Strengthening Financial Visibility and Compliance for a U.S. Nationwide General Contractor
This case study highlights how we helped a commercial general contractor strengthen their back-office accounting and bring structure, accuracy, and speed to their processes. Read it to learn how we helped the client streamline invoice processing, tighten lien waiver compliance, and keep financial data synchronized with project management in real time.
Introduction
The client is a commercial general contractor headquartered in Columbia, Illinois. With over 30 years in the construction industry, the company delivers projects across the retail, office, industrial, and financial sectors.
As the company’s project pipeline grew across multiple states and industries, its back-office accounting function struggled to keep pace with the volume and complexity of vendor invoices, job-level cost tracking, and compliance documentation. The client needed an experienced outsourced accounting partner who understood the nuances of construction bookkeeping and could integrate seamlessly into its existing systems.
The Problem
As project volume increased, the client’s finance function began facing several recurring challenges:
- Vendor invoices piling up across multiple jobs without a consistent approval and cost-code allocation process
- Limited real-time visibility into job-level profitability and cost control
- Manual, time-consuming preparation of lien waivers and compliance documentation
- Credit card transactions going unreconciled for extended periods, delaying budgeting and oversight
- Payment status in Procore falling out of sync with actual financial records
Decision to Transition
The lack of a streamlined accounting workflow was creating inefficiencies in the supply chain accounting process and impacted reporting accuracy. The client needed a specialized finance partner who could help them with:
- Inbound shipment data entry and document compliance
- Accounts Payable (AP) and landed cost allocation
- Accruals, deferrals, and adjusting journal entries
- Balance sheet account reconciliations
The Challenge
Taking on this engagement came with its own set of hurdles. Our accounting team had to:
- Get up to speed quickly on construction-specific accounting practices, including job costing and lien waiver requirements
- Work across multiple platforms — NetSuite, Bill.com, and Procore — while keeping data consistent between them
- Maintain strict accuracy on cost-code allocation to protect job-level profitability reporting
- Coordinate closely by email and Teams to keep pace with the client’s monthly reporting schedule
The Solution
We built a structured accounting support framework covering invoice management, job costing, compliance documentation, and reconciliation — all tied together through the client’s core systems: NetSuite, Bill.com, Procore, and the Build Financial Toolkit.
- Dedicated accounting specialists managed vendor invoice processing across Bill.com and Procore, ensuring timely approvals and accurate allocation of costs to the correct jobs and cost codes.
- Job costing reports were generated in NetSuite on a consistent basis, providing detailed insight into project-level profitability and cost control to support decision-making.
- Lien waiver documentation was prepared and maintained for active projects, supporting MIS reporting to strengthen financial compliance and reduce legal risk.
- The team reconciled corporate credit card transactions and categorized expenses, producing management information reports that supported budgeting and financial oversight.
- Payment status was kept updated directly within Procore, ensuring project management and financial systems remained aligned and current.
The Result
Conclusion
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- 30% improvement in invoice approval time, with more consistent job and cost-code allocation across Bill.com and Procore
- 24-hour turnaround for monthly NetSuite job costing reports, improving visibility into project-level profitability
- ~100% on-time lien waiver compliance, reducing legal and compliance risk across active projects
- 40% reduction in credit card reconciliation cycle time, supporting tighter budgeting and financial oversight
- 1–2 business day sync between Procore payment status and financial records, giving the client's team a single source of truth
- As general contractors take on larger and more geographically dispersed project portfolios, disciplined, construction-aware accounting support becomes essential to protecting margins and staying compliant. By supporting invoice processing, job costing, compliance documentation, and reconciliation as one connected function, we've helped this client build a finance operation that keeps pace with its growth — giving leadership the confidence to focus on running and growing the business.
- Looking to bring more structure and accuracy to your construction accounting? Connect with our team today to explore how our outsourced accounting services can support your business.