Outsourced controller services for the trades
Outsourced controller services give you a part-time accounting manager who checks your bookkeeper's work, closes the books by a set date every month and sets them up to show profit by job type. You get the review and the reports a growing trades business needs without a salaried hire. Some firms sell the same thing as a fractional controller.
The short version: a bookkeeper records what happened, and a controller makes sure it's right and that it tells you something.
What does a controller do that a bookkeeper doesn't?
| Task | Bookkeeper | Controller |
|---|---|---|
| Enter and categorize transactions | Does it | Reviews it |
| Reconcile bank and card accounts | Does it | Checks every reconciliation |
| Close the month | When the work is done | By a set date, every month |
| Tech wages and their payroll taxes | Codes them where the setup says | Sets them up in cost of goods sold |
| Trucks and equipment | Codes the purchase | Moves it to the balance sheet |
| Profit by service, installs and maintenance | Not usually | Builds it with classes |
| QuickBooks vs your field software | Not usually | Ties the two out every month |
| Payroll and sales tax filings | Files or hands off | Checks they went in |
| What changed this month | Not usually | Writes it up for you |
The gap shows up in how the books are built. Books kept for the tax return lump costs together and often use the cash method, counting income when the money arrives. Books kept for running the company split costs so you can see your gross margin (what's left after the labor and materials on the job) and use the accrual method, counting income when you earn it. IRS Publication 538 defines both. On accrual, a deposit, a prepaid maintenance agreement or an unpaid invoice lands in the month the work happened. A controller builds the books the second way, and our chart of accounts for contractors shows the setup.
One owner's CPA had been telling him to switch from cash to accrual for 10 years. Brandon Vaughn, who coaches home service owners, backed the CPA and put the cash-basis version this way:
It's kind of like fudging the numbers on the scale and being like, oh, I'm healthy. When it's like, eh, it's not really a true representation of it.
What should you get in the first month?
By day 30 you should have reconciled books, a chart of accounts that fits a trades business, a close date on the calendar and a first set of reports with notes on what to fix. A typical first month runs like this:
- Week 1, access: your QuickBooks Online file (in your name, with the firm as a user), bank and card feeds, payroll and your field software, plus a list of what's missing (statements, loan papers, last year's tax return).
- Weeks 1 and 2, cleanup: every account reconciled, miscoded items fixed, tech wages and their payroll taxes in cost of goods sold, trucks and equipment on the balance sheet.
- Weeks 2 and 3, structure: classes for service, installs and maintenance agreements that match the business units in ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber, so job profitability shows up from here on.
- Week 4, the first close: a P&L, balance sheet and cash summary, a list of who owes you and for how long, a calendar of payroll and sales tax filings, and a short list of action items.
At YetiBooks the books are cleaned up in about two weeks, and the first report with action items comes inside 30 days. If all you have after a month is a login and a promise, ask why.
After that, the month closes on the same date every time. Brandon told an owner setting up his office manager what he expected of his own staff:
So one of the things that I would kind of set as a target for my staff is that by the fifth, by the fifth of the following month, I would want the previous month to be 100% caught up, entered in, and to know that the data in there was really, really clear.
What a controller's review changes
Brandon tells owners to open their own P&L, click into any line that looks high and see what's inside it. He walked one owner through it while that owner was buying a building:
You'll oftentimes find that stuff is classed incorrectly, potentially. Like if you have some of your bigger… bits of equipment and… they end up getting put on your profit and loss instead of on your balance sheet as an asset…
A controller does that clicking for you every month. Here's what it can change for an HVAC company doing $1.2 million a year. The numbers are an example, and the fixes are common ones: $90,000 of office and owner pay sitting in cost of goods sold, $40,000 of tech payroll taxes sitting in overhead, and a $45,000 truck expensed in overhead.
| Line | Before the review | After the review |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $1,200,000 | $1,200,000 |
| Cost of goods sold | $720,000 | $670,000 |
| Gross margin | 40% | 44% |
| Overhead | $360,000 | $374,000 |
| Net profit | $120,000 (10%) | $156,000 (13%) |
The review moves the office and owner pay to overhead and the tech payroll taxes into cost of goods sold, and puts the truck on the balance sheet with $9,000 of depreciation for the year. The bank balance is the same either way. What changes is every decision you make from the P&L: your price increases, your bonus plan and what a lender thinks you earn. Your tax return can still write the truck off faster; that's a tax decision, separate from what the books should say about the year.
When do you need a controller?
Good bookkeeping is enough until the business outgrows the owner's ability to check it. You're past that point when:
- The P&L shows up after the 20th of the next month, or not at all.
- QuickBooks and your field software disagree on revenue.
- You can't see profit by service line or by crew.
- You report on more than one company, location or bank loan.
- You're about to apply for a loan, hire a fractional CFO or sell.
A full-time controller is a big salary for a company this size. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts median pay for financial managers, the category controllers fall in, at $166,570 a year as of May 2025. Outsourced, you get the review for a few hours a month, often from the firm that keeps your books.
If you're not sure whether your books need a controller or just a catch-up, bring a recent P&L to a free profit call and we'll show you what a review would change.
What to ask before you hire one
- Who owns the QuickBooks file? It should be you, with the firm added as a user.
- What date will each month be closed by?
- Have you worked with ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber?
- Will I deal with the same person every time?
- What's in the monthly report, and who walks me through it?
At YetiBooks the books, the controller-level review and payroll sit in the same house, with the same specialist every time. How it works walks through the setup.
Common questions
Is a fractional controller the same as an outsourced controller? Yes. Both mean a controller you don't employ. "Fractional" usually means a set number of hours a month, and "outsourced" usually means a firm provides it.
Do I still need a bookkeeper? Yes. Someone still has to enter and reconcile every transaction; the controller reviews that work and builds the reports. In a small company, one firm often does both.
Controller or CFO first? Controller. A CFO plans from your numbers, so they have to be right first. Bookkeeper vs controller vs CFO lays out the order.
