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We post regular accounting updates, tips & tricks to help you become a more financially savvy business owner.
Welcome to the New Atlas Accounting Group Website
We've rebuilt myatlasaccountant.com from the ground up — faster pages, free calculators, and a growing toolbox for contractors and specialty trades.
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Can Your HVAC Company Afford to Hire in 2026?
Can your HVAC company afford to hire in 2026? Learn how to calculate the true cost of a new hire and test cash flow to help you decide.
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How Should an HVAC Company Track Cash Flow?
See how to track HVAC company cash flow with a monthly forecast, better billing habits, and clear financial visibility for growing trade businesses.
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Contractor Labor Cost Calculator: What One Technician Really Costs You
Calculate the true hourly cost of a technician with our Contractor Labor Cost Calculator. Stop underpricing and set profitable labor rates today.
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The Most Common Job Costing Mistakes for Electricians
Common job costing mistakes cost electricians real profit. Learn where labor, materials, and change orders go wrong and how to fix job costing fast.
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10 Business Deductions In 2026 For Self Employed Owners
Understand business deductions in 2026 for self employed owners. A clear, bookkeeping-first guide to tracking expenses and keeping your financials organized.
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A Complete Guide to Paying Estimated Taxes in 2026 (For Electricians, HVAC, Plumbers)
A contractor-friendly guide to paying estimated taxes in 2026. Learn deadlines, payment methods, and how clean bookkeeping makes quarterly tax payments easier.
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What Can HVAC Companies Deduct In 2026? Everything That Has Changed With OBBBA
What can HVAC companies deduct in 2026? Learn which expenses are still deductible, what changed under OBBBA, and how equipment and QBI rules affect HVAC businesses.
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Why Profitable HVAC Companies Still Run Out of Cash
Your HVAC business can be profitable and still run out of cash. Discover why it happens and how better billing, forecasting, and cash systems fix it.
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The Contractor’s Vocabulary: Why Accounting Is the Language of Business
A contractors guide to translating familiar business concepts into accounting terms.
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How to Create a Cash Flow Forecast for Your Construction Business
Learn how to create a simple cash flow forecast for your construction or trades business so you can avoid shortfalls and stay profitable year-round.
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How HVAC and Electrical Contractors Can Prep Financially for the Slow Season
Learn how HVAC and electrical contractors can prepare financially for the slow season with cash flow planning, smarter billing, and steady revenue strategies.
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Year-End Review: What Your Numbers Say About Next Year’s Success
Learn how to understand your year-end numbers and use them to plan pricing, staffing, and cash flow for a stronger, more profitable year ahead.
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How to Build a Construction Budget You’ll Actually Use
Learn how to build a construction budget you’ll actually use with practical guidance from Atlas Accounting Group.
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QuickBooks Tips & Updates for Contractors for 2026
Learn the most useful QuickBooks tips and updates for contractors in 2026. Discover how you can improve job costing, cash flow, and reporting.
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We Just Got Back From ServiceWorld Expo! Here’s What We Experienced
The team at Atlas just returned from ServiceWorld Expo. We share key themes we noticed for plumbing, electrical, HVAC and construction businesses.
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Year-End Accounting Checklist for Electricians
A simple year-end accounting checklist for electricians. Learn how to tidy your books and prepare for taxes in a friendly, easy-to-follow way.
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Year-End Accounting Checklist for Plumbers
A friendly, easy-to-follow year-end accounting checklist for plumbers. Learn how to tidy your books and prepare for tax season with confidence.
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Year-End Accounting Checklist for HVACs
A practical year-end accounting checklist for HVAC companies. Clean up your books, improve cash flow, review inventory, and prepare for a stronger year ahead.
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What’s Inside Our New ‘Protect Your Profits’ Book?
Introducing our new Protect Your Profits book, it’s a hands-on, year-long advisory program that helps construction business owners strengthen profits one month at a time.
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What Is The Average Profit Margin For Electrical Contractors?
Learn the average profit margin for electrical contractors and understand the numbers that will drive profitability.
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When Will My Construction Business Break Even?
Learn how to calculate when your construction business will break even. Discover the key numbers and data to improve for faster profitability.
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How To Protect Yourself From Business Fraud in 2025
We’re seeing it more and more: fake invoices, spoofed emails, and slick impersonations that almost pass the smell test. Hackers and scammers are stepping up their game. And unfortunately, trade businesses like yours are in their sights. Here at Atlas Accounting Group, we’ve had a front-row seat to some of these fraud attempts. From lookalike…
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A Simple Guide to Bookkeeping in the Construction Industry
Running a construction business involves more than just knowing the trade; managing your finances is equally important. Keeping track of your financials is crucial to staying on top of your business, and that’s where bookkeeping comes in. Bookkeeping might sound like a lot of work, but it’s all about keeping organized records of your income…
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4 Ways to Improve Your Construction Project Tracking
Running a construction business without good tracking is kind of like framing a house without a level… it might look okay from a distance, but underneath, things are probably off. We talk to contractors all the time who are wondering where the money went, or why a project that looked profitable on paper barely broke…
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How to Stop Inaccurate HVAC Job Costing in 2025
Alright, let’s talk about something that quietly messes with your HVAC business way more than a cranky compressor or a client asking for next-day installs. It’s job costing—or more accurately, inaccurate HVAC job costing. We’re talking about those moments where you kinda guess what a job will cost, add a bit of markup, send out…
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Introducing Our Protect Your Profits Advisory Program for Home Services
If you’re a plumber, electrician, HVAC pro, or run any kind of home services business, chances are you didn’t start your company because you love spreadsheets and long-term financial roadmaps. You started it because you’re good at what you do—and you wanted to do it your way. But somewhere between job sites and payroll runs,…
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Drive Your Business Success with a KPI Dashboard
Running a business comes with a hundred moving parts—and let’s be honest, it’s not always easy to keep track of what’s actually working. You might feel like things are going okay, but without a clear way to see your numbers, it’s hard to know for sure. That’s why we built a KPI dashboard. It gives…
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The RIGHT Way to Manage Accounting for Construction Projects
If you’re running a construction business, you’ve probably got a million things to juggle—crews to manage, materials to order, jobs to bid on. And somewhere in the middle of all that, the accounting has to get done. But if you’re like a lot of our clients, the financial side can feel confusing (or just straight-up…
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7 Non-Financial HVAC KPIs That You Aren’t Tracking (But Should Be)
If you’re like most of the HVAC business owners we know, you probably check your revenue and expenses regularly. Maybe you even track profit margins. But what about the other stuff—the non-financial numbers that tell you if your business is actually running well? These kinds of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) might not show up on…
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How Communication Can Make or Break Your Home Service Business
If you’ve ever had a job go sideways because “someone didn’t get the message,” you already know how important communication in home services business is. Maybe a tech showed up to a job without the right parts. Maybe a customer thought they were getting a service you don’t even offer. Or maybe your team is…
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Construction Equipment Depreciation Explained
Ever wondered how your construction equipment’s value changes over time? As you put your gear to work, it naturally loses value from everyday use. But it’s not just wear and tear—new technologies and evolving standards can make older equipment less valuable. Depreciation might sound like just another accounting term, but it has real implications for…
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What Are Your Target HVAC Profit Margins?
What are healthy HVAC profit margins? See target gross and net margins by service type, why yours slip, and the levers that move them.
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Why You Should Be Using Gusto for Your HVAC Business
We can’t say this enough—we absolutely LOVE Gusto. And for good reason! Running an HVAC business is no small feat. Between managing your team, juggling customer appointments, handling payroll, and making sure you stay on top of taxes—it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But that’s where Gusto for HVAC businesses comes in. It’s an all-in-one platform…
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How to Integrate Software With QuickBooks For HVAC Companies
Running an HVAC business is more than just fixing heating and cooling systems. You’re juggling a ton of tasks: managing your team, scheduling jobs, keeping track of customers, and handling all the finances. It’s a lot of work. But if you’re already using QuickBooks for accounting, there’s good news—you can streamline your entire operation by…
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What You Need to Predict Weekly Cash Flow for Construction
Predicting cash flow for your construction business can be tricky. Cash flow is the amount of money moving into and out of your business, and managing it effectively is essential so your company can pay employees on time, make equipment lease payments, and cover ongoing expenses. Cash flow management is vital for any business. However,…
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An Accountant’s Tips for Using ServiceTitan and QuickBooks
If your construction company uses both ServiceTitan and QuickBooks for managing operations and finances, you may have faced challenges when trying to connect the two systems. You’re not alone in this struggle. Integrating ServiceTitan with QuickBooks can be tricky and frustrating, especially if you get stuck and can’t easily find a solution. Our team has…
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Our Favorite Tax Credits for Construction Businesses in 2024
In the construction world, having sharp financial skills is just as important as having the right tools. Every year, construction businesses face new challenges and opportunities due to changes in the economy, technology, and regulations. Finding ways to cut costs and boost efficiency is crucial for staying competitive and growing your business. Tax credits are…
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5 Minutes to Better Construction Bookkeeping
Are you tired of spending hours on bookkeeping and accounting tasks in your construction business? We know that managing the financial side of your business can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes, a few simple tweaks is all it takes to transform your bookkeeping from “overwhelming” to “helpful”. Here at Atlas Accounting…
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3 Construction Company KPIs You Should Be Tracking
Without KPIs, you may be confident about opening a new branch for your construction company after two years, but when that duration elapses, you declare bankruptcy. The most painful part is the fact you never saw this coming. Here’s the truth. From Net Profit Margin to Working Capital Ratio, there are several KPIs construction companies…
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What is the Average Profit Margin for Construction Companies?
Do you ever come to the end of your financial period with the characteristic itch to know your profit margin and how your construction company has performed? And then, when the end-of-year financial statements are eventually released, you realize your profit margin is pretty decent, at least compared to the previous year, and you thrust…
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6 Things Your Construction Accountants Can Make Better
Let’s face it. Engaging a professional accountant can feel unnecessary, especially if you’re a small construction company just starting out. Perhaps you have not bagged many projects — yet costs are already on the roof. But wait a minute. If you don’t engage professional accountants, it is the IRS — not your construction company —…
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Deep Dive Into Your Construction Profit and Loss Statement (P&L) | Free Template!
Arguably one of the most important elements of running a successful construction business is keeping track of your income and expenses in a way that lets you measure your profitability and plan for your financial future. Though it may sound simple, you’d be surprised just how many construction business owners violate the single, most important…
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Construction Financing Guide: Loans, Grants, & Other Options
Every business owner has a love-hate relationship with money: we love to make it and hate to see it go. Regardless of whether you are a contractor, a subcontractor, or a developer within the construction business, you need to be aware of all the financing options available to help you with the funds you need…
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New Payroll Tax- What Washington Cares Tax Means For Payroll
Forget about the intentions. Even those who like to see the government intervene in some social issue rarely smile when a new tax is announced. Granted, taxes do help. But in some cases, don’t they just make our lives more miserable, make us adjust our systems — and needlessly increase the cost of doing business?…
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Contractor Invoices Types: QuickBooks Simplifies the Process
We know what you’re thinking: “Not ANOTHER system!”. And we’re with you. We know that you’re tired of grappling with complex invoicing systems, but do you find yourself dreading the task of creating invoices for your contracting business? Even as accountants, we do. After all, the challenges contractors face when it comes to effective invoicing…
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Employee vs 1099 Contractor for Construction Businesses
Picture this scenario: You’re a construction business owner on the cusp of taking your company to the next level. You’re faced with an important decision – should you hire employees or engage 1099 contractors? Each option presents its advantages and considerations, making it crucial to understand the implications and make an informed choice. In this…
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Construction Company Claims with the R&D Tax Credit
Imagine accessing a “secret cash stash” to help expand your construction company’s operations. Like investing in that drilling machine you’ve been eyeing, onboarding new employees to increase productivity, or purchasing new materials for your business? That would be a dream come true, huh? Well, there might actually be a way to achieve this without a secret stash,…
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Download Your Construction Chart of Accounts 2025
In the construction industry, you have a million things to track: various projects, materials, suppliers, employees, contractors, tools, bills, and more. Now imagine that you need to find out what you bought for $2,932.32 last February at Home Depot… and why. Perhaps your operations manager or worse, the IRS, needs to see all of the receipts…
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QuickBooks + ServiceTitan Integration: Why & How to Do It
A ServiceTitan QuickBooks integration done right: what syncs, what breaks, and how to connect the two so your job costing and your books finally agree.
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New Construction Tax Credits You Haven’t Heard Of Yet (2023)
Today, we’re tackling one of the most common questions we get as construction accountants: “How much money can you save me from the government this year?” And we love this question. After all, it’s our job to help you make and keep, as much money as possible in your business. It’s always a good idea to…
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Your Guide to Workers’ Compensation in Washington State 2023
Death, taxes, and workers’ compensation premiums. Ok, Benjamin Franklin didn’t say that. But we are. If you own a business in the construction industry in Washington state, you are obligated to pay workers’ compensation for your employees – there’s no getting around it. And you shouldn’t want to. Workers’ compensation protects you and your business…
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