Free download · no email required
CSV of contractor accounts, default QBO codes and per-account notes. Import file below.
Download chart of accounts (CSV)Also available
An Alberta contractor’s QuickBooks file needs to do three jobs at once: keep retained money visible, keep the subcontractor tax question answered per invoice, and keep costs split the way estimators think. This chart sets all three up on Alberta’s simple 5% GST base, with the away-job exceptions annotated where they occur.
Structure for retention
Two accounts carry the lien-act reality. Holdbacks receivable (other current asset) holds what owners retain from your progress billings; holdbacks payable (other current liability) holds what you retain from subs. Both code Out of scope while retained, because the money has not moved and the GST event generally waits for release. The monthly reconciliation of these two accounts against contract terms is the single highest-value habit in construction bookkeeping.
Structure for people and stuff
Subcontractor labour anchors cost of sales at GST, with the no-tax case for small suppliers noted rather than improvised. It also quietly does your CRA paperwork: T5018 slips report payments to construction subs, and one dedicated account turns that filing into a report. Materials and equipment and tool rentals stay separate so job costing mirrors the estimate. Safety gear and PPE claims its 5%; permits and inspection fees sit out of scope with the rest of the government charges.
The general Alberta layer underneath behaves as expected: no provincial tax anywhere, insurance exempt with nothing added on top, crew meals capped at half the ITC, payroll out of scope.
The import, and what it deliberately omits
QuickBooks imports accounts as structure only: number, name, type, detail type, through Settings, Import data, Chart of accounts. Tax codes attach at the transaction line, so the readable CSV in this bundle is the actual coding standard: default code per account, alternatives, reasons. Print it for the office wall; the holdback and subcontractor notes earn their space.
Use QuickBooks projects for per-job profitability instead of per-job accounts. Bills, sub invoices, and progress billings tagged to a project roll up on their own, and the chart stays small enough to stay learned.
Releases are events, not adjustments
Treat every holdback release as a small ceremony. The receivable side converts limbo money into an invoiceable amount, and the GST that was waiting generally becomes payable; the payable side does the mirror image for your subs. Booking releases promptly, against the holdback accounts rather than as fresh revenue or cost, is what keeps the file’s GST timing aligned with the lien calendar. Contractors who batch releases quarterly out of convenience routinely discover their filings and their contracts disagree about which period the tax belongs to, and reconstructing that after the fact is slow, unbillable work.
Weekly cadence
- Post progress billings from the contract schedule, letting the holdback percentage land in its account.
- Batch-enter supplier bills against materials and rentals; delivery-point determines the tax on anything shipped across a border.
- Keep new-sub onboarding coupled to a registration check.
- Skim project cost reports against estimates; miscoding shows up as margin noise before it shows up as a tax problem.
Warranty and deficiency callbacks after completion belong in the same cost accounts as the original work, tagged to the same project, so each contract’s true cost includes its aftermath and next season’s estimating learns from it.
Site documents are the messiest in bookkeeping, and they arrive every day. Dext rules keep the lumber yard and fuel card consistent. ExpenseFlow reads each document, sorts registered-sub from small-supplier billing, applies 5% or the no-tax treatment correctly, and posts into QuickBooks against exactly these accounts. Hubdoc archives everything against the trail an auditor will one day walk.
Prefer Xero on this crew? The mirrored structure is at Alberta construction chart of accounts for Xero. Code meanings live in the Alberta QuickBooks sales tax reference.