Construction accounting software priced for the US and Canada

Which construction accounting software fits a 20 to 100 person contractor

This page is for owners, finance leads, and operations managers at general contractors and larger specialty firms in the US and Canada. The buying question is which construction accounting software still fits once a handful of crews and simple projects are no longer the whole business, and when a construction ERP is the better buy.

Stay on QuickBooks Online while headcount in the books stays inside the published user cap and the jobs do not need a committed-cost report, retainage or holdback on both sides of the ledger, or AIA-style progress bills. As of November 2026, Online Plus is 5 users and Online Advanced is 25 users. Desktop Enterprise Diamond goes to 40 users and adds a committed-costs-by-job report, change-order management, and a work-in-progress report on the Contractor edition.

Move to a construction accounting product when those contractor documents are weekly work. Sage 100 Contractor and FOUNDATION publish no dollar price, so both are by quote. Acumatica Construction Edition prices by consumption, and its APEX for Construction bundle is advertised with a starting price under USD 1,500. Move to an ERP when the same company also needs purchasing, inventory, and multi-entity finance on the ledger: Business Central Essentials is USD 80 per user a month, or CAD 108.50 in Canada, and construction retainage or AIA billing is an add-on quote. Odoo lists Standard at USD 24.90 per user a month for the first 12 months on the initial users ordered, then USD 31.10, with construction variations in the industry app and implementation priced separately. A wider ERP shortlist sits in ERP for construction companies.

Construction accounting software shortlist, with published prices

Page-one roundups mix subcontractors, large-company ERPs, and products with no price. The table below is sized for a contractor of about 20 to 100 people. Each row uses the vendor's own page as of November 2026. Promotional prices expire, and Microsoft says checkout can differ by currency, country, and region.

Read the limit column before the price. A low monthly fee with a 5-user cap is a different purchase from a per-user ERP, and a quote-only product can still be the right ledger if your bonding agent reads a WIP schedule every month.

Where QuickBooks stops for a contractor past 20 people

QuickBooks stops in two places that Intuit prints on its own pages: how many users the plan allows, and which job-cost reports the Contractor edition adds on Desktop. It does not stop at an arbitrary company size. A 20-person firm can still fit Online Advanced. A 40-person firm cannot, if more than 25 people need Online access.

Worked example, US list prices as of November 2026, before promotions. Eight people who need the books miss Online Plus, because Plus is 5 users plus 2 accountants. The same firm moves to Online Advanced at USD 340 a month, which includes 25 users plus 3 accountants. The first 3 months on Advanced are shown at half price, USD 170, and the US page says paid plans have no annual contract.

The same headcount in Canada, list prices before the 90 percent promotion: Plus at CAD 110 a month with up to 5 users, Advanced at CAD 220 a month with up to 25 users. The page shows the promotional rates as CAD 11 and CAD 22 a month for 6 months. Plus includes project profitability and up to 40 classes and locations. Advanced includes unlimited classes and locations.

A second worked example: 32 people need access, and the controller wants committed cost before the vendor bill arrives. Those 32 users miss Online Advanced, which stops at 25 users, and they miss Desktop Enterprise Gold and Platinum, which cover 1 to 30 users. Diamond, up to 40 users on a monthly plan, is the QuickBooks plan that still fits, and the committed-costs-by-job report is on the Contractor job-costing page. The pricing page shows a starting price of USD 19 a month with USD 38 struck through. That figure is a starting price for Enterprise, not a published Contractor-only price, and cloud hosting is extra. Intuit's US page shows no CAD Enterprise price.

Depth is the other stop. Intuit describes Desktop Enterprise Contractor as the industry edition with the same key features as standard Enterprise plus construction reports and a construction chart of accounts, and points to it for job costing. The job-costing page lists change-order management, a committed-costs-by-job report, a work-in-progress report, and employee time tracking. The Online Advanced pricing page names a construction financials solution and advanced project financials. It does not itemize retainage, AIA billing, or a committed-cost report, so treat those as unconfirmed on Online until you see them on your file.

Intuit's pricing FAQ says Online Advanced supports up to 25 users and Desktop Enterprise can scale up to 40. The same FAQ describes Intuit Enterprise Suite as an ERP for multi-entity organizations that need heavy project costing for construction or service work, and it publishes no Suite price. Bookkeeping software for contractors can stay on QuickBooks through that 25-user Online line. General contractor accounting software usually leaves once subcontracts, owner retainage, and a WIP schedule are all month-end tasks.

What job costing software has to do on a live job

Job costing software is the part of construction accounting software that answers a single question while the job is open: what will this job cost when it is finished, and how does that compare with the contract. Accounting and job costing software that only shows bills already posted answers a different question, and it answers it too late for a superintendent to change crew or buying plans.

Four numbers do that work. Cost codes (or CSI divisions) are the budget lines: labor, material, subcontract, equipment. Committed cost is actual cost already posted plus open purchase orders and signed subcontracts that are not billed yet. Cost to complete is what you still expect to spend to finish the job. A change order revises the contract, the budget, or both, and it should keep the original contract amount visible. A free construction change order form can price each change with markups and tax and keep the log for the job before your accounting software records it. WIP then compares earned revenue with what you have billed, which is where overbilling and underbilling come from.

Worked example with the assumptions stated up front. Original contract USD 2,000,000. Original cost budget USD 1,700,000. Costs posted to the ledger USD 850,000. Open subcontracts and purchase orders not yet billed USD 400,000. One approved change order adds USD 80,000 to the contract and USD 60,000 to the budget. Revised contract is USD 2,080,000. Revised budget is USD 1,760,000. Committed cost is USD 1,250,000 (850,000 posted plus 400,000 still open). If the rest of the revised budget is still a fair forecast, cost to complete is USD 510,000 (1,760,000 minus 1,250,000) and the forecast final cost equals the revised budget. The share of that revised budget already committed is 1,250,000 divided by 1,760,000, about 71 percent. Percent complete on posted cost alone is a different ratio, 850,000 divided by 1,760,000, about 48 percent, and it leaves the open commitments out. If those open commitments were left out of the forecast, the job would look USD 400,000 healthier than the paper the company has already signed.

Vendor pages name these pieces differently, as of November 2026. QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise job costing lists change-order management, a committed-costs-by-job report, and a WIP report. FOUNDATION lets you budget with custom cost codes or CSI divisions, compare estimated and actual cost, hours, and quantities, and track change orders by status so an approved change updates budget detail and leaves the original contract amount intact. The same FOUNDATION page describes WIP and over/under billing. It does not use the words committed cost. Sage 100 Contractor describes job cost and project detail, and estimating that can export budgets, proposals, subcontracts, and purchase orders. Acumatica says Construction Edition supports budgets, commitments, change orders, and progress billing. Odoo's general-contractor page compares supplier costs with estimates and estimated hours with actual hours, and manages variations. Odoo's project profitability documentation still shows purchase-order cost only after the vendor bill is posted, so a committed-cost view is a report you specify. Business Central documents budgets versus actual usage, purchase of supplies on purchase orders, and WIP. It does not document a construction committed-cost column.

What a contractor needs from the system

Start from the contract and the month-end close. The table lists the capabilities that separate a construction ledger from a general one, and a question that shows whether the product does the work or only stores a code.

Ask for the committed-cost column on a live job before you compare screenshots of posted bills. A signed subcontract is a cost the job has already taken on. If that number waits for the vendor bill, the forecast the owner sees on Thursday is already stale.

What general contractor accounting software has to carry

General contractor accounting software has a harder ledger than a single-trade book, because the general contractor sits between the owner and a stack of subcontractors on the same job. The same cost code can hold your own labor, a subcontract you have committed, a change the owner approved, and a change you have not yet passed to the sub.

Four jobs show up on general-contractor buys more often than on a specialty trade that self-performs most of the work. You withhold retainage or holdback from subcontractors and the owner withholds it from you, on the same job, and the two balances are not the same number. You bill the owner on a schedule of values, and Sage 100 Contractor is one product that names AIA billings on its own page. You need committed cost on subcontracts, as well as on purchase orders for materials you buy yourself. And a change order has more than one party: the owner, you, and at least one sub.

Specialty trades still need cost codes, payroll, and a way to see a job go over budget. Certified payroll and lien waivers matter as soon as the work is public or the general contractor requires waivers before payment. Sage 100 Contractor's page puts certified payroll, AIA billings, and lien waivers next to job cost, which is the general-contractor set. A trade contractor with short jobs and few subs may never open those screens, and QuickBooks project tracking can cover them longer.

Home builders searching for accounting software are closer to the general-contractor pattern when each house is a job with a budget, draw billing, and buyer change orders. They are closer to a specialty book when one crew self-performs and the draw schedule is simple. Use the same four tests: cost codes, committed cost, change orders, and the billing form the lender or owner accepts.

Four kinds of software that get called construction software

People search for construction accounting software and land on four product types. Naming the type before the demo saves a cycle.

General small-business accounting, led by QuickBooks Online, tracks project profitability and, on Advanced in the US, lists construction financials. It fits while user counts stay inside the plan and the close does not depend on a committed-cost report. Desktop Enterprise Contractor is still QuickBooks, with the job-cost reports called out above, up to 40 users on Diamond.

Construction accounting specialists are built around the contractor close. Sage 100 Contractor and FOUNDATION are the two in this shortlist with public construction workflows and quote-only pricing. Sage Intacct Construction also appears on many buyer shortlists. Ask Sage for a current quote, the user model and the construction module list before you compare it with the products here.

Construction ERP editions put a construction layer on a broader cloud ERP. Acumatica Construction Edition is the one here: commitments and change orders, consumption pricing rather than a named-user fee, and an APEX bundle advertised under USD 1,500 that includes implementation. That bundle is not a per-user price you can line up against Business Central.

General ERP with construction capability is Business Central or Odoo. Both run the ledger, purchasing, and projects. Construction retainage, holdback, and AIA forms are the gap you price on top. Project tools such as Procore run drawings, RFIs, submittals, and field work, price by annual construction volume with unlimited users, and do not list a general ledger on the pricing page. If month-end is the pain, start with the ledger. The boundary with field software is covered in Odoo vs Procore for general contractors.

Where Sage 100 Contractor, FOUNDATION, and Acumatica fit

Pick a construction specialist when the month-end pack is the product: job cost, a WIP schedule, progress billing the owner will accept, and payroll or lien paperwork on public work. That depth is the reason these products exist. The trade-off is a narrower fit if you also run a fabrication shop, a service division, or a wholesale counter and want those on the same ledger.

Sage 100 Contractor, as of November 2026, describes job cost and project detail, customizable dashboards, and integrated estimating that can export budgets, proposals, subcontracts, and purchase orders. It names certified payroll, AIA billings, and lien waivers as tasks the product can manage. The US product page publishes no price. The page shows no Canadian price either, so treat Canada as quote-only too. The page is written for contractors who need job cost while the work is underway, which is the same test as the worked example above.

FOUNDATION says pricing is custom by the modules a contractor needs. Modules included with the software include job costing, payroll, purchase orders and subcontracts, and accounts receivable. Add-ons named on the pricing page include mobile time tracking, service dispatch, equipment management, and project management. Job costing supports custom cost codes or CSI divisions, estimated versus actual cost, hours, and quantities, change orders that update the budget and preserve the original contract, and WIP and over/under billing reports. Ask them to show committed cost. Do not assume the report exists because the rest of the job-cost set is strong.

Acumatica prices Construction Edition on consumption: applications, transaction volume, and computing resources, not a license fee for every named user. The product page says it supports budgets, commitments, change orders, and progress billing. APEX for Construction bundles software, implementation, and support with a starting price under USD 1,500. A configured price sits behind the vendor quote form. No CAD list price is published on the construction page. If you need many field logins, the consumption model is the commercial point. Compare the quote with Business Central's per-user list, and keep implementation inside the APEX figure only for that bundle.

Business Central as construction accounting software

Business Central is the ERP path when the company wants one ledger for finance, purchasing, and projects, and construction billing can be added with a clear scope. As of November 2026, Essentials lists at USD 80 per user a month and Premium at USD 110, paid yearly. Team Members lists at USD 8. In Canada the same licenses are CAD 108.50, CAD 149.20, and CAD 10.90 per user a month, paid yearly, plus applicable tax. Microsoft says the prices shown may differ at checkout because of currency, country, and region.

A 15-user worked example, full users only, yearly billing, before tax. United States Essentials is 15 times USD 80, or USD 1,200 a month. Canada Essentials is 15 times CAD 108.50, or CAD 1,627.50 a month, plus tax. People who only approve or read can sit on Team Members at USD 8 or CAD 10.90. This is license math, not an implementation fee. Microsoft's page does not price construction add-ons for retainage, holdback, or AIA billing.

Microsoft's project documentation covers budgets versus actual item and resource usage, time sheets, purchase of supplies on purchase orders, WIP so expenses can post before you invoice, and invoicing when the project finishes or on a schedule. Separate WIP articles still describe five methods: Cost Value, Cost of Sales, Sales Value, Percentage of Completion, and Completed Contract. Percentage of Completion uses actual total cost divided by budget total cost, so a stale budget produces a wrong profit figure. A batch job calculates WIP, and a separate step posts it to the general ledger. None of that overview describes construction retainage, holdback, or AIA billing.

That gap is why the shortlist says Business Central with construction add-ons. Construction retainage and AIA billing come from add-on publishers by quote, and Microsoft's pricing page lists no add-on prices. The Business Central jobs and projects guide walks through the core project setup, and ERP for contractors stays on the US job-cost close.

Choose Business Central when Microsoft 365 is already the company standard, you want dimensions and a controller-friendly ledger, and you accept a construction layer on top of projects. Choose it over QuickBooks when you are past 25 Online users, you need purchase orders and inventory in the same database, or you are heading for more than one legal entity. The license is per user. A field-heavy company should price Team Members against full users before assuming every superintendent needs Essentials.

Odoo for construction accounting and job costing

Odoo fits a contractor that wants job cost, purchasing, and billing records on one database and will pay for implementation of the construction layer. The public pricing page, as shown to a US visitor in November 2026, lists Standard at USD 24.90 per user a month for the first 12 months on the initial users ordered, then USD 31.10, and Custom from USD 49.00. Light users are priced by quote. Hosting on Odoo.sh is not included. The page shows no CAD price, so a Canadian contractor should ask for a CAD quote rather than convert the US rate.

On a 15-user calculation, Standard is USD 373.50 a month (15 x 24.90) for the first 12 months, then USD 466.50 a month (15 x 31.10). Light users are the closer comparison to a Team Member seat, and Odoo quotes them. Implementation is separate from the license.

The general-contractor industry page says the construction toolkit tracks supplier costs against estimates, compares estimated and actual hours, supports progress increments for billing, and manages main contracts and variations. It does not publish a construction-specific license. For the accounting detail, analytic plans group accounts by project, and the distribution is set on each invoice or bill so a vendor bill can split across jobs. Project profitability reads timesheets, purchase orders, stock moves, and customer invoices. The same profitability page states that a purchase order cost appears once the vendor bill is posted. A signed subcontract that has not been billed stays out of that view until you add a report on purchase-order lines. Price that report at the start if committed cost is one of your four numbers.

Staged billing in core Odoo uses percentage or fixed down payments and milestone invoicing. Marking a milestone reached updates the delivered quantity, and you invoice that share. Retention, holdback, and AIA forms are not described in core Odoo invoicing. Any third-party app price has to be read from that vendor's current listing, and you still test retainage on both the customer bill and the subcontract before you rely on it.

Odoo is the lower license line next to Business Central's per-user dollar price, and it is the ERP to scope when you want estimating, inventory, and projects configured around your cost codes. It is a poor impulse buy if you need certified AIA output next month and you have not seen the form produced from your schedule of values. Our Odoo project billing guide covers milestones and down payments. The package path for contractors is below.

How the lanes compare on the jobs that matter

Use this as a reading of public pages as of November 2026, next to the price table above. A feature that exists can still be awkward on your cost-code structure, so the demo is still one live contract.

Retainage, Ontario holdback, and GST/HST

Retainage in the United States is not one private-work rate you can type into every job. The figure that is written down for federal work is in FAR 52.232-5. On federal fixed-price construction contracts, if satisfactory progress has not been made, the contracting officer may retain a maximum of 10 percent of the progress payment until progress is satisfactory. When the work is substantially complete, the officer may keep only what protects the government and must release the rest. Private commercial retainage is whatever the contract and that state's law say. Do not load a national 5 or 10 percent default and call it compliance.

Federal prompt payment is a different clause. FAR 52.232-27 sets a 14-day due date for approved progress-payment requests on federal construction contracts, and the prime pays subcontractors for satisfactory performance no later than 7 days after the prime is paid. The clause also allows a subcontract to retain a specified percentage of each progress payment if the parties agree. Your software has to store the percent from the contract. It should not invent one.

Holdback and prompt payment in Canada are provincial. The figures in this section are Ontario's Construction Act. Ontario defines holdback as 10 percent of the value of the services or materials supplied under a contract or subcontract, the amount Part IV requires the payer to withhold. Prompt payment is subject to that holdback. Under section 6.4, an owner must pay a proper invoice no later than 28 days after receiving it, unless the owner gives a notice of non-payment no later than 14 days after receipt, in the prescribed form, stating the unpaid amount and the reasons. Holdback can still be outstanding while the rest of a proper invoice is due. A proper invoice, in section 6.1, needs the contractor's name and address, the invoice date and the period or milestone, a contract or purchase-order identifier, a description and quantity, the amount payable and the payment terms, and where to send payment. Ask counsel before you use these Ontario settings on a job in another province.

A Canadian worked example, assumptions stated. An Ontario owner receives a proper invoice for CAD 100,000 of work. Holdback at 10 percent is CAD 10,000. The amount the prompt-payment clock applies to, subject to holdback, is the rest of that invoice. If the owner disputes CAD 8,000, the notice of non-payment has to go out within 14 days and name the unpaid amount and the reasons. The software needs a holdback payable and a holdback receivable, a release date you control, and a bill format that can carry the proper-invoice fields. Confirm with your accountant how GST/HST applies to the holdback portion, then test that tax code in the product.

GST/HST follows the place of supply, and you report it for the period that covers the invoice date, whether or not the customer has paid. CRA examples: 13 percent HST when goods are delivered in Ontario, 14 percent HST in Nova Scotia after the 1 April 2025 decrease (provincial portion 9 percent), and 5 percent GST plus Manitoba's 7 percent PST when goods are picked up in Manitoba. A contractor who supplies work in another province has to rate the invoice from the place-of-supply rules, not from the province on the letterhead. Construction accounting software in Canada should let the tax code change by job or by ship-to, and the CAD list prices on this shortlist are QuickBooks Canada and Business Central Canada. Other products on this shortlist are quote-only in Canadian dollars.

Two US payroll and vendor rules still belong in the demo. For payments made in 2026, the IRS threshold for Form 1099-NEC reporting is USD 2,000, with inflation indexing from 2027. On federal or federally assisted construction, covered contractors submit payroll information weekly, within seven days after the regular payment date of the payroll period. The Department of Labor says use of Form WH-347 is optional. The prime contractor is responsible for the certified payrolls of its subcontractors. Sage 100 Contractor and FOUNDATION both put payroll in the product story. Business Central and Odoo usually meet certified payroll through a payroll service or an app. Our Business Central jobs guide notes holdback patterns you will still configure.

What the software costs a 20 to 100 person contractor

Price three lines for three years: licenses, construction add-ons, and implementation. The license figures below are the vendors' own lists as of November 2026. Budget implementation as its own quote.

QuickBooks is a company subscription until you outgrow the user cap. US Plus USD 140 a month, US Advanced USD 340 a month, before the three-month half-price offer. Canada Plus CAD 110 a month and Advanced CAD 220 a month, before the six-month promotion. Desktop Enterprise shows a USD 19 a month starting price against a USD 38 struck-through list, with hosting extra, and Diamond is the plan that reaches 40 users.

Quote-only, as of November 2026: Sage 100 Contractor, FOUNDATION, and Acumatica Construction Edition outside the APEX bundle. Acumatica's published anchor is the APEX for Construction starting price under USD 1,500, covering software, implementation, and support. That is a bundle floor, not a per-user rate, and a configured total can differ once transaction volume is in the quote.

Business Central and Odoo scale with users. Fifteen Essentials users are USD 1,200 a month in the US or CAD 1,627.50 a month in Canada before tax, paid yearly, as calculated above. Fifteen Odoo Standard users are USD 373.50 a month at USD 24.90 in the first year, or USD 466.50 a month at USD 31.10. Add light users or Team Members only for people who do not need a full seat. Construction retainage and AIA billing on Business Central are add-on quotes, and Microsoft's pricing page lists no add-on prices. Retention, holdback, and AIA forms are not described in core Odoo invoicing, and any third-party app price has to be read from that vendor's current listing.

When the license comparison is no longer the decision, the implementation scope is. Flectic's fixed-scope Odoo work for this industry is the construction package in the last section, with a written proposal that prices each phase before work starts. For a wider cost frame, read the ERP implementation cost guide and run the Odoo pricing calculator. License math and that phase price answer different questions. Keep them in separate lines of the budget.

How to choose construction accounting software, and when to move to an ERP

Choose in this order: user cap, the four job-cost numbers, billing and holdback, then whether the rest of the company needs an ERP. Teams that start from demo polish buy depth they never post, or they skip the column that makes the first WIP wrong.

Stay on QuickBooks Online Advanced when you are inside 25 users, project profitability is enough, and you have confirmed on your own file any retainage or committed-cost report you think you need. Move to Desktop Enterprise Contractor when you need the committed-costs-by-job report, change orders, and WIP inside QuickBooks and you are inside 40 users on Diamond. Move to Sage 100 Contractor or FOUNDATION when AIA-style billing, certified payroll, lien waivers, or a specialist WIP pack is the close, and collect a quote. Move to Acumatica when you want commitments and change orders with consumption pricing and you will not force that quote into a fake per-user comparison.

Move to an ERP when QuickBooks is out of users or out of depth and you also need purchasing, inventory, or more than one entity on the same books. Business Central stays on the shortlist as the Microsoft product: projects and WIP in the base product, construction retainage and AIA as an add-on quote, list price USD 80 or CAD 108.50 for Essentials. Odoo is the product when its per-user license and a configured construction layer fit, with variations and estimate-versus-actual on the industry page and committed cost specified in the build. The wider construction ERP choice is in ERP for construction companies. A side-by-side of the two products is in Odoo vs Business Central.

When the fit is Odoo, Flectic's offer for this work is the Odoo Construction package. The discovery call is free. After it, Flectic sends a written proposal with a fixed price for each phase before work starts. Book a free discovery call and bring one live contract.

• Write the four numbers you will reconcile every month: cost codes, committed cost, cost to complete, change orders. Add WIP, the billing form, and retainage or holdback as required or optional.
• Give every vendor one real contract: a schedule of values, a subcontract with a withhold percent, and one change order that hits the owner and a sub differently. Run it live.
• Match the plan to headcount. Plus at 5 users, Advanced at 25, Desktop Diamond at 40, then a per-user or consumption system.
• In Canada, load an Ontario proper invoice and a 10 percent holdback if you work in Ontario, and a GST/HST code that can change with place of supply. Do not paste Ontario rules onto every province.
• In the US, type the retainage percent from the contract. Use the federal 10 percent figure only where FAR 52.232-5 applies.
• Price licenses, add-ons, payroll, and implementation on separate lines for three years. Quote-only vendors stay quote-only until the quote arrives.
• If the choice is Odoo, open Flectic's Odoo Construction package and book a free discovery call. If the fit is Business Central, Flectic implements Dynamics 365 too, and the Business Central implementation page covers that path. If a specialist already produces your WIP and AIA bills cleanly, stay there.

How Flectic can help

Flectic implements Odoo for contractors of 20 to 100 people in the US and Canada who run tenders, job budgets, site crews, procurement and milestone billing and want job costs visible while the work is still running. The Odoo Construction package connects quotations, job budgets, site schedules, procurement, labour and milestone billing, and Core is proposed at 18 to 22 weeks and Growth at 22 to 28 weeks. The discovery call is free, and Flectic then sends a written proposal with a fixed price for each phase before work starts. Book a free discovery call.

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