About Dovetail Ledger · 30 North Bayles Avenue

A pencil behind the ear, a stack of lumber-yard invoices on the dash, and a desk on Bayles Avenue where they finally get coded.

Dovetail Ledger is a bookkeeping and payroll desk that does one kind of client: independent carpenters, electricians and HVAC installers. We know what a retainage line is, why a refrigerant invoice belongs to one job and not the shop, and why Friday’s texted timesheet matters more than any software.

The shops this desk is set up for:

  • Finish carpenters
  • Two-van electrical shops
  • HVAC install crews
  • Sole proprietors with a helper
Painted bookkeeper's desk with an open ledger, brass lamp, carpenter's pencil and a dovetail joint sample
Desk 01 · Bayles Ave

Trades. One cost-code tree for each.

Painted still life of a carpenter's pencil, wire strippers and supplier invoices on ledger paper

Why a desk just for the trades

Generic books can’t see the job. Ours start there.

Contractor books fail in a predictable place. A bank feed shows “Home Depot $412.18” and a bookkeeper who has never held a stud finder files it under Supplies. Nobody learns that the Roslyn bath ran 11% over on tile until the job is closed and the check has cleared.

Dovetail Ledger was set up the other way around. The job is the unit. Materials, labor, subs, permits and equipment each get a cost code, and every transaction is seated into a job before it is allowed into a monthly report. A dovetail holds because the tail and pin leave no gap; the books should hold for the same reason.

If a transaction can’t be tied to a job, it goes in the exception log, in writing, and not into a plug figure.

We work out of 30 North Bayles Avenue in Port Washington. Cleanups happen at our table or on your tailgate; monthly books and payroll run by secure upload and phone for clients anywhere in New York State.

How the desk is run

Four tolerances we hold the work to.

  1. I

    Flat fee, quoted before we start

    Every engagement is priced per scope, in writing, and invoiced by ACH, check or card. A cleanup that runs long is our overrun, not an extra line on your bill.

    $0 hourly
  2. II

    Look, never touch

    Read-only bank feeds or uploaded PDFs. No signing authority, no stored card numbers, no ability to move a dollar. Access can be revoked from your bank in one step.

    View only
  3. III

    Close by the 10th

    Monthly clients get reconciled accounts, aged A/R and A/P and a one-page job margin report by the 10th of the following month, so the next estimate is priced off real numbers.

    Day 10
  4. IV

    Your CPA stays your CPA

    We don’t file returns. We hand your accountant a tied-out file, a quarterly estimated-tax worksheet and clean 1099-NEC prep each January, so their hours go to tax planning instead of untangling.

    Tied out

What’s pinned to the desk

Vocabulary we already know, so you don’t translate.

Trade 01

Finish and remodel carpentry

Deposit, progress and final billing; lumber-yard and millwork accounts split by job; change orders tracked against the signed estimate so scope creep shows as a number.

Painted close-up of a hand-cut dovetail joint beside a pencil and invoice
Tail seats into pin. Bank line seats into job.
Trade 02

Electrical shops

Wire, panels and fixtures by job; permit and inspection fees coded separately; sub electricians tracked with W-9s and certificate-of-insurance expiry dates.

Trade 03

HVAC install and service

Equipment and refrigerant on the install they belong to, service agreements separated from installs, and payroll hours split by workers’ comp class for the premium audit.

Mon–Fri 10am–5:30pm

Hand over the shoebox. Get back the margin on every job.

Twenty minutes on the phone, your last three statements, and a flat quote in writing within one business day.

contact@dovetailledger.com30 North Bayles Avenue, Port Washington, NY 11050

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