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Financial Systems That Scale Construction Businesses - with Luke Loescher · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to another exciting episode of the Contractor
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  Business Builder podcast. Today we have the honor of
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  having Luke Lesher. He is the CEO of Site Wise
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  Accounting. What if your financial system
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  could actually help you make better decisions instead of just
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  giving you stress at tax time? Luke's team isn't just doing
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  your books. They're helping you set up
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  scalable construction focused accounting systems that give you
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  clarity, prevent costly mistakes, and actually help you
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  grow. If you're a contractor, still
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  using spreadsheets or relying on your mom, your wife for
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  bookkeeping, you'll want to watch this entire episode
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  because it could save you thousands of dollars.
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  Knowing your books, knowing your numbers, super critical to a
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  healthy business. Welcome here Luke.
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  How you doing today? Good.
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  How are you, Derek? I'm doing well and it's exciting
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  to be here and recording this episode.
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  So awesome. Yeah, financials are so, so
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  vitally important to to contractors.
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  And if you're like almost every contractor out there, you've got
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  to an end of a project and you look at the bank account and
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  it's like, where is all the money, right?
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  Even if your books may say you're profitable, it's it's
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  usually nowhere to be found. So knowing your numbers and
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  knowing how financials run in a business makes that difference
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  of actually having some money at the end of the day or, or
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  spending it all on, you know, everybody else.
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  So it started a little bit at the beginning with your your
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  story and what inspired you to, you know, specifically help
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  with, you know, construction business accounting?
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  Sure. Absolutely, going back to the
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  very very beginning. Like I graduated school in 2012
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  with a masters degree in accounting, started working with
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  a company doing accounting software for local governments
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  here in Michigan. And through the course of the
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  next 10 plus years of working with them and doing consulting
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  with some of the government entities, I got to see first
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  hand how job costing and project accounting really make a
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  difference in in in the scope and success of of individual
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  construction projects. So like here in Michigan, the
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  road commissions in the county is handled like all of the
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  highway projects across the state.
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  And so I got to see like, OK, when they were redoing like I275
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  and Detroit and other highways in Michigan.
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  Like I got to see from the kind of the controller side of things
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  like how do the financials play into budgeting?
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  How do they play into project success and cost overruns and
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  all all that fun stuff. I got to see kind of first hand
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  working in support with them, trying to teach them how to do
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  job costing if they were somebody new coming on to the
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  onto their team in the consulting role.
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  So then Fast forward to 2022-2023 here I decided, hey,
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  I've gotten some good experience.
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  I know project accounting like the back of my hand.
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  Why don't I go out and look at trying to either build an
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  accounting firm or build a construction accounting system
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  specifically for contractors. So when I went out and explored
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  the market, I saw, hey, QuickBooks Online is, is good.
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  It's a system, it's accounting. It works, works for the most
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  part, but it doesn't do job costing very well.
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  Like it keeps everybody using the Excel spreadsheets or using
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  another system and trying to integrate the two with job
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  costing. So I was like, OK, well I know
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  how to code, I know accounting. Why don't I create a system
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  that's all in one, all-encompassing and try to put
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  that together. So I went ahead and did that
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  over the next like year and a half between 2022 and 2023, got
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  a first version out on the market and then kind of went to
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  go do sales and it hit a hit a brick wall where people were
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  like, it's really cool that you did this.
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  But I don't wanna buy it because I want, I like my QuickBooks or
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  I, my accountant uses QuickBooks Online and that's how, that's
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  how he gets into, into his into the software to do taxes and
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  stuff. I need to stay on QuickBooks
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  Online because of that or like I just don't trust another system
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  because you don't even have 10 clients in the marketplace right
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  now. So why should I trust your
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  system over QuickBooks Online? And probably the biggest 1 was
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  just going to cost me too much time and effort to move to your
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  system from QuickBooks Online. I've already got five years of
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  data in it and, and things like that.
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  So after all those objections, I, I decided here at the
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  beginning of 2025 to really just focus on the service side of
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  things because that's where I can provide the most value to
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  construction companies is by being their managed accounting
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  team and, and not being a software provider, but being
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  more of the service provider and helping them understand their
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  numbers on a more consultative level, as well as working with
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  them hand in hand as a partner in their, in their business.
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  So that's kind of how we work as we work in your business as your
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  accounting partner and not as an external accountant who only
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  talks to you once a year. But we work, we work hand in
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  hand with your team and we have processes in place to handle job
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  costing, handle construction payroll, certified payroll, all,
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  all of those, all those good things We work.
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  We can work with you on project budgeting and building out
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  financials for for projects. We run the gambit of the entire
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  construction accounting kind of job, job requirements.
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  Perfect. That's fantastic.
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  And yeah, lots of variety of, of experiences as far as like
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  really getting down to the nitty gritty.
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  If you know, having built that software, even if you maybe
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  didn't take off and you he pivoted, change directions,
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  it'll give you a very close understanding of exactly how the
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  data moves and and what's important to to contractors.
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  Any, any business owner that's in construction trying to get
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  job costing in place knows how complicated and messy it gets
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  real quick and how difficult it is to achieve.
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  And yeah, QuickBooks, there's, there's ways like work arounds,
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  but it's not, it's not intuitive or ingrained like in the system.
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  It's, it's not meant for construction job costing of
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  projects and things like that. So definitely want to have
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  someone helping you build and integrate that if it'll keep you
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  alive forever, if it's done well.
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  And then you can like once you have that level of knowledge and
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  like numbers and and ability to see, you know, every profitable
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  in this project that we estimate properly.
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  Do we go over on framing or drywall or finishing or
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  whatever, right. You can really pinpoint exactly
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  where the business is strong, where it's weak and, and it has
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  like a, a virtuous cycle with the estimating side of things as
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  well. So it's very easy to get just
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  more competitive in one sense, because your, your numbers are
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  accurate, but then also making sure you're not shooting
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  yourself in the foot by underpricing projects or parts
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  of projects. And that stuff can really stay
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  hidden unless you have job costing in place.
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  It's just like you, if you don't have that in place, you just,
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  you don't know where, where money is going.
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  And that's, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of people get
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  there, have been there. When I was contracting at the
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  end of the job, it's like we were supposed to make, you know,
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  10s or hundreds of thousands of dollars, but this doesn't really
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  seem like we made anything. So you know what's going on
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  here. I'm sure you've seen the good,
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  the bad, the ugly, all that stuff.
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  What, what where do you see like common mistakes or or you know,
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  critical mistakes that the contractors are making with
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  their their financials or financial?
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  Management, probably the biggest one I've seen has been either
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  doing job costing in Excel and then trying to marry it into
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  like QuickBooks online projects or customers and jobs and, and
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  that sort of thing. Because doing that it well, it
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  can work, but it's very manual and very time intensive.
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  And so you as a busy contractor, like don't have the time to
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  really sit down for, you know, an hour a day or so putting
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  numbers into an Excel spreadsheet and hoping and
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  praying that like it all kind of works out at the end.
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  You really need a good solid system in place to be able to
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  easily at A at a glance, look at the numbers on a project or or
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  even like on your phone when you're on the job site.
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  Take a look and see, OK, this house bill needs some more
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  drywall. Where are we on our drywall
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  budget? Can I afford to, you know, card
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  card in some more, some more drywall for the house at this
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  time. Having a good job costing system
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  that's not an excel or not in an offline capacity really comes
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  into play there. And then I would say probably
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  the next biggest one would be borrowing money from one project
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  budget to put into another projects budget.
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  The old adage of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
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  I, I've seen that time and time again where like project A has A
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  has an under budget and drywall, but project B is over budget and
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  drywall. So we're just going to move
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  project A budget to Project B. But wait, Project A is not done
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  with drywall. And you know, I didn't realize
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  that until a month down the road.
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  And now project A has an overrun and Project B has an overrun.
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  It starts a downward spiral that's very hard to get out of
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  because you have to do more and more projects in order to keep
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  that rolling. And it because of snowball,
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  basically, it's a huge snowball effect if you do that sort of
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  thing. So good cash flow management,
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  cash flow planning, project budgeting, obviously job costing
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  will help keep you from putting the safeguards to help keep you
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  from doing that getting into that snowball.
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  Yeah, definitely. And like what you said there
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  were, if you're not watching the numbers closely or you're kind
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  of moving budgets around you, you get into a lot of hot water
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  really quick. And it I I found when I was
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  running projects and had good job costing you often sometimes,
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  unless you like really understand it, you don't realize
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  till the end of the project we're running over here because
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  you start kind of bored. It's like, OK, well, you know,
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  we're kind of over budget, you know, midway through, but we've
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  got a lot of budget. You you always have for me, I'm
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  an optimist. So I'm a little bit, you know,
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  rosy future kind of guy. And it's like, well, you know,
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  we got quite a bit of finishing or like you can probably
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  allocate from and then once you start getting close to the end
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  of the project, the schedule goes over you, you'd have to
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  call guys in to come fix things or finish off little stuff that
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  you didn't, you thought you closed out, you know, certain
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  budgets and now you got to bring guys in.
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  So it's difficult. And it's why you need, you need
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  someone who's like knows what they're doing to, to set this up
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  and not just like set up the system, but also be able to be
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  that advisor of like, how do I like look at these numbers?
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  What do they mean? How do I improve over overtime
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  or on the next project or whatever?
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  So for people that like, you know, we throw around job
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  costing quite a bit, can you maybe just like really explain
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  simply what job costing is and what are some of the components
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  of of like getting it in place? And the way I explain it is job
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  costing is basically the system of recording expenses and
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  revenue against a particular particular project.
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  So all it is is really taking those costs The Home Depot to
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  see the we have Carter's lumber out here as our as our main like
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  lumber yard and another vendors and subcontractors and taking
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  all those costs and accumulating them together under the umbrella
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  of a project matching that against the budget to see as
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  part of my cost codes over budget under budget.
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  And this is really the system of finding out how profitable my
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  projects are at any given date. 11 big thing that I do also see
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  is contractors not including the revenue and the cost.
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  They think it's just the expenses, but really it's it's
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  the whole project. So you could basically think of
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  it as like building a project income statement or project PNL
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  and being able to see from the revenue minus the cost what what
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  the net income is on that project should equal out what
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  your what your margins are going to be.
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  Yeah, for sure. I like how you you mentioned
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  that the the income side of things is also important for job
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  costing. Often we'll think of like just
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  how much we spent on all these different, you know, budgets or
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  line items or whatever. But but knowing how much you've
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  invoiced for and, and how much money is coming in on the
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  project is important for cash flow and, and knowing where you
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  stand on the cusp, like the client facing side as well.
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  If you're, you know, you're under build or overbuild or, or
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  what have you. So that's definitely an
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  important component of it as well.
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  Now I know this is a big struggle and more like a lot of
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  clients of mine either don't have this in place or they've
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  tried it and they, they kiboshed it because it was a, you know,
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  and like, it was just too much, like too much messy
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  transactions. And then you've got like your
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  bookkeeping and accounting, which is like your company
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  financials. But if you have like the, if you
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  have integrations and, and things that the information get
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  mixed up, people may be using like project management software
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  or spreadsheets and it becomes very messy.
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  So that's like one side of it is the the data and software side.
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  And then there's also like the human side of like, I think a
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  lot of people as well think that and what they, it's, it's
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  getting better for sure, But there is still a heavy human
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  component to have to categorize as this expense for the Smith
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  project or the Jones project or, you know, the drywall or framing
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  or whatever, right? So why do you think like that is
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  such a big struggle? Or how does someone go about
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  tying that altogether? Or like actually getting it to a
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  point where where it'll it'll start to run well and and not
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  just kind of give up on it halfway?
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  Yeah, I do. I do see it as it's still a big
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  manual effort to try to manage those job costs on a on a large
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  project. It's easier if you have some
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  certain systems in place. So like if you have a spend
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  management platform, the way that their platform works is
• 13:53
  when an expense comes through, it hits the system and then you
• 13:58
  can categorize it right in their system before it even hits your
• 14:01
  hits your accounting system. So if you can catch the expenses
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  kind of as they happen, it becomes a lot easier to maintain
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  the job costing and the, and the recording of that.
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  The other thing I've seen is also on larger expenses, like
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  with Home Depot, you might get just an invoice at the end of
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  each month with all of your costs.
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  It's having the, the, the PM go in and do the do the job costing
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  for those invoices. And a lot of times the project
• 14:28
  manager knows, you know, here's the, the cost codes that should
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  go to that particular invoice. And there's some systems that
• 14:35
  are that are out there that will present that in a way that is
• 14:38
  just like a review kind of thing for the project manager to go in
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  and quickly do it as a batch entry or or a batch edit.
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  It doesn't take as long if they keep up with it.
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  The biggest thing is like keeping up with it.
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  So once you get a system in place, if you let it go for a
• 14:54
  week or two and you're a real busy contractor, like you might
• 14:58
  think the system is broken or doesn't work very well.
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  But if you keep up with it once a day or even twice a day, like
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  you might only spend an hour or 30 minutes to job costs, all of
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  the costs for that particular day overall, overall of the
• 15:13
  projects that you have running. So it definitely is, is work up
• 15:16
  front to get it going. But once it's going, it's kind
• 15:19
  of a flywheel effect where as long as you keep up with it, it,
• 15:22
  it gets easier and easier to do the job costing as as time goes
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  on. And I mean, I'm a techie guy.
• 15:28
  I like AI as much as the next person, but I still am like,
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  well, AI is good for a lot of things like importing an invoice
• 15:38
  that has a bunch of line items into an accounting system.
• 15:41
  Here at site wise, we use a, we use a system called a makers
• 15:46
  hub. And what they do is they do
• 15:48
  accounts payable management and basically we can suck in a PDF
• 15:53
  that's like 65 pages long. And they use AI to read all of
• 15:57
  the lines and figure out all the information and present it in a
• 16:01
  kind of a review format so that the project manager can go in
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  and say, hey, here's this big 65 page invoice.
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  Instead of having a clerk key it in, you know, we just had a, I
• 16:10
  look at it and do a do a good job at bringing in the initial
• 16:15
  data. But then here just review it,
• 16:17
  take a look at it. And a lot of times too, we, we
• 16:20
  work with vendors to say, if you're not putting the job name
• 16:23
  on the invoice, you know, most vendors will put a job name on
• 16:27
  an invoice. And as long as we have a job
• 16:30
  name and a PO, we can kind of match it up to an existing PO in
• 16:34
  an accounting system. And if that existing PO is
• 16:38
  already job costed, you know, then then it just becomes a
• 16:41
  match and a match, and you're good to go.
• 16:43
  Yeah, perfect. I, I really like what you said
• 16:45
  about having the project manager review it at the end of the day.
• 16:49
  I've found that that is the the best way to have it set up as
• 16:54
  far as like the human side of things, because project manager
• 16:57
  may or may not have estimated the project.
• 16:59
  I typically like to see project manager estimate projects or at
• 17:03
  least be involved with that so that they know the cost going
• 17:05
  into it. But there are usually the most
• 17:07
  experienced person on site and they know, you know, did we just
• 17:10
  complete framing or finishing or whatever?
• 17:13
  And they're gonna be the best to actually categorize those
• 17:17
  transactions. Whereas like if you like leaving
• 17:20
  it up to your bookkeeper, your office admin, they don't
• 17:22
  necessarily know what's happening on site, right?
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  And plus they probably don't have a construction background
• 17:27
  to even really know what half of the stuff is.
• 17:29
  Sometimes. Like you get this list from, you
• 17:31
  know, Home Depot or the hardware store and you know, it's got
• 17:34
  this hex flex, you know, half an inch this and they're like, I
• 17:37
  don't know what it is, right? So yeah, very important.
• 17:40
  And then also having those approval like the project
• 17:43
  manager will, you know, kind of categorize it, but yeah, having
• 17:45
  it easy and streamlined for them so they can just approve it
• 17:48
  because there's often times 2 where maybe, you know, honest
• 17:51
  mistake, plumber or electrician or framer, whoever is like
• 17:55
  messed up their invoice and, and invoice either too much or too
• 17:58
  little or maybe the invoiced early and they're not quite
• 18:02
  complete yet, right. So having that approval process
• 18:04
  to make sure that you're not paying for things that you
• 18:07
  shouldn't be. Also that money's not going out,
• 18:10
  you know, premature and before projects are completed or what
• 18:13
  have you is, is super important and where you can lose money and
• 18:17
  not even realize it at the end of the day, especially if you
• 18:19
  got a lot of projects going on and multiple project managers
• 18:22
  and things like that. So, so can you maybe talk a bit
• 18:25
  about the difference between like a typical bookkeeper
• 18:29
  accountant compared to someone like yourself who has actual
• 18:32
  construction knowledge and works with construction businesses?
• 18:36
  Because I've seen all sorts and sizes and and I find that it's
• 18:40
  challenging for people that aren't familiar with the
• 18:42
  construction industry, like bookkeepers and accountants to,
• 18:45
  to understand it. So give maybe talk about the
• 18:47
  differences or sure what's kind of sets like a construction, you
• 18:51
  know, account in the part. Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:53
  I would say the biggest thing that sets a constructor account
• 18:56
  apart from a regular bookkeeper or accountant is that knowledge
• 19:00
  of the construction industry and being able to add a glance, look
• 19:05
  at an invoice or a bill. And if the project manager
• 19:08
  hasn't job costed it, well, maybe they can use their, their
• 19:12
  knowledge of, of the industry to understand what some of the job
• 19:16
  costs are and kind of help the PM along along those lines.
• 19:20
  Like I wouldn't say rely on your construction accountant to do to
• 19:24
  do your job costing. I agree with you that the PM is
• 19:26
  probably the best person to do that.
• 19:29
  But if an invoice slips through the cracks or, or something like
• 19:32
  that, like it's possible that a construction account wouldn't
• 19:34
  have to bother the PM with something if it's just a
• 19:37
  straightforward one or two line item invoice.
• 19:39
  So that's, that's one side of things.
• 19:41
  The other side of things is getting the financials together
• 19:43
  in the way that banks and other lenders need them for, for doing
• 19:49
  drafts and drafts against a construction loan or AIA
• 19:52
  invoicing. Some of those specialty,
• 19:55
  specialty items that a regular bookkeeper may not understand or
• 19:59
  know how to categorize. There's certain ways inside of
• 20:01
  your P&L on your cost of goods sold, for example, like you want
• 20:05
  to categorize your labour materials and then also your
• 20:09
  subcontractor costs separately whereas.
• 20:12
  Like a regular counter may just lump them all together under one
• 20:15
  COGS account, but not track it kind of separately.
• 20:18
  The other big thing is a work in process.
• 20:20
  There are certain accounting adjustments that you can do for
• 20:23
  work and process to help the help the cash flow be smoother
• 20:27
  throughout the month. And if you don't do those
• 20:29
  adjustments, you can sometimes get into a dangerous territory
• 20:32
  where you're working process. She says you're 80% done, but
• 20:36
  that's bringing over or that's not including certain costs or
• 20:40
  certain items from the last month that aren't completed yet.
• 20:44
  So doing some accounting adjustments for those like it
• 20:47
  helps to bring things in a current way into your work in
• 20:50
  process schedules so that they stay up to date and, and
• 20:54
  current. It's things like that that
• 20:55
  really set aside a construction accountant from somebody who is
• 20:59
  just a either a tax guy or, or just a bookkeeper who
• 21:03
  understands how to do bookkeeping and accounting but
• 21:06
  doesn't understand the the other, the other side of the
• 21:09
  financials. Yeah, definitely.
• 21:11
  Yeah, the the work of, I mean, there's, there's a number of of
• 21:13
  like components that are just kind of unique to construction
• 21:17
  and, and really important to have the the work of progress as
• 21:20
  well. Like I know that often,
• 21:24
  especially for contractors who get large deposits, sometimes
• 21:27
  you if you get a large deposit before your year end and you
• 21:32
  don't have like a work in progress or make an adjustment,
• 21:34
  it can look like you just, you know, you're highly profitable
• 21:37
  because you've taken on this deposit meanwhile you haven't
• 21:40
  fulfilled any services yet. So I mean it depending on the
• 21:43
  deposit, but you could have 50 100,000, you know, deposit and,
• 21:46
  and you're gonna pay taxes on that, even though services
• 21:49
  haven't been rendered. It's just a deposit.
• 21:51
  It's not working capital necessarily.
• 21:54
  Small things like that. I mean, is, is super important.
• 21:57
  Plus I think one of the issues in the industry is contractors,
• 22:00
  builders, typically they don't know all this financial stuff,
• 22:04
  right. So if, if they've hired A
• 22:05
  bookkeeper, that seems good. They're, you know, typically
• 22:08
  you, you give them the shot of the doubt that they know what
• 22:10
  they're doing, but unless they have knowledge and construction,
• 22:14
  they just, they're just going to be missing that there's gonna be
• 22:16
  a knowledge gap there essentially.
• 22:17
  And as a business owner, unless you're, you're very like
• 22:20
  financially knowledgeable, you're probably not going to
• 22:23
  know what that difference is without actually talking to
• 22:27
  someone specific like yourself who knows this, the ins and outs
• 22:30
  of, you know, the counting on the construction side.
• 22:32
  So we, we've talked about like setting up job costing
• 22:35
  QuickBooks and then, you know, project management softwares.
• 22:37
  What's your software stack of choice?
• 22:39
  Or what is some good software that that people like
• 22:42
  contractors could go and check out that that you think is is
• 22:46
  worthwhile or a good fit for construction businesses?
• 22:49
  Sure. Absolutely.
• 22:50
  So I would say like probably a couple weeks ago, I would say
• 22:54
  QuickBooks Online plus like Notify or Job Tread would be the
• 22:58
  premier stack that we would run for our clients.
• 23:01
  But since I had a conversation with the owners of Control Core,
• 23:05
  that system is all of those systems combined together.
• 23:09
  So it's basically one system to rule them all.
• 23:13
  Yeah, it, it includes the accounting.
• 23:15
  And honestly, I would say that that's probably that's going to
• 23:18
  be your best. It's construction focused.
• 23:21
  So I'm starting to switch my, my own clients over to using that
• 23:26
  system from QuickBooks Online. And like they've, they've
• 23:29
  experienced night and day difference with their reporting,
• 23:31
  being able to look at their job costs on a much more granular
• 23:34
  level. Because one of the things with
• 23:36
  QuickBooks Online is with the cost codes, you might put them
• 23:39
  in as products and services. But if you have hundreds of cost
• 23:42
  codes, that slows the Quickbook system way down when you're
• 23:46
  trying to do data entry. As well as if you have lots of
• 23:49
  projects, they're, they're project tracking and their
• 23:52
  project system doesn't necessarily go across years.
• 23:56
  So if you have projects that span multiple years, like
• 23:58
  QuickBooks Online will only show you the income and expenses for
• 24:02
  the current period, for the current 12 months that you're
• 24:05
  in. So with Control Core, you can
• 24:06
  see the history of the project and the items of the project
• 24:10
  across the length of the entire project, as well as you and more
• 24:14
  easily track costs through that spend me through their own spend
• 24:17
  management platform if you decide to use it.
• 24:20
  So honestly, I'm excited about control core and using them for,
• 24:25
  for my stack. I, I will still recommend
• 24:27
  cookbooks online if somebody wants to use that platform or if
• 24:31
  somebody's like, I'm not sure about control core, like, but
• 24:35
  honestly, like control core is going to be best hands down.
• 24:39
  And I'm not just fanboying or trying to trying to promote
• 24:42
  them. I mean, I, I've used their stuff
• 24:45
  and I'm getting trained myself on how to implement it and use
• 24:48
  it. So it's gonna be a line of
• 24:49
  business that we offer here in the near future, probably by the
• 24:53
  time this podcast airs, like we'll have a a service offering
• 24:56
  for implementing and managing control core for construction
• 25:00
  companies. That's wonderful, super
• 25:02
  valuable. And yeah, kudos to providing
• 25:06
  direction to contractors out there because I know I'm, I'm
• 25:11
  hearing about new software almost daily nowadays.
• 25:13
  Like there's, there's so much news where coming into this
• 25:16
  space that it really is hard to know what's good, what's proven,
• 25:20
  if you will. I, I'm not familiar with control
• 25:23
  course, I can't speak to that. But I know like different
• 25:25
  software will suit different people as well, depending on the
• 25:28
  size of your business, where you're at your, your tech level,
• 25:31
  as well as I mean, who you're working with, right?
• 25:33
  Like if you're working with someone like Luke here who's
• 25:36
  got, you know, certain setup and way to do things, then it makes
• 25:40
  sense to go a specific software because it's, it's just an easy
• 25:44
  implementation process. Not something I would recommend
• 25:47
  contractors just I mean, you can try to do things yourself, but
• 25:50
  as you know, with any, you know, DIY type project, probably not
• 25:53
  going to get the final product that you're looking for and it's
• 25:55
  gonna be a whole lot harder and difficult than you expect.
• 25:58
  So definitely get some professional help there.
• 26:00
  Yeah. Can you share a success story of
• 26:04
  one of your clients that you worked with, maybe kind of where
• 26:06
  things where it started and how it's going?
• 26:08
  Absolutely. So I have a client that's an
• 26:11
  interior designer out in California.
• 26:14
  And yes, the we do work with clients across the country.
• 26:17
  So if you're not local to Michigan, we can still service
• 26:20
  you over Zoom and whatnot. But anyways, I have a client in
• 26:24
  California who's an interior designer where we implemented 0
• 26:27
  into their business at the beginning of 2025.
• 26:30
  Here we chose 0 because they're, they're small enough that the
• 26:35
  monthly fee for QuickBooks Online was just a little bit too
• 26:37
  much for them. And so Zero is definitely a
• 26:39
  cheaper platform, but still as feature focused as QuickBooks
• 26:43
  Online is, is the Australian version of QuickBooks Online.
• 26:49
  So anyways, we implemented 0 into their system, into their
• 26:52
  business. And also we started them on
• 26:55
  doing our managed accounting services.
• 26:57
  And previously to that, they didn't have any accounting
• 26:59
  system at all, even Excel. They were running their business
• 27:03
  out of their checking account, which is a dangerous thing to
• 27:05
  do, especially with like an interior designer.
• 27:08
  And they've got some large projects that they, they, that
• 27:11
  they do and they weren't doing job costing at all or, or any of
• 27:14
  that, even though it's a single owner that they're running
• 27:17
  everything off of their checking account card.
• 27:19
  So after we brought them on zero and cleaned up their 2024 data
• 27:23
  for tax purposes, I gotta message this year for from their
• 27:26
  tax accountant who we worked with to get their 2024 and 2025
• 27:31
  estimated taxes handled. He was saying, he was telling me
• 27:35
  that you guys have implemented this system in such a way that
• 27:38
  it's makes their job so much easier.
• 27:40
  It's like night and day difference.
• 27:42
  He's like, you definitely understand what you're doing and
• 27:44
  know how to code things and figure out the P&L.
• 27:47
  And like, I basically just had to review your work and normally
• 27:51
  I have to bring about 20 or 30 accounting adjustments that need
• 27:56
  to happen to the owner. And this year, like we worked
• 28:00
  out a couple on the phone together and then they were able
• 28:03
  to do their taxes no problem. So having having an accounting
• 28:07
  system and somebody who understands construction
• 28:10
  accounting on your team really helps with like not just loans
• 28:15
  or running your business, but also the the external tax
• 28:19
  accountant probably won't charge you as much.
• 28:22
  You know, if you as, as if you bring them a shoe box full of
• 28:25
  receipts, yeah. And you definitely get your
• 28:28
  taxes done on a more timely manner.
• 28:30
  And so like I would say that's been our biggest client success
• 28:34
  story is that our that, that client is really happy with our
• 28:38
  work and especially since they heard back from their tax
• 28:41
  preparer like they're ready to go for for the foreseeable
• 28:44
  future. That's wonderful for sure.
• 28:47
  And yeah, big stress relief for the for the business owner.
• 28:52
  I know myself like when you get to tax time and you don't want
• 28:55
  to list of like 1020 30 different transactions receipts
• 29:00
  or stuff you got to figure out right And then go down rabbit
• 29:04
  holes at that point. Yeah, one or two adjustments and
• 29:07
  you're good to go. Is is phenomenal.
• 29:09
  So that's that's fantastic. For sure, for sure.
• 29:12
  So people want to get in touch with you, Luke.
• 29:14
  We're going to put the link to your website,
• 29:17
  sitewiseaccounting.com in the description here.
• 29:21
  What's the best way for people to reach out with you or or
• 29:23
  connect with you? So you can e-mail us at
• 29:25
  hello@sitewiseaccounting.com or if you're one of those who likes
• 29:29
  to pick up the phone and call, our phone number is
• 29:32
  866-648-8408. And of course, as Derek said,
• 29:36
  you can check us out as site Wise accounting.
• 29:38
  Dot com perfect. And yeah, we'll have links in
• 29:40
  the description of this wherever you're watching or listening to
• 29:43
  it. Any final words of wisdom or
• 29:45
  last thoughts that you'd like to to get across the?
• 29:48
  I would just want to say if you're trying to manage your
• 29:50
  accounting on your own or have an office manager handle the
• 29:53
  books, among the myriad of other things that they have to do,
• 29:56
  that is a real recipe for disaster.
• 29:58
  As you grow in scale, you really need a scalable solution,
• 30:01
  preferably without the cost and risk of building it in house.
• 30:04
  You know, our team, our team is well versed in construction
• 30:08
  accounting and we've got systems in place at Site Wise Accounting
• 30:11
  that really are designed for contractors and to help our team
• 30:16
  service you the best that we can.
• 30:18
  So if you're looking for an accountant or need want to take
• 30:22
  the accounting load off of your office manager, definitely reach
• 30:24
  out. We do have a 20% discount that
• 30:27
  we're offering to podcast listeners.
• 30:29
  That link will be in the show notes as well.
• 30:31
  And so reach out schedule A, we have free consultations that we
• 30:35
  offer. So definitely get that scheduled
• 30:37
  and let's talk. Yeah, definitely wonderful.
• 30:40
  Then take Luke up on his offer there 20% off, which is really
• 30:44
  generous and thank you for that. Very least get a free
• 30:47
  consultation, learn a couple of things, save thousands, 10s of
• 30:51
  thousands of dollars and and a couple of headaches.
• 30:52
  Sounds like a win win across the board here.
• 30:56
  Thanks so much for coming on Luke.
• 30:58
  Appreciate you sharing everything with us today.
• 31:00
  Yeah, awesome. And thank you to Eric.
• 31:01
  Great being here and I think we had a good conversation.