You build things for a living. Now your books have job costs, work-in-progress, and 10% holdbacks your bookkeeper can’t touch, and the person who balances your bank reconciliation can’t tell you whether the Mississauga job is making money or quietly bleeding it. Hiring an accountant for a construction company isn’t about finding someone who knows debits and credits. It’s about finding someone who can read a project the way your project managers do. That’s how we approach every search at Minted.
Here’s where to start.
Which Accountant Should a Construction Company Hire First?
Hire to your revenue and project complexity, not your job title wish list. The right first hire depends on how many active projects you run and how complex your contracts are, not on what sounds impressive on an org chart.
| Annual revenue | Active projects | Hire first | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under \~$5M | 1–5 at a time | Construction bookkeeper | Accurate job costing, payables, and progress-billing entries. Outsource the year-end to a CPA firm. |
| \~$5M–$20M | 5–20, multi-trade | Staff or senior accountant with WIP experience | Owns the WIP schedule, holdback tracking, and monthly project reporting. |
| \~$20M+ | Many concurrent, bonded work | Controller (CPA) | Owns the close, banking and surety relationships, and cost-to-complete forecasting. |
The pattern most owners get wrong: they hire a controller when they need a bookkeeper who actually understands construction, or they stretch a generalist bookkeeper into WIP work they’ve never done. Match the seniority to the complexity of the accounting, then let the role grow as the business does. For how these titles stack into a full finance team over time, see our accounting and finance recruiters page, where we walk through role levelling in more detail.
One more thing worth knowing about timing: construction finance talent in the GTA is tight. In 2024, construction recorded the largest employment decline of any major Ontario industry, dropping 26,500 jobs, according to the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario. Fewer people in the sector doesn’t make the experienced ones easier to find. It makes them harder.
What Construction Accounting Competencies Actually Matter?
A construction accountant has to handle six things a standard corporate accountant rarely touches. These are what separate someone who can keep books from someone who can tell you whether a job is profitable while you can still do something about it.
- Job costing. Tracking labour, materials, equipment, and subcontractor costs to each project and phase, not just to the company P\&L. This is the foundation everything else sits on.
- Work-in-progress (WIP) accounting. Building and maintaining the WIP schedule that compares costs incurred and billings to date against the total contract and estimated cost to complete.
- Percentage-of-completion vs. completed-contract. Knowing which revenue recognition method applies and why. Under ASPE Section 3400, you use percentage-of-completion when a contract involves more than one act and you can reasonably estimate progress. Completed-contract applies only to a single act or when you can’t estimate progress, per BDO Canada.
- Progress billings and draws. Preparing progress draws, reconciling them to work completed, and recognizing that amounts billed are not the same as revenue earned.
- Over- and under-billings. Reading the WIP schedule to spot when you’ve billed ahead of work done (a liability) or fallen behind (an asset), and what each signals about cash and margin.
- Holdback and lien accounting. Booking and tracking the statutory holdback correctly on both sides, receivable and payable.
That last point carries real legal weight in Ontario. The Construction Act requires every payer to retain a holdback of 10% of the contract price until lien rights expire, as set out by the Ontario Bar Association. And the rules are changing: amendments now require the 10% holdback to be released annually rather than only at project end, which WeirFoulds calls a significant change for contractors. If your accountant doesn’t track holdbacks correctly, you’re exposed to liability and sitting on cash you’re entitled to release.
Why does all of this matter beyond clean books? Because thin margins punish bad tracking. Construction profit fade, the gap between the margin you bid and the margin you actually earn, typically traces back to cost overruns that went undetected during the job. By the time a poorly tracked job shows a loss at close, it’s too late to fix. An accountant who keeps job costing current is the early-warning system that protects the margin you bid.
Worth being clear on this: construction finance is its own discipline. It overlaps with mining, energy, wholesale and retail, and food and agriculture only at the surface. Revenue recognition, holdbacks, and project-based costing make it distinct. Manufacturing cost accounting is process and inventory driven, which is a separate skill set entirely. Hiring “an accountant with industry experience” isn’t enough. You want construction. If you’re a construction accountant looking for your next role, see what’s open now.
How Do You Screen for Construction Accounting Skills?
Ask candidates to do the work, not describe it. A resume that lists “construction accounting” tells you nothing. These four questions separate real fluency from buzzwords, and you can get through them in a 30-minute conversation.
- “Walk me through building a WIP schedule from scratch.” A strong candidate names the columns without prompting: contract value, costs to date, estimated cost to complete, percent complete, revenue earned, and billings to date. If they hesitate on cost-to-complete, they’ve never owned one.
- “A subcontractor’s invoice comes in on a project we’re holding back on. Account for it.” They should reference the 10% statutory holdback, where the holdback payable sits, and when it releases. Vague answers here are a red flag in Ontario.
- “Explain a progress draw and how you’d recognize revenue against it.” Listen for the distinction between amounts billed and revenue earned. If they treat the draw as revenue, they don’t understand percentage-of-completion.
- “This job is 60% billed but only 40% complete. What’s going on?” This tests whether they can read over-billing, and whether they understand the cash-flow and margin signals behind it.
Why do these questions work? They’re hard to fake. You either know how holdback flows through the books, or you don’t. A candidate who answers all four cleanly has done construction finance for real. Someone who talks around them has only read about it. For more on structuring finance interviews and what to look for, browse our hiring and career resources.
What Does Construction Finance Talent Cost in the GTA?
Expect to pay more than you would for a generalist accountant at the same level. Construction fluency is a specialty, and specialists get poached. Exact bands move with the market, so treat these as directional ranges for the Greater Toronto Area, not firm numbers.
| Role | Directional GTA range | What you’re paying for |
|---|---|---|
| Construction bookkeeper | Lower end of bookkeeping bands | Accurate job costing and clean progress-billing entries |
| Staff/senior accountant (WIP) | Mid-range, premium for WIP fluency | Owns the WIP schedule and holdback tracking |
| Construction controller (CPA) | Upper end of controller bands | Close, forecasting, surety and banking relationships |
For current figures by role and seniority, check our salary guide rather than relying on stale ranges.
Here’s what owners tend to underestimate: the people who can build a WIP schedule and manage holdbacks are a small pool. Bonded contractors, developers, and CPA firms all compete for them. When you find one, someone else is already trying to hire them. A slow, passive search usually loses the candidate you actually wanted. They’re off the market before your second interview.
How Should You Run a Construction Finance Search?
Screen for construction fluency before anyone reaches your shortlist. That’s the whole game. Most hiring misfires in this space come from interviewing candidates who looked right on paper but couldn’t build a WIP schedule when it counted. The fix is working with a recruiter who knows the difference and tests for it before you ever see a resume.
That’s where we come in. At Minted Search Group, our CPA-led screening means we run the WIP and holdback questions ourselves before you see a single resume. You get a short list of people who can actually do construction accounting, not a stack of generalists with “construction” in a project bullet. We work the GTA finance market directly and move quickly, so you reach the small pool of real construction accountants before a competitor does.
No pressure, just possibilities. If you’re weighing your first finance hire or replacing one who couldn’t handle the job costing, we’re happy to talk it through.
Talk to the Minted Search Group team about your construction accountant search.
FAQs
What’s the difference between a construction bookkeeper and a construction accountant?
A bookkeeper records transactions, such as job-cost entries, payables, and progress-billing postings, and keeps the day-to-day books accurate. A construction accountant owns the WIP schedule, revenue recognition, holdback tracking, and monthly project reporting. Small contractors often start with a strong construction bookkeeper and a CPA firm for year-end, then add an accountant or controller as projects multiply.
Do I need a CPA to handle WIP accounting?
Not necessarily for the day-to-day. An experienced senior accountant can build and maintain a WIP schedule without a CPA designation. You want a CPA once the role expands to owning the close, cost-to-complete forecasting, and surety or banking relationships, typically at the controller level.
Why is construction accounting harder to hire for than regular accounting?
Construction adds competencies most accountants never use: job costing by project and phase, percentage-of-completion revenue recognition, over- and under-billings, and statutory holdback rules. The pool of accountants who’ve actually done this work is small, and developers, bonded contractors, and CPA firms all compete for them, which is why generic accounting searches tend to surface the wrong people.
How does the Ontario Construction Act holdback affect my accounting hire?
Ontario’s Construction Act requires payers to retain a 10% holdback until lien rights expire, and recent amendments require releasing it annually rather than only at project end. Your accountant has to book and track holdback correctly on both the receivable and payable sides. Getting it wrong exposes you to lien liability and ties up cash you’re entitled to release. If you’re an accountant with construction holdback experience and want to explore what’s out there, we’d like to hear from you.
