A civil construction bookkeeper posts every cost to the bid item it belongs to, from pipe and stone to machine hours. They check each public owner's monthly pay estimate and track the retainage held on every job. They also prepare the payroll data behind the weekly certified payrolls on public work.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, heavy and civil construction · BLS, May 2025
Responsible for maintaining accurate financial records and ensuring the integrity of financial documents for our civil and infrastructure contracting projects. Plays a critical role in processing financial transactions, reconciling accounts, and handling job costing to support business operations and project profitability. Contributes to informed decision-making by providing precise financial data and assisting in month-end and year-end closings.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Process and record financial documents including invoices, receipts, and payment vouchers with high accuracy.
Reconcile client and vendor accounts weekly to ensure alignment with recorded transactions.
Manage job costing processes by tracking expenses and verifying project profitability.
Compile and present financial reports to management to support strategic decisions.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Process daily financial transactions and ensure timely posting of entries.
Perform regular account reconciliations and resolve discrepancies efficiently.
Update and maintain job costing spreadsheets in collaboration with project managers.
Assist with month-end closing procedures and prepare supporting documentation for audits.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Invoice Processing Accuracy: Maintain a 99% accuracy rate per month.
Accounts Reconciliation Timeliness: Complete 100% reconciliations within 5 business days.
Financial Reporting Timeliness: Submit reports within 3 business days after month-end closing.
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.
Minimum of 2 years of bookkeeping experience in a relevant industry.
Proficiency with bookkeeping software and advanced Excel skills.
Strong analytical skills with keen attention to detail.
Excellent organizational and communication skills.
6. Preferred Experience
Experience working within the civil and infrastructure contracting industry.
Previous employment in a home services or construction environment.
Familiarity with project costing and job tracking systems.
Experience with both manual and automated reconciliation processes.
7. Physical Requirements
Ability to sit for extended periods while performing detailed work.
Dexterity in using office equipment such as computers, printers, and scanners.
Minimal physical exertion required with occasional lifting of files up to 15 pounds.
Comfort with a typical office environment including extended hours at a workstation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Standard office hours, Monday through Friday.
Minimal travel requirements with primarily in-office work.
Occasional extended hours required during month-end close cycles.
On-call or weekend availability may be needed during peak periods.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Hourly rate: $20 – $30 per hour, commensurate with experience.
Performance-based bonus structure tied to accuracy and timely completion of tasks.
Comprehensive Health, Dental, and Vision insurance packages.
Retirement plan (401k) with company match and paid time off.
10. Company Culture and Overview
We cultivate a supportive and innovative work environment where professional growth is prioritized.
Our team embraces teamwork, creative problem-solving, and a commitment to excellence.
We are dedicated to serving the civil and infrastructure sector with integrity and customer-centric solutions.
Our culture thrives on inclusivity, continuous improvement, and mutual success.
11. How to Apply
If you meet the above criteria and want to be part of a growth-oriented company focused on customer satisfaction, please send your resume to [INSERT EMAIL HERE] or apply online at [INSERT WEBSITE LINK HERE].
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
On a unit-price public job, a civil contractor gets paid for what the owner's inspector measures, and much of its cost runs through machines and public payrolls. The ledger has to follow the same lines the bid did.
Costs post to bid items, not just jobs
A road or sewer bid lists dozens of pay items, such as feet of 8-inch pipe, each manhole, tons of base or square yards of asphalt. Each cost code should map to one of those items, so the job cost report reads the way the bid did. Then the project manager sees which item lost money, not just which job. Build that map when the job is awarded, before the first supplier bill arrives.
The owner writes the estimate, and you check it
When a public owner's engineer prices the monthly pay estimate from the inspector's quantities, the bookkeeper checks it against your own daily counts, item by item. A missing line or a short quantity is easier to fix this month than at final. Each estimate also shows the retainage held to date. Post it to its own receivable account and tie it to the owner's figure, so the CFO's release request starts from the right number.
Machine hours land on the job
Excavators, loaders, rollers and trucks get charged to jobs by the hour, at the rates the CFO sets. The hours are taken from the foreman's daily sheet or from the machine's telematics. The bookkeeper posts them to the right job and bid item each week. They flag any machine charged to two jobs on one day, or to none. A job missing its machine hours looks better than it really is.
Certified payroll can go in any format
On Davis-Bacon jobs, the weekly certified payroll may go on DOL's Optional Form WH-347 or in any other format with the same facts. The weekly copy shows only a worker ID, such as the last four digits of a Social Security number. The full number, home address, phone and email stay off it. Each week the bookkeeper pulls every worker's pay classes, hours by job, rates and deductions from payroll, and keeps the full records in house. Source: 29 CFR 5.5: Contract provisions, records and certified payrolls (eCFR).
Fringe credit is spread over every hour
If part of the prevailing wage fringe is paid through a health plan rather than cash, DOL generally credits the plan's cost spread over all the hours a worker put in, private work included. Divide the period's plan cost by total hours to get the hourly credit, worker by worker when costs differ. Defined contribution pension plans with immediate participation and near-immediate vesting are excepted if they meet DOL's tests, and other plans can ask DOL for an exception. Check yours with your payroll advisor. Source: 29 CFR 5.25: Rate of contribution or cost for fringe benefits (eCFR).
How much civil construction bookkeepers make
The closest BLS group for civil construction bookkeepers is bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks. Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks who work for heavy and civil engineering contractors earned a median of $26.40 an hour ($54,900 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s above the $50,670 median for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks in all industries. About 11,980 of the 1,373,680 bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks in that survey work for heavy and civil construction.
On this chart, the median for bookkeeping clerks at heavy and civil contractors falls inside the template's hourly range. Its bonus can ride on weeks with clean certified payroll data and retainage posted correctly.
Heavy and civil construction
$54,900$54,900 median Middle half $45,520–$64,070 10th–90th $36,470–$76,860
All industries
$50,670$50,670 median Middle half $43,520–$61,470 10th–90th $36,000–$74,550
$30k$40k$50k$60k$70k$80k$90k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Heavy and civil construction
$36,470
$45,520
$54,900
$64,070
$76,860
All industries
$36,000
$43,520
$50,670
$61,470
$74,550
BLS doesn’t publish pay for civil contractors on their own. These figures cover heavy and civil engineering construction, which include them. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
The pay line in the template above is an example from our Role Blueprint. Set yours from these figures and what local companies pay.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Has kept job cost for a road, utility or site contractor
Matches a public owner's pay estimate to field quantities
Has prepared weekly payroll data for certified payrolls
Posts machine hours to jobs from timecards or telematics
Ties retainage held on each job back to the owner's figure
Teach these on the job
Your bid item and cost code map
Each owner's pay estimate format and portal
The wage determinations and fringe plans on your public jobs
Your machine rates and how hours reach the ledger
Your accounting system's equipment module
Expect construction accounting with job cost and equipment modules, such as Foundation or Viewpoint Spectrum, with hours flowing in from a field timecard app and machine telematics. Owners send pay estimates as PDFs or through their own portals, so ask finalists how they checked one against field counts.
Civil construction bookkeeper interview questions
Two of the 6 questions we'd ask, and what a strong answer sounds like. Ask every candidate the same questions, and rate each answer on your own before you compare notes.
Situational · Matching invoices to tickets
A concrete supplier bills [80] cubic yards for a pour, but the delivery tickets in the job folder add up to [72]. What do you do?
A strong answer: Holds that invoice, gets every ticket from the supplier and the field, checks for a missing ticket or short-load charge, and settles the difference before paying.
Behavioral · Finding job cost errors
Tell me about a time a job cost report didn't agree with the general ledger, such as equipment hours or materials posted to the wrong job. How did you find the problem?
A strong answer: Traced it entry by entry to the cause, such as a miscoded delivery ticket or an unposted equipment charge, corrected it with a documented entry, told the project manager and added a check to the close.
These four come from the template. Measure them over a busy paving month and a slow winter one before you hold anyone to a number.
Invoice Processing Accuracy
Sample supplier bills, sub pay requests and haul tickets each month. Check the amount, job, bid item and cost code. Pipe charged to the right job but to the manhole item still needs fixing.
Accounts Reconciliation Timeliness
Count the business days from month's end until bank, card, vendor and retainage accounts are reconciled, plus the date each owner's pay estimate was tied to your billing records.
Job Costing Variance
Set each bid item's spending so far beside the budget for the quantity actually installed, not the full bid quantity, so a half-built sewer line doesn't look under budget.
Financial Reporting Timeliness
Business days from close to the job cost and work-in-progress reports reaching the CFO and project managers. When foremen's daily reports come in late, log that apart from accounting delays.
Career path
Payables clerk at a site or paving contractorEnters supplier bills and timecards while learning how each cost maps to a pay item.
Civil construction bookkeeperOwns job cost by bid item, certified payroll data and retainage records.
Project accountant or controllerRuns pay estimate reviews, work-in-progress reports and the monthly close.
The prime contractor does. DOL makes the prime responsible for submitting the certified payrolls of every subcontractor on a covered job. So the bookkeeper logs each sub's weekly payroll as it arrives and flags a missing week before that sub's next payment goes out. A prime may also ask subs for full worker details for its own records, as long as those details stay out of the weekly copies.
How much does a civil construction bookkeeper make?
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks who work for heavy and civil engineering contractors earned a median of $26.40 an hour ($54,900 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $45,520 and $64,070 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
Can certified payrolls go through an owner's online system?
Yes, when the owner or prime allows it. DOL accepts electronic systems that require a legally valid electronic signature and keep the payrolls open to the contractor, the agency and DOL for at least three years after the prime contract's work ends. The agency or prime must still allow another method for a contractor that can't use the system. Learn each owner's login and weekly upload deadline.
Should payroll sit with the bookkeeper at a civil contractor?
At this size one person can do both, since prevailing wage rates, fringe plans and union dues start in payroll and end up in job cost. Split the work once several public jobs run at once, because weekly certified payrolls and the month-end close tend to pile up together. Whoever runs payroll needs the current wage determination for every public job on file.
Does a civil bookkeeper need to know equipment accounting?
Enough to post it right. The CFO sets each machine's hourly rate. The bookkeeper charges hours to jobs at that rate and records repairs, fuel and parts against the machine, not the job. Then they compare what the jobs were charged with what the fleet really cost that month. A big gap either way means the rates need another look.
