Case Study

Unlocking Accurate Job Costing

A California-based construction firm came to GrowthLab through a customer referral. What began as a monthly accounting engagement quickly evolved into a broader transformation of their financial operations—centered around one core goal: understanding job-level profitability.

Challenge

Inconsistent Job Costing, Manual Workflows, and No Insight Into Project Margins

Industry

Construction

Services

• Accounting
• Job Costing
• Payroll Integration

They Knew They Were Making Money, But Not Where, How, or Why

GrowthLab was introduced to a construction company based out of California through another customer of ours. They signed with GrowthLab for a monthly accounting package, but quickly realized the depth of value we could bring across the entire finance function. We worked with this company closely and became an extension of their team in many areas. The main challenge that many construction companies face, including this one, is job costing. There is a lot to be tracked in job costing... payroll, material costs, permits, etc... This particular company wanted half the payroll to go through job costing and the other half to be allocated to other expense areas. They needed to be able to pull a report and know exactly how much money they were making for each job, and more importantly, if they weren't making money… how come?

Systems Built for Scale, and Precision

GrowthLab became an extension of the team, tackling everything from:

• Chart of accounts and AR cleanup
• Product and service setup in the accounting system for streamlined invoicing
• Bill.com and Hubdoc integrations to improve approvals and coding
• Vendor communication management, reducing founder involvement in day-to-day accounting

Once the foundation was set, we focused on integrating payroll with job costing. It took time, testing, and iteration, but we created an automated workflow that replaced manual journal entries and unlocked meaningful project insights.

Time Saved, Visibility Gained, and Founders Free to Grow

The company now runs a fully integrated accounting and job costing system—with invoices syncing across platforms and payroll automatically tied to jobs. These efficiencies save time, reduce errors, and allow real-time profitability analysis.

Most importantly, the founders have stepped out of the accounting function entirely and back into growth mode—focusing on scaling the business with confidence in the numbers.

Advice for Other Business Leaders

In construction, every job has a story—and every dollar needs a name.

To run profitably, you need:

1. Integrated tools that sync data across systems
2. Job-level visibility into where margins are gained or lost
3. A financial partner who can translate complexity into clarity
   

Final Thoughts

GrowthLab gave this construction team the systems, structure, and insight to go from reactive to strategic, transforming job costing from a pain point into a growth lever.