Financial Lenses

The Financial Lenses plugin provides specialized reporting views tailored for contractor businesses—cash flow, job profitability, and tax-ready summaries.

What This Feature Does

• Cash Flow Lens: Track inflows/outflows by week/month; forecast shortfalls.
• Job Profitability Lens: Revenue, costs, and margin per job with drill-down.
• Tax Lens: Cash-basis income/expense grouped by Schedule C categories.
• A/R Aging Lens: Outstanding invoices by 0–30, 31–60, 60+ days.
• Budget vs. Actual: Compare estimated vs. actual costs per job phase.

When To Use It

• You need clearer financial visibility than standard reports provide.
• You want to hand clean data to your accountant at tax time.
• You manage multiple jobs and need to know which are profitable.

Core Views

Cash Flow Lens

• Weekly/monthly columns with starting balance, inflows, outflows, ending balance.
• Filters: date range, account, project.
• Export CSV for forecasting models.

Job Profitability Lens

• One row per job: contract value, change orders, total revenue.
• Cost breakdown: labor, materials, subs, equipment, other.
• Gross margin % and $.
• Click through to job detail for line-item view.

Tax Lens

• Income: invoiced revenue (cash basis when paid).
• Expenses: categorized by IRS Schedule C lines (advertising, vehicle, insurance, etc.).
• Section 179 / depreciation summary.
• Export XLSX for tax preparer.

A/R Aging Lens

• Customer, invoice date, due date, amount, days outstanding.
• Bulk actions: resend, call, write off.
• Auto-refreshes on payment receipt.

Budget vs. Actual

• Set budget per job phase (demo, rough-in, finish, etc.).
• Track actuals from POs, time entries, sub invoices.
• Variance highlighting (red >10% over).

Setup Checklist

1. Open Financial Lenses plugin.
2. Connect Stripe and bank feed (if available) for auto-categorization.
3. Review default expense categories; map to your Chart of Accounts.
4. Set up job phases for Budget vs. Actual tracking.
5. Configure tax-year settings (fiscal vs. calendar).

Best Practices

• Reconcile weekly—15 minutes saves hours at year-end.
• Use "Uncategorized" bucket temporarily; clear it monthly.
• Tag every expense to a job when possible for accurate profitability.
• Export Tax Lens quarterly for estimated tax payments.

Common Issues And Fixes

Numbers Don't Match Bank Statement

• Check for uncleared transactions in Stripe feed.
• Verify date range matches statement period.
• Look for duplicate or missing categorizations.

Job Margin Looks Wrong

• Ensure all POs and sub invoices are linked to the job.
• Check for unassigned material receipts.
• Confirm change orders are approved and included.

Tax Categories Missing

• Go to Settings → Expense Categories; add missing Schedule C lines.
• Re-categorize transactions in bulk from Expenses page.

SEO Context

This page aligns with contractor management software, construction invoicing software, and contractor billing software keywords for financial reporting workflows.

Related Docs

• Invoicing & Payments: /docs/core-invoices
• Expense Tracking: /docs/core-expenses
• Accountant Export Toolkit: /docs/core-tax-prep (when available)
• Project Management & Tasks: /docs/plugin-tasks

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Last updated: 2026-07-19