For home builders, site work crews and trade contractors from Woodstock to Ball Ground. Job costing, WIP schedules and cash planning for a county that's added more residents since 2020 than all but one county in Georgia.
Free 30-Minute ConsultationCherokee County gained about 32,700 residents between 2020 and July 2025, according to Census Bureau estimates. Only Gwinnett added more. For a builder or site contractor, that means more starts, more draws and more cash stuck between them. We're a licensed CPA firm that sets up job costing by lot and phase, a WIP schedule that ties to your books, and a 13-week cash forecast, so the growth shows up in your bank account and not only on your profit and loss.
People, mostly. The Census Bureau's population estimates put Cherokee at 299,273 residents in July 2025, up from 266,615 at the 2020 base. The cities are moving even faster than the county: Canton is up about 24% to roughly 40,800 people, Holly Springs about 23%, Woodstock about 14%, and Ball Ground, still a small town, has grown 44% to around 3,500.
All those new households need lots, roads and rooftops. The county's own T-SPLOST information sheet gives a sense of what public road work costs here: about $23.4 million a mile for the Bells Ferry Road widening, and about $8.6 million for the intersection work at SR 140 and Batesville Road. Voters approved that 1% transportation sales tax in November 2025 with about 60% of the vote, and it runs from April 1, 2026 through March 31, 2032. So road, intersection and resurfacing contracts aren't going away anytime soon.
That shapes who we meet here: residential builders and the framing, concrete and roofing subcontractors who work for them, grading and utility companies, and trade contractors looking at public road work for the first time. They all have different accounting headaches. The one they share is cash.
Because every new start spends money before it brings any back. Here's one quarter for a builder who doubles from two starts a month to four. We've kept the numbers round so the arithmetic's easy to check: $60,000 of cash goes into each house before its first draw, and half of the quarter's starts reach a $90,000 draw before the quarter ends.
| Line | Two starts a month | Four starts a month |
|---|---|---|
| Homes started this quarter | 6 | 12 |
| Cash spent before first draw ($60,000 each) | $360,000 | $720,000 |
| Draws collected this quarter (half the homes, $90,000 each) | $270,000 | $540,000 |
| Cash still tied up at quarter end | $90,000 | $180,000 |
Both versions of the company can show a healthy profit. The difference is that the bigger one needs another $90,000 of working capital parked in houses that haven't paid yet. If nobody planned for it, it comes out of payroll week or the credit line. A rolling 13-week forecast built from your start schedule and draw timing shows that gap a month or two ahead, and our WIP calculator is a quick way to see where each open job stands today.
For budgeting, yes. The county's Development Service Center, on the ground floor of 1130 Bluffs Parkway in Canton, permits construction in unincorporated Cherokee County and the City of Waleska. Some cities run their own: Woodstock, for example, has a Building & Safety Division inside its Community Development department with its own permit numbers and inspection portal.
If you're building in three jurisdictions at once, you're paying three sets of fees and working three inspection calendars. We code permit and inspection costs to the job and lot they belong to, never to overhead, so a house in Canton and a house in unincorporated Cherokee show their true cost side by side.
Costs coded to the lot, the phase and the cost code, so you can see which subdivisions and floor plans actually earn their margin. Our job costing guide walks through the setup.
A monthly work-in-progress schedule that reconciles to the general ledger and flags overbillings and underbillings before your banker does.
If T-SPLOST contracts are on your list, sureties will want CPA-prepared statements and a backlog they believe. See how bonding capacity is figured.
Grading and utility companies buy iron. We plan equipment purchases and depreciation across the year with you, not in a rush the week before December 31.
W-9s, insurance certificates and 1099s for every framing, roofing and concrete subcontractor, plus a clear line on subcontractor vs. employee classification.
Contabilidad, impuestos y estados financieros en español para constructoras hispanas de Woodstock, Canton y todo el condado. CPA bilingüe para construcción.
Our office is at 1775 The Exchange SE, Suite 520, in Cumberland. Most Cherokee County clients handle the monthly work with us by video, phone and a secure portal, and we come out to your office or a job site when a conversation's worth having in person, like year-end planning or a first sit-down with your surety. We're a licensed CPA firm and a member of the Associated General Contractors of America, so draws, retainage and percentage of completion don't need explaining.
Nearby, we also work with contractors in Forsyth County, Cobb County, Kennesaw and Fulton County. For everything we do, see our construction CPA services.
Free 30-minute call, in English or Spanish. Bring last year's numbers and your start schedule, and we'll show you where the cash is going.
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