Mentor GCs, framers, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and landscape crews are running flat out — from renovations and infill around the Great Lakes Mall district to the new subdivisions and commercial builds pushing through Painesville, Willoughby, Eastlake, Kirtland, and Concord. We handle job costing, multi-crew payroll, the W2/1099 mix, draws, retainage, materials-and-labor splits, and Ohio's municipal-tax withholding so you can stay on the jobsite instead of buried in QuickBooks.
No setup fees · Cancel anytime · Dedicated bookkeeper
Construction across Lake County runs on a manufacturing and retail base anchored by the Great Lakes Mall corridor — and the trades economy across Lake County is feeling every inch of it. Tides builds books around how Mentor contractors actually operate: by job, by crew, by draw.
The residential side is hard to overstate. Painesville, Willoughby, Eastlake, Kirtland, and Concord are absorbing new subdivisions, custom builds, renovations of the region's older housing stock, and infill. General contractors and framers here juggle 8-15 active jobs at once — draw schedules, deposit timing, multi-crew scheduling, subcontractor coordination — and without real job costing, profitable jobs and money-losing jobs look identical on the bank statement. We track every project as its own P&L so you know which builders, which neighborhoods, and which scopes are actually paying.
Then there's the commercial and industrial side. STERIS, Avery Dennison, Great Lakes Mall retailers, and area manufacturers, plus the warehouse, data-center, and manufacturing build-outs along I-90 and SR-2, pull a constant stream of commercial projects. That work comes with grown-up accounting requirements: retainage held for months, change orders that change three more times, AIA-style progress billing, and lien waivers tied to every draw. We set up your books to handle retainage receivable, work-in-progress, and change-order tracking the way commercial GCs actually need them.
And here's the Ohio wrinkle most generalists miss: your crews move between jobsites in different municipalities every week. Mentor and the Lake County communities file municipal income tax through RITA, so any business with staff working across city lines is withholding and filing local income tax in several jurisdictions. We keep labor separated from materials per job, track every truck and tool, keep 1099s clean all year, reconcile mileage, and handle the local withholding so your CPA isn't guessing in April. Serving Mentor and all of Northeast Ohio — we know how Ohio trades businesses actually run.
Whether you're a solo tradesperson or running a crew, we build the bookkeeping system around how your business actually operates.
Managing subs, materials, timelines, and client billing all at once means your finances can get out of control fast. We track job-by-job profitability so you always know which contracts are worth taking.
Service calls, parts, warranties, and variable crew sizes create a bookkeeping puzzle most generalists can't solve. We understand how trades businesses operate.
Mowing, hardscaping, irrigation, tree services — high-volume, recurring contracts with equipment-heavy operations. We keep the numbers straight so you can grow your route.
Contractors and trade businesses face financial challenges that general bookkeepers routinely miss. Here's what we hear from nearly every new client.
You finish a job and it feels like a win — but after materials, labor, and subs, did you actually make money? Without job costing, you're guessing.
Big projects pay on draw schedules. Slow seasons hit hard. Without visibility into your cash position, you can't plan ahead or make smart hiring decisions.
Paying subs by check, Venmo, or cash through the year — then scrambling in January to figure out who gets a 1099. We track it all in real time.
Running to Home Depot on a personal card. Paying subs from a personal account. It feels fine until your CPA tells you it'll cost extra to sort out.
Every Tides plan includes all seven core services. Contractor clients also get specific treatment for job costing, subcontractor tracking, and equipment depreciation.
Every account reconciled, every transaction categorized, every month — without exception. You receive a clean P&L and balance sheet you can actually understand and use to make decisions about your business.
Monthly reports that show your income, expenses, and profit by category and by job — so you always know where you stand and can make smarter business decisions.
Every business account and credit card matched and verified each month. No mystery charges. No unresolved transactions. No surprises.
We track vendor bills, subcontractor payments, and outstanding invoices so your cash flow stays healthy and nothing gets missed or paid twice.
Months or years behind? We clean it all up before we start your regular monthly service — no matter how far back the backlog goes.
If you have crew members or pay subcontractors, we coordinate payroll processing and keep your tax filings clean and on schedule.
"Working with Tides has given our contracting business the financial clarity we never had before. We finally know which jobs are making money and which ones aren't."
Questions we hear from contractors and tradespeople before they sign on with Tides.
100% remote bookkeeping for small businesses across Ohio and throughout the United States.
Tides Bookkeeping specializes in bookkeeping across 12 distinct industries. Industry-specific expertise means fewer errors, better categorization, and a bookkeeper who already understands how your business makes money.
Schedule a free 15-minute call. We'll review your current setup, answer your questions, and give you a flat monthly quote — no pressure.
No credit card required · No long-term contracts · Cancel anytime