Manufacturing & Fabrication
Bookkeeping for shops that need to track material costs, labor, and overhead by job or production run.
The Industry
You buy raw materials. You turn them into something else. You sell that something else for more than it cost to make. Simple in concept, complicated in practice. The steel you bought three months ago at one price is sitting next to steel you bought last week at a different price. Which cost goes on the books when you ship the finished part?
Northwest Ohio has machine shops, fabricators, and small manufacturers feeding the auto industry, agriculture, and construction. The work is technical. The bookkeeping should match. Generic accounting that treats everything as revenue minus expenses doesn’t tell you which products make money and which ones are eating your margin.
Who This Covers
Who This Covers
Machine shops, metal fabricators, plastic molders, assembly operations, custom manufacturers, parts suppliers. Any shop turning raw materials into finished goods or components.
What Makes It Different
What Makes It Different
Inventory in three stages: raw materials, work in progress, finished goods. Cost of goods sold that has to be calculated, not just recorded. Job costing for custom work. Overhead allocation to products. Equipment depreciation on expensive machinery.
What We Handle
Monthly bookkeeping with inventory and COGS tracked correctly. Raw materials in, finished goods out, and the cost flow between them documented so your gross margin means something. Job costing for custom work so you know whether that repeat order is actually profitable or just keeping the shop busy.
Payroll for shop floor workers with overtime calculated correctly. Equipment depreciation tracked so you’re taking the write-offs you’re entitled to. Books that give you real numbers on what it costs to make what you make.
Inventory & COGS
Inventory & COGS
Materials tracked from purchase through production. Cost of goods sold calculated based on what actually went into the product, not a rough estimate. Gross margin that reflects reality.
Job Costing
Job Costing
Custom orders tracked separately. Materials, labor, and machine time allocated to specific jobs. You see what each order actually cost to produce, not just what you charged for it.
Common Problems
Material costs change. Steel prices move. Aluminum prices move. The quote you gave six months ago was based on costs that don’t exist anymore. If you’re not updating your pricing as materials fluctuate, margin erodes without anyone noticing until the year-end numbers come in wrong.
The other problem is overhead. The shop has rent, utilities, insurance, equipment payments, and maintenance. That overhead has to get allocated to products somehow, or your job costing is fiction. A part that looks profitable at the gross margin level might be a loser once you account for the machine time and floor space it consumed.
Stale Pricing
Stale Pricing
Quotes based on last year’s material costs. You win the job and lose money because steel went up 15% since you quoted it. Without current cost data, every quote is a gamble.
Hidden Overhead
Hidden Overhead
Direct materials and labor are easy to track. The machine that cost $200,000 and runs eight hours a day is harder to allocate. If overhead isn’t in your job costs, your margins are overstated.
What Changes
You know your actual cost to produce each product or job. Materials, labor, overhead, all of it. When a customer asks for a quote, you’re working from real numbers, not estimates from two years ago. When material costs spike, you see it in the reports and can adjust pricing before margin disappears.
Inventory stays accurate. COGS flows through correctly. Your P&L shows real gross margin, not a number that falls apart when someone looks closely. You can answer the question every manufacturer needs to answer: which products are worth making and which ones should be priced higher or dropped.
Accurate Quoting
Accurate Quoting
Current material costs, real labor rates, allocated overhead. Quotes based on what it actually costs to make the thing, not what you hope it costs.
Product Profitability
Product Profitability
See which products and jobs make money. Find the orders that look busy but barely break even. Focus capacity on work that actually contributes to the bottom line.
Northwest Ohio’s Trusted Bookkeeping Partner
The Next Step:
A 15-Minute Discovery Call
Let's talk about your current bookkeeping situation. We'll assess your needs, outline a plan of action, and give you a clear quote.
