For contractors and trades · United States
Nella for construction and trades contractors
Know where the cash is between draws, which customers owe you, and which subcontractors are on your 1099 list.
At a glance
- Built for
- Construction and trades contractors
- Connects to
- QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, FreeAgent
- Your books
- Change only with your permission
- Free trial
- 60 days, no card
Secure connection · no card required
What makes the numbers hard here.
Cash moves in big, uneven steps
Materials and payroll go out weekly while customer payments arrive in large, irregular amounts.
Receivables decide the month
One slow-paying customer can matter more to cash than a month of new work.
Subcontractors add up
Payments to the same subcontractor across many small jobs reach the 1099-NEC threshold without anyone noticing.
Margin moves quietly
Material and subcontractor costs shift between months, and the change shows in the year-end numbers long after it happened.
How does Nella help construction and trades contractors?
Nella connects to your QuickBooks or Xero company and answers plain-English questions about your own figures — cash on hand and how long it lasts, who owes you and how late they are, what you paid subcontractors this year, and how gross margin moved month to month. It builds a 1099-NEC review list from your vendor payments and keeps payroll and federal filing dates in view. It reads your books; it does not cost individual jobs.
Questions you can ask Nella
These are asked in plain English, and answered from your own figures.
- How much cash will we have at the end of next month?
- Which customers owe us the most, and how late are they?
- Which subcontractors did we pay $2,000 or more this year other than by card?
- How has gross margin moved over the last six months?
- When is our next Form 941 due?
- What did we spend on materials last quarter compared with the one before?
Nella provides financial information and education, not accounting or tax advice. Nella shows you the numbers. When a question needs professional judgment, such as a filing or a tax decision, Nella says so and points you to a qualified accountant.
What Nella watches between your questions
- Cash and runway, derived from the ledger
- Overdue customer invoices, with how late each one is
- Vendor payments for the year, with card payments separated, for the 1099-NEC review list
- Cost lines that jump against their own history
- Payroll and federal filing dates for your business
Cash and deadline alerts are included in the free trial and on Nella Paid.
The rules that apply here
Stated with the tax year they apply to, and linked to the source. Nella reports figures; it does not interpret these rules for your situation.
For payments made in 2026, Form 1099-NEC generally applies to non-employees paid $2,000 or more for services, due to the IRS and recipients by February 1, 2027 (IRS Publication 1099 (2026), What’s New: Increase in threshold for requiring filing of certain information returns and backup withholding).
Payments by card or through third-party networks are reported by the payment settlement entity instead (IRS Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. 4/2025), pp. 1, 7–8).
Quarterly Form 941 for 2026 is due April 30, 2026, July 31, 2026, November 2, 2026 and February 1, 2027 (IRS Instructions for Form 941 (03/2026), When Must You File?).
More detail: Form 1099-NEC for 2026 payments · Payroll tax form deadlines, tax year 2026 · Federal tax deadlines for small businesses, tax year 2026
What Nella cannot do
Nella reads your books. Nothing in them changes unless you give permission in Nella, and it does not reconcile the bank, file anything with the IRS, the Social Security Administration or a state agency, or move money. It reports what your accounting software already holds.
Nella reads the company whose books it is connected to. Whether a subcontractor needs a 1099-NEC depends on facts the books do not hold, such as their Form W-9 status, so the list is for you and your accountant to check.
Nella connects to QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, FreeAgent. How deeply it can read varies by platform — the supported-platform table sets out what is read on each. See how your data is handled.
See it on your own numbers
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