Builder's Guide to Accounting: What It Is and How Florida Tests It

It reads like a working manual for a contractor who keeps his own books rather than an accounting textbook. It runs about 360 pages across three sections and 28 short chapters, each ending in a set of self-test questions, with an appendix that carries a sample chart of accounts, a full set of worked financial statements, and an income tax planning section. The tone is practical: how to record a job, where the money went, and what the statements are telling you.

That's why it holds up as an exam reference. The exam asks you to price work, track costs, read a statement, and compute a ratio the way a contractor would, and those are the mechanics this book walks through with worked examples. None of it requires an accounting background.

• Section One — Sales and Accounts Receivable (Chapters 1–8): recordkeeping, accounting methods, cash and charge sales, receivables and bad debt, sales records, planning for profits.
• Section Two — Costs and Expenses (Chapters 9–19): check writing, materials, payroll, overhead, equipment records, cash budgeting, cost and expense records, petty cash, accounting for estimates.
• Section Three — Financial Statements (Chapters 20–28): financial statements, using financial information, financial ratios, putting together a statement, comparative period statements, restatements by accounting method, statements by job, statements for loan applications.
• Appendix: chart of accounts, complete financial statements, income tax planning, answers to the chapter test questions, and an index.

The state's rule is blunt and printed at the top of every reference list: the answers to the examination questions are based on the editions listed. The Business & Finance list names Builder's Guide to Accounting, 2001. Earlier or later editions may be brought at your own risk, and only one copy of each reference is allowed. So the age of the book isn't a reason to shop around for something newer. The listed edition is the one the answer key follows.

The material has aged better than the copyright date suggests, because double-entry bookkeeping, job costing, overhead allocation, and the standard ratios haven't changed. Tax numbers are the part to be careful about: don't run your real payroll off a 2001 book, and don't answer an exam payroll-tax question from it either. The current rates live in the IRS Circular E, which is reprinted inside the Contractors Manual on the same reference list.

On the Business & Finance reference list, Builder's Guide to Accounting is a room reference: it goes on the desk with you. On the General, Building and Residential list that covers Contract Administration and Project Management, the same book appears under "Suggested Study References," which the list says may not be brought into the testing room. It's the same title and the same 2001 edition on both lists, but the rules differ by exam part, and candidates do get caught by it.

The Business & Finance list is short. As of the January–December 2026 list, it's six references and no more, so there is no ambiguity about what you're carrying in:

• Florida Statutes Chapter 455 (2025) — the one reference the list allows as a bound PDF printout.
• Builder's Guide to Accounting (2001).
• Contractors Manual — the 2025 edition since February 1, 2026, and it includes the 2025 Circular E.
• AIA A201, General Conditions of the Contract for Construction (2017).
• AIA A401, Contractor–Subcontractor agreement (2017).
• AIA A701, Instructions to Bidders (2018).

Business & Finance is the shared gate for every Florida contractor license. Division I candidates — general, building, residential — take it alongside Contract Administration and Project Management. Division II candidates in the trades take it alongside their trade knowledge exam. Whichever license you're after, the accounting questions on Business & Finance come from the same place, so an HVAC or plumbing candidate needs this book for the same reason a general contractor does.

Reference lists are republished annually and editions do move; the Contractors Manual switched editions mid-cycle this year. Check the current list for your specific exam part and test date on the DBPR's construction examination reference lists page before you spend money on books. Our Florida contractor exam books and tabs guide covers the full stack the same way, and the Florida Contractor's Manual guide covers the book you'll open most.

The Business & Finance content outline the DBPR publishes puts "Conducting Accounting Functions" at 32% of the exam, the largest area on it. That's why this book matters more than its size suggests. Add the administrative and business-establishment areas that also touch records and money, and a large share of the exam is decided by how fast you can find things in these 28 chapters.

The chapter map below is drawn from the publisher's table of contents for the 2001 revised edition. Printings shift page numbers, so tab by chapter title and treat the page numbers as a rough guide. What matters is knowing which chapter a question type belongs to before you're sitting there flipping.

• Ratio questions — current ratio, quick ratio, debt-to-equity, working capital: Chapter 23, Financial Ratios.
• Reading and building statements — balance sheet, income statement, classification: Chapter 21 and Chapter 24, plus the worked statements in the appendix.
• Job-level reporting and over/underbilling: Chapter 27, Statements by Job.
• Cash versus accrual, and converting between accounting methods: Chapter 2, Accounting Methods, and Chapter 26, Restatements by Accounting Methods.
• Overhead and how it gets recovered: Chapter 12, Overhead Expenses.
• Equipment costs and depreciation: Chapter 13, Equipment Records.
• Payroll mechanics: Chapter 11, Payroll Accounting; current tax rates come from the Circular E in the Contractors Manual.
• Cash flow projections and budgets: Chapter 6 and Chapter 14, Cash Budgeting.
• Estimates carried into the books: Chapter 19, Accounting for Estimates.
• Receivables, collections, and bad debt: Chapters 4 and 5.

The reference list spells out what you may do to your books, and the rules are stricter than most candidates assume. Underlining in pen and highlighting are allowed. Handwritten and typewritten notes are not — existing notes have to be blacked out or removed completely so they can't be read. Movable tabs, Post-it flags specifically named, are not allowed. Every reference has to be bound and stay bound, and you can't make any marks in a reference during the exam. Writing tablets and electronic tablets stay out of the room.

So the tab set has to be permanent, and it has to be short enough to stay readable on the page edge. Tab the chapters you'll visit under time pressure, tab the appendix statements you'll compare against, and tab the index; for anything you didn't tab, that's the fastest way in. Then drill it: have someone call out "quick ratio" or "over-billed job" and time yourself getting to the controlling chapter. Tabs you've never used under pressure won't speed you up on exam day.

• Tab by chapter title, not page number; printings move pages and titles don't.
• Tab the ratio chapter, the statements chapters, the accounting-methods pair, and the appendix statements first — that's most of the accounting questions.
• Tab the index. It's the recovery plan for questions you didn't anticipate.
• Keep the labels short and consistent so your hand finds them without your eyes.
• Bring a legal calculator: silent, hand-held, battery-operated, nonprinting, and without an alphabetic keypad. The candidate booklet advises against solar ones, which is worth heeding in a dim testing room.

No sugarcoating: reading this book cover to cover is a poor use of a study week. It's a reference, and the exam treats it as one. The candidates who get value out of it work problems, then look up every miss in the book until the lookup is automatic. Twenty percentage-of-completion problems will do more for your score than twenty pages of reading, and the chapter test questions are a reasonable place to start because they're already written for self-testing.

The clock decides the rest. 120 questions in 390 minutes is about 3.25 minutes each, and that budget has to cover reading the question, deciding whether you know it cold, and executing the lookup or the math. At $215 per exam part, it's worth knowing where you stand before you book. The free readiness quiz is the place to start: 12 exam-style questions with instant domain-by-domain feedback. If the accounting domain comes back weak, you've learned exactly which chapters of this book to live in. Our Business & Finance exam guide covers the rest of the blueprint.