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[ Construction & Property ]
Accountants for construction and property businesses on the Gold Coast.
Construction businesses can be profitable on paper and still have large amounts of cash tied up in wages, materials, debtors, equipment, tax and work already underway.
Wakefield Pacific works with established construction and property businesses from our Mermaid Beach office across accounting, tax, reporting and the decisions that come with running a growing business.
Based in Mermaid Beach, working across the coast.
[ Cash ]
A profitable job can still absorb a lot of cash.
Profit and cash are measured on different clocks. In construction the gap between them can be weeks or months wide, and it is usually widest when the business is busiest.
- Work completed on siteRecognised now
- Progress claim issuedDays or weeks later
- Customer paysOften later again
- WagesWeekly, regardless
- Materials and subcontractorsFrequently before collection
- GST on the claimDue on the BAS cycle
- Tax instalments and loan principalPaid from cash, not profit
- RetentionsHeld, sometimes for months
None of that shows up in a profit figure. It shows up in the bank account, usually a month after the decision that caused it.
Work through it: Where Did the Cash Go? →[ Margin ]
Revenue does not tell you whether the work was worth doing.
A larger project is not automatically a more profitable project. It can carry more supervision, more subcontract exposure, longer payment terms and a thinner margin than the smaller work it displaced.
- 01Revenue on the job
- 02Direct labour on the job
- 03Subcontractors
- 04Materials, plant hire and site costs
- 05Gross profit — the number the job actually produced
- 06Overhead the job has to help carry
Where costs are not allocated to the job that caused them, gross margin becomes an average of everything — and averages hide the jobs worth repeating and the ones that are not. We do not publish benchmark margins, because a useful comparison depends on contract type, scope and how the business is set up.
[ Growth ]
Bigger projects change more than revenue.
What Does Another $1m of Revenue Actually Give Me? →- Supervision — someone has to run the site while the owner runs the business
- Staffing, and the lead time before a new person is productive
- Working capital, because more is spent before more is collected
- Plant and vehicles, and whether they are bought or hired
- Insurance and contract requirements at a larger contract value
- Debtor exposure concentrated in fewer, larger clients
- Administration — claims, variations, compliance and payroll all scale
- Tax, once the profit shape changes
[ Equipment ]
A purchase should not make commercial sense only because of its tax treatment.
Vehicles, utes, machinery, plant and larger equipment often arrive in the same conversation as a deduction. The deduction is real, but it is a reduction in tax, not a return of the money spent.
The questions that usually matter more: what does the repayment do to monthly cash, how much work does the asset have to carry to justify itself, what happens to it when the current project ends, and does buying it now reduce the working capital available for the next job.
Where finance is being considered we can help you prepare the numbers a lender will ask for, and refer you to a licensed finance broker. Wakefield Pacific is not a lender or a credit adviser and does not provide credit advice.
[ Reporting ]
Know which part of the business is actually making money.
We work from the accounting information already in the business. We are not a construction software implementer — where a specialist job-costing system is needed, that is a separate exercise, and we will say so.
- Division or project reporting, so the result is not one blended number
- Job profitability, once direct costs are properly allocated
- Gross margin trend rather than a single month
- Overhead, and what it takes to carry it
- Labour cost against revenue
- Cash position and what is committed against it
[ Tax ]
The tax position is set during the year, not in October.
Where payroll tax or WorkCover apply, thresholds and contractor arrangements are worth checking as the labour mix changes rather than at year end.
- Annual financial statements and tax returns across the group
- Tax planning before year end
- BAS and GST where scoped
- Fringe Benefits Tax where vehicles are involved
- Structure — operating entity, property, plant ownership
- Equipment purchases and how they are treated
- Owner remuneration and distributions
- ATO obligations, lodgement program and correspondence
- Can we afford another supervisor?
- Can we take on a bigger project?
- How much working capital will it require?
- Do we need another vehicle, or can we hire one?
- Why has margin moved since last year?
- What happens to the month if a large debtor pays late?
- What does the next level of revenue actually give us?
[ Selected work ]
Trades & operating services · South-East QLD
From a prior-year loss to a $1.1M profit swing in 10 months.
Read the case study →A trades and operating services business, not a hypothetical one. The published case studies set out what changed, over what period, and what the owner did differently.
[ Useful resources ]
Work through the numbers.
Business tool
Business Stress Test
What a late debtor, a margin slip or a rate change does to the year.
Article
Cash flow mistakes builders make
Where the money goes between the progress claim and the bank account.
Article
How construction businesses scale profitably
What has to move before revenue does, and in what order.
Most construction businesses that talk to us already have an accountant. Changing is more ordinary than it sounds — we request the records, handle the ATO changeover and tell you what we need and when.
Thinking about changing accountant? See how switching works →[ Questions ]
What builders ask us first.
What should a construction business track each month?
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Usually a short list rather than a long one: gross margin by project or division, labour and subcontractor cost against revenue, work invoiced versus work completed, debtor days, and what is owed to the ATO. Which of those matters most depends on how the business contracts and how it is paid.
Why can a profitable construction business still have cash-flow pressure?
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Profit is recognised as work is done. Cash moves on a different schedule. Wages are paid weekly, materials and subcontractors are often paid before the progress claim is collected, GST is remitted on invoiced amounts, tax instalments and loan principal come out of cash rather than profit, and retentions can sit outside the business for months. A job can report a profit and still leave the business short.
Can you help with tax planning for a construction company?
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Yes. The useful conversation happens before 30 June, while timing, equipment purchases, structure, distributions and what needs to be set aside are still open. After year end it becomes a report on decisions already made.
Can you help us model another hire or a larger project?
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Yes. We work through what the change does to the numbers — the cost, the working capital it ties up, and what would have to be true for it to make sense. We can model it with you; the decision stays yours.
Can Wakefield Pacific help with equipment finance?
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We can help you prepare — current financials, forecasts and the documents a lender will ask for — and where finance is being considered we can refer you to a licensed finance broker. We are not a lender or a credit adviser and we do not provide credit advice.
Do you provide bookkeeping?
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We work from the accounting information in your business and can work alongside your internal team or external bookkeeper where required.
Do you only work with Gold Coast builders?
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Our office is at 1/3 Atlantic Ave, Mermaid Beach QLD 4218 and much of our client base is local, but we work with construction and property businesses across South East Queensland and elsewhere in Australia.
What does it cost?
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Ongoing business engagements start from $875 + GST per month. What it looks like for a particular business depends on the entities involved and how much reporting and advisory work sits alongside the compliance.
[ Start here ]
Tell us what’s changing in the business.
It might be a bigger project, another hire, equipment, cash pressure or a tax position that needs to be worked through.
Talk to us →1/3 Atlantic Ave, Mermaid Beach QLD 4218
1300 974 768 · hello@wakpac.au