it either right or useless — and how this import-ready chart of accounts fixes it on day one.
One Excel file. A contractor's whole chart of accounts.
Built for a general contractor running both residential and commercial work — and structured so you can read profit at the job level, not just the bottom line. Import it into QuickBooks Online in minutes, then rename the segments to your trade.
- Import-ready — formatted for QBO's Chart of Accounts importer, parents before sub-accounts
- Job-costing-ready cost of goods — labor, materials, subs, equipment, and other job costs split out
- Profit First bank structure — Project, OPEX, Income, Tax, and Profit Savings accounts pre-mapped
- Free. No upsell. Plus an "How to Use" and a "Tips & Customizing" tab.
The account list
The full, import-ready list — account number, full name, type, detail type, and a plain-language description for every account. Ordered so parents load before their sub-accounts.
The import walkthrough
Step-by-step QBO import: where the importer lives, how to map the five columns, what each column means, and the checklist to run before you click Import.
Make it yours
What to do if a few accounts don't upload, how to turn on account numbers (and why), and how to rename the residential / commercial split to your own service lines.
Why this beats QBO's default chart of accounts.
QuickBooks' starter accounts are built for a generic business. These four decisions are what make a chart of accounts actually work for a contractor.
Built for job costing.
Direct labor, materials, subcontractors, equipment rental, and other job-related costs (permits, bonds, blueprints) are split out — so every job's true cost lands in the right bucket.
Split the way you bid.
Labor, material, and labor-&-material income broken out by residential vs. commercial, then by new construction, additions, and renovations. Your P&L finally matches your estimates.
Profit First, pre-wired.
Project, OPEX, Income, Tax, and Profit Savings accounts are already in the structure — so the bank setup that protects your cash is there the day you import.
Kept out of job cost.
Owner's pay, office wages, and benefits live in overhead — not in cost of goods. That one separation is what keeps your gross margin honest on every job.
Download, import, customize. You're done before lunch.
Grab the Excel file
The "COA for Upload" tab is the import-ready account list. Two more tabs walk you through the import and the customizing. Nothing to rebuild — it's ready to go.
Load it into QuickBooks Online
Settings gear → Import data → Chart of Accounts → upload the file, map the five columns, review the preview, and click Import. Existing accounts are never overwritten.
Make it match your business
Turn on account numbers, then rename the residential / commercial breakdown to your own trades or service lines. The Tips tab shows exactly how.
The episode this chart of accounts was built for.
Joe breaks down the QBO problem every contractor runs into — a default chart of accounts that can't track a job — and walks through the contractor-ready setup this file gives you. The chart of accounts on this page is the one from the episode.
Watch on YouTube →
A clean chart of accounts is step one. Scoring the job is step two.
Once your accounts are built for job costing, the Job Cost Calculator reads the score on any single job in a couple of minutes — labor, materials, subs, overhead, and the gross-margin zone it lands in. Same foundation, the next move.
Open the Job Cost CalculatorPair it with these.
Job Cost Tracking Toolkit
The checklist and the 30-job tracker that turn a clean chart of accounts into real job-level numbers.
Get the toolkit →Profit First Bank Flow
The five-account setup behind the bank structure in this chart of accounts — percentages, triggers, transfers.
Download →Financial Health Checklist
The 12-point owner checklist we walk through with every new client.
Download →We set up contractor-grade QuickBooks from scratch.
Chart of accounts, items list, job costing, bank rules — wired for your trade so the numbers make sense from day one. 30-minute call. No pitch. We'll tell you what your books are missing.