Help is here, @Kimberly74.
You've performed the right steps to correct the original deposit and ensure accurate accounting for your contractor client's construction job by moving the funds to a separate job bank account and using a job-in-progress account. For your reference, you can visit this article: Correct customer payments that have been deposited or reconciled.
Moreover, when writing a check from that job account to the contractor, it should show as an expense on the Profit & Loss (P&L) report. All the checks you've used or the money you've spent will show up as an expense. However, if the transactions only include balance sheet accounts, they won't be displayed.
In case you want to make an existing deposit a recurring transaction, you can check out this article's Record recurring deposits section for more guidance: Record and make bank deposits in QuickBooks Desktop.
Please let me know if you need any further clarification about your contractor's payment. I'm always available to help you out. Stay safe!