Construction WIP and over/under billing reports for Michigan contractors
A work-in-progress schedule your surety, bank and CPA can rely on, produced every month from your accounting system and tied to your balance sheet. Or start with the free workbook and run it yourself.
Based in metro Detroit, available to contractors across Michigan. Fixed fee, quoted before work starts.
How over/under billing works, on one job
A WIP schedule answers one question per job: have you billed more or less than the work you have actually done? Percent complete comes from cost (cost to date over estimated total cost), earned revenue follows from it, and the gap to billings is the over or under billing.
Overbilled means billings in excess of costs and estimated earnings, a liability. Underbilled means costs and estimated earnings in excess of billings, an asset. A job projected to lose money books the whole loss now.
The job here is fictional. It is the first sample row in the free workbook.
| Revised contract$1,250,000 contract + $42,000 approved change orders | $1,292,000 |
|---|---|
| Current estimated total costfrom the project manager, updated this month | $1,088,000 |
| Cost to datefrom the job cost report | $816,000 |
| Percent complete$816,000 / $1,088,000 | 75% |
| Earned revenue$1,292,000 x 75% | $969,000 |
| Billed to datefrom billing | $1,010,000 |
| Over/(under) billed$1,010,000 - $969,000 | $41,000 overbilled |
Why the schedule has to tie to the books
Sureties read the WIP schedule to set bonding capacity, and banks read it for lines of credit and covenants. What draws questions is predictable: a schedule that does not reconcile to the balance sheet, one produced once a year instead of monthly, missing estimated cost to complete, underbillings that keep growing, and margins that fade between bid and completion.
Most of that is a process problem, not an accounting one. The estimates are stale because nobody asked the project manager this month; the schedule does not tie because it lives in a spreadsheet next to the books instead of coming out of them.
Free WIP and over/under billing workbook
An Excel workbook that does the math above for up to 30 open jobs. Type four numbers per job and it calculates percent complete, earned revenue, over and under billing, the loss provision, margin fade since bid and backlog, then flags the jobs that need a second look. A tie-out tab compares the totals to your balance sheet and shows underbillings as a share of equity.
- Live formulas, no macros. Opens in Excel or Google Sheets.
- Six fictional sample jobs show every flag. Delete them and enter yours.
- A definitions tab explains every column in plain English.
A working template, not accounting advice. Confirm your revenue recognition method with your CPA.
Or have it produced every month
We connect to your job cost and billing data, build the schedule the way your CPA calculates it, and deliver it after your month-end close, on a date we agree. You check the estimates with your project managers; we do the rest.
The WIP schedule, every month
Every open job with contract, change orders, estimated cost, cost to date, percent complete, earned revenue, over/under billing and backlog, as of month-end.
A tie-out to the balance sheet
Overbillings, underbillings, cost and billings on the schedule reconciled to your general ledger, with every difference named. This is the part sureties and CPAs check first.
The jobs that need a look
Loss jobs, margin fade since bid, underbilling near completion and estimates that have gone stale, listed in plain English for the project managers.
The entry for your bookkeeper
The over/under billing and loss provision adjustments for the month, ready to post, so the books and the schedule agree.
Works with QuickBooks and Business Central, and with the job cost exports from Sage 100 Contractor or Foundation. Where you want it, the same data feeds a Power BI dashboard that drills from the whole company into a single job.
Construction WIP questions
What contractors and controllers ask about WIP schedules and over/under billing.
A work-in-progress (WIP) report, or WIP schedule, lists every open job with its contract value, estimated total cost, cost to date, percent complete and billings, and shows how much revenue each job has actually earned. The difference between what you have billed and what you have earned is your over or under billing. Sureties, banks and CPAs use it to judge whether the company's financial statements reflect what is happening on the jobs.
Percent complete is cost to date divided by current estimated total cost (the cost-to-cost method). Earned revenue is the revised contract times percent complete. If billed to date is more than earned revenue, the job is overbilled by the difference, which is a liability called billings in excess of costs and estimated earnings. If earned revenue is more than billed to date, the job is underbilled, an asset called costs and estimated earnings in excess of billings.
Not by itself. Moderate overbilling is common and helps cash flow, but it is a liability: you owe the owner the work you have been paid for. Underbilling is the one sureties watch more closely, because it can mean billing has fallen behind, costs are running over, or revenue has been recognized that will be hard to collect.
The whole projected loss is booked as soon as it is known, not spread over the rest of the job. Percent-complete math only captures part of it, so the WIP schedule needs a separate loss provision for the remainder. The free workbook calculates it in its own column.
QuickBooks Online has no built-in WIP schedule. Contractors on QuickBooks usually keep the schedule in a spreadsheet and post the over/under billing entry by hand each month, which is where errors creep in. The free workbook is a sound version of that spreadsheet; the monthly service produces it from your QuickBooks data instead.
It is a fixed fee, quoted after a 30-minute call, based on how many open jobs you carry and which system your job costs live in. There is a one-time setup to map your jobs and accounts, then a monthly fee. No hourly billing.
No. Your CPA still owns the reviewed or audited statements and the revenue recognition policy. This gives them a monthly schedule that already ties to the books, so year-end has fewer surprises and the WIP your surety sees mid-year is current.
Yes. The same job cost and billing data behind the WIP schedule feeds a dashboard of every open job: budget versus actual cost, percent complete, margin fade since bid and billing position, drilling from the whole company into a single job. It works from QuickBooks Online or Business Central.
QuickBooks Online and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Sage 100 Contractor, Foundation and other systems work too, from their job cost and billing exports.
Tell me how you build your WIP today
Thirty minutes is enough to see where your job costs live, how the schedule gets made now, and what it would take to have it tie out every month.