Many commercial contractors have experienced the stress caused by the surety requiring them to obtain a financial statement prepared by a certified public accountant (CPA). Often this is triggered by a large project opportunity. Faced with the possibility of losing a project, it becomes a mad dash, which may lead the contractor to choose an accountant with the quickest turnaround time and who causes the least amount of hassle. However, construction accounting is unique, and an accountant who is not familiar with its complexities could issue a statement without the needed schedules, with a balance sheet and income statement that don’t correctly tie into the schedules, or any number of other errors rendering it unusable for the surety underwriter. At this point the contractor has spent valuable time, not to mention thousands of dollars, for the statement, but everyone is back at square one, or worse, .