Bookkeeping for contractors and maintenance businesses in the Netherlands looks nothing like bookkeeping for a solo freelancer who only invoices their own hours. The moment you're running several jobs at once, buying in materials, and have staff or subcontractors on site, your admin needs structure that a simple pile of receipts can't give you. Here's what that structure actually looks like, a worked example of what goes wrong without it, and the questions that come up most often from business owners setting this up for the first time.
The five building blocks of solid bookkeeping for contractors and maintenance businesses
- Per-project tracking. Every job gets its own cost code, so you can see at any point what a particular job has cost in materials, labour, and subcontracted work, instead of everything disappearing into one combined pot of revenue and expenses.
- G-account and chain liability (WKA). Work with subcontractors in construction, and as the main contractor you can be held liable if they fail to pay wage tax or social security contributions on their own staff. A g-account, a blocked bank account used to pay the Tax Administration directly, substantially limits that risk.
- Materials and stock tracking. Paint, timber, tiles, fixings: if you buy these in before passing the cost on to a client, you need to track where each item actually went, otherwise the margin between what you paid and what you invoiced quietly disappears into overheads instead of showing up as profit on that specific job.
- Staff hours by project. Once your team is being deployed across several jobs, you need visibility into who worked where and for how long, both for your own cost control and to feed correctly into payroll.
- Milestone invoicing. On larger jobs it's common to invoice in stages, at the start, halfway, and on completion. That avoids financing months of work out of your own pocket, and gives you a more accurate read on revenue period by period.
Why this goes wrong faster than it does for a solo freelancer
A freelancer with no staff typically has one workflow: do the hours, send the invoice, done. Add a team, several jobs running in parallel, and subcontractors, and those workflows start crossing over, which is exactly where most mistakes happen. Materials for job A get booked against job B, a subcontractor sends an invoice without applying the VAT reverse-charge when they should have, or nobody notices in time that a job is running well over its labour budget. For the rules on chain liability and the g-account, the Belastingdienst is the authoritative source to check for your specific situation, and for the practical side of working with subcontractors, the KVK is a solid starting point.
A worked example: two crews, two jobs
A maintenance business runs two crews at once on two jobs, each worth roughly €18,000 in materials and labour. Without per-project tracking, receipts from the builders' merchant for job A regularly end up filed with those for job B. By the end of the quarter, it turns out €1,200 worth of materials was allocated to the wrong job: job A now looks less profitable than it actually was, and job B looks better than it really is. That distorted picture makes it impossible to see which type of job is actually worth taking on, which is exactly the information you need to price your next quote properly.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a g-account if I work with subcontractors? It isn't mandatory, but without one you carry more risk as the main contractor if a subcontractor fails to pay their own wage tax. A g-account substantially limits that exposure.
What's the best way to track material costs across several jobs at once? Tag every purchase invoice with a project code as soon as it's entered into your books, not after the fact. Trying to work out afterwards which receipt belonged to which job is where most errors creep in.
Is bookkeeping different for a maintenance business with ongoing contracts versus a contractor doing one-off jobs? Largely, yes. Recurring contracts are mostly about periodic invoicing and tracking hours against each contract, while a contractor doing one-off jobs needs to settle up per project as soon as each one wraps.
New to running a business in the Netherlands?
Setting up a contracting or maintenance business here as a newcomer raises questions a general small-business guide won't answer: chain liability, g-accounts, VAT reverse-charge, payroll the moment you take on your first member of staff. At Sophy &Co. we start advising expat entrepreneurs before the paperwork is even filed, not only once the company already exists, and can connect you with trusted partners, banks, lawyers and notaries as you get your footing here.
Our bookkeepers work across English, Dutch, Italian, Chinese, Spanish, Papiamento, German, and some French and Polish, so you can talk through your situation in whatever language is easiest for you. We're a woman-led, diverse team, both women and men, and proudly LGBTQIA-friendly. Book a call and we'll walk through what actually applies to your business, no Dutch required.
How we handle this for you
At Sophy &Co. your bookkeeping gets set up so projects, materials, and staff don't blur together: share your purchase and sales invoices with us, and we make sure they land on the right project code and VAT treatment, g-account and chain liability included if you work with subcontractors. You pay one flat monthly fee, starting from €49, with no setup or cancellation costs, and payroll scales in alongside your headcount as a separate module handled by the same dedicated bookkeeper you reach directly.
Learn more
Take a look at our bookkeeping for construction and trades, read what a G-account in Dutch construction actually involves, or compare your situation with a sole trader working without staff. Taking on your first employees? Bookkeeper costs for a small construction business is worth reading too. Check our pricing or get in touch for a free, no-obligation conversation.