Contractor statements and WIP schedules for your surety and CPA

Your surety sets its own threshold, so start by asking your bonding agent for the written requirement. The one public yardstick is the SBA surety bond program, where SOP 50 45 4 (effective 2024-11-21, opened 2026-10-19) ties the year-end statement to contract size.

In-House Plus means a high-quality computer-generated statement with aged schedules of receivables and payables, the current portion of long-term debt and a correctly structured balance sheet with no negative liabilities. SBA may require a higher level when it has case-specific concerns. Federal tax returns may stand in for year-end statements, but not for a current statement that SBA needs for its working capital calculation.

A private surety can draw its own lines, which is why this table is a yardstick and not your answer. For context, federal construction contracts above $150,000 need performance and payment bonds, and FAR 28.102-1 (FAC 2026-01, effective 2026-03-13) sets that threshold without naming any CPA level.

A work-in-progress (WIP) schedule lists every open job with its contract price, what you have billed, what you have spent and what you still expect to spend. SBA's version, Form 994F (9/22 edition, opened 2026-10-19), asks for eight columns per job, shown below with the two dates in one row.

The form asks you to include all work, bonded and unbonded, and to mark cost-plus jobs. SOP 50 45 4 adds that the schedule must cover every job whether or not work has started, including all awarded contracts, because over-extension is one of the most common causes of contractor failure.

Your surety may ask for more than SBA does. These are the columns we compute from those inputs.

Because the WIP schedule shows each job's earned revenue and billing position, and both come from a measure of progress on the job. ASC 606 says revenue recognized over time is measured by progress toward complete satisfaction of the performance obligation (606-10-25-31), and an input method does that by comparing costs incurred with total expected costs (606-10-55-20). The source is ASU 2014-09 as issued, opened 2026-10-19; the Codification is the authority.

The percentage is only as good as the estimate to complete, which is why every open job needs a fresh estimate each month. Paragraph 606-10-55-21 adds a caution: a cost-based measure may need adjusting for costs that do not show progress, such as wasted materials or labor, or a cost that is not proportionate to progress. Your CPA practice and your surety decide which method they accept.

It looks like one row per job, with the billing position at the far right. This table is Illustrative, in $000, with made-up jobs, and every row foots.

Job A is 540 / 900 = 60.0% complete, so earned revenue is 60.0% of 1,200 = 720, and 780 billed less 720 earned leaves 60 over-billed. Job B is under-billed by 40. The totals check: 1,480 billed less 1,460 earned is 20, which is 60 less 40. Over-billing means you have collected ahead of the work; under-billing means you have worked ahead of your invoices.

Gross profit and backlog on the same jobs, still Illustrative and in $000:

Estimated gross profit is contract price less estimated total cost. Profit earned to date is earned revenue less cost to date (1,460 less 1,230 is 230). Backlog is contract price less earned revenue (2,500 less 1,460 is 1,040).

Your surety sets its own limits, so ask your agent which statements and dates it wants. SBA's rules in SOP 50 45 4 (read 2026-10-19) show how one program writes them. A new WIP schedule goes with any application that falls more than 90 days after the effective date of the WIP on file. Financial statements must be entered in SBA's system within 120 days of the statement date. A six-month interim statement is required from the contractor's year-end, and it may be internally prepared.

If your agent quoted a 90-day limit, ask whether it applies to the interim statement, the WIP schedule or both. When the ledger is reconciled every month, the WIP schedule is already current on the day the request arrives.

Finbryn works every month; the independent CPA practice you engage works after year-end and signs its own report. The diagram runs left to right in eight steps. It starts with job costs posted and reconciled, then your estimates to complete, then the updated WIP schedule, interim statements and year-end statements, which we prepare. Next the CPA practice you engage tests the file, then it signs its report, and last you send the report and the WIP schedule to your surety.

Your estimates and your engagement of the CPA practice are shaded as client steps, and the CPA practice's signature is marked as the signing step. Finbryn signs nothing in this chain.

Sometimes, if that practice follows the AICPA's safeguards; never through Finbryn. The AICPA Code (updated through July 2026, opened 2026-10-19) lets a CPA record transactions a client has classified, prepare statements from the client's trial balance and prepare reconciliations for the client to evaluate, provided management oversees the work and accepts responsibility for the results (ET 1.295.040 and 1.295.120.02).

The same Code treats a CPA as not independent who determines or changes journal entries or account coding without the client's approval, or who prepares source documents (1.295.120.03). Audits and reviews need independence. A compilation report may instead disclose a lack of independence.

Finbryn's rule is simpler. If Finbryn keeps your books, we refer your audit to an independent CPA practice, and we hold a review or a compilation of statements built from books we keep to the same rule. On request we introduce independent licensed CPA practices; you engage the one you choose directly, under its own engagement letter. Finbryn receives no fee or commission tied to any audit.

Before you sign with any practice, ask for its license number and its latest peer review report. The Uniform Accountancy Act, section 7(h) (2018 edition, read 2026-10-19), makes peer review a condition of renewing a firm permit.