Landscaping & lawn care
Bookkeeping for landscaping and lawn care businesses
A landscaping year has two halves that look nothing alike. Books that report a monthly average describe a business that does not exist.
Revenue arrives from roughly March to November and the costs do not stop in December. Equipment payments, insurance and any year-round staff carry straight through the winter, which makes the off-season plan a bookkeeping question as much as an operational one.
Mixed work makes it harder: recurring maintenance and one-off installs have completely different margins, and a business can grow its revenue by taking on installs while quietly earning less.
Where the books go wrong
What we look at first
Maintenance and install revenue combined
Recurring routes and design-build projects behave differently in every respect. One line for both hides which is carrying the company.No plan for the off-season
Fixed costs continue when revenue stops. Without a cash forecast built from the actual seasonal pattern, February is a surprise every year.Crew labor not tied to work
Payroll recorded as one figure cannot tell you what a route or an install cost in labor, which is the largest cost in the business.Equipment bought without a real picture
Mowers, trucks and trailers accumulate payments, fuel, maintenance and insurance. Recorded loosely, the true cost of running the fleet stays invisible.
What we do each month
- Recurring maintenance and project work recorded as separate revenue streams
- Crew hours allocated to routes and to individual projects
- Materials, plants and disposal costs tracked against the job they belonged to
- Equipment loans split between principal and interest, with fuel and maintenance by unit
- Prepaid seasonal contracts held as a liability and released as the work is performed
- A rolling cash forecast that reflects the season rather than a monthly average
Setting up QuickBooks for it
Separate income accounts for maintenance, installation and snow or seasonal services make the mix readable at a glance.
Larger installs are set up as projects in QuickBooks Online so material, labor and subcontractor cost meet the contract value in one place.
Prepaid annual contracts sit in a liability account and release monthly, which stops spring looking like the whole year.
Carey is a QuickBooks Online Advanced ProAdvisor, so a file can be set up, cleaned up or migrated as part of the same engagement — see QuickBooks services.
Reporting
The numbers worth watching
Margin on maintenance against installs
The comparison that tells you which side of the business to grow.Labor as a share of revenue, by month
Seasonal, and worth watching seasonally rather than as an annual figure.Off-season cash requirement
What the business needs to carry from the last mow to the first, calculated rather than hoped.
Questions we are asked
Can you help us plan for the off-season?
We can build the picture: what the seasonal pattern actually looks like from your own history, what fixed costs continue through the winter, and what the business needs to carry. Deciding what to do with that — borrow, reserve, add winter services — is your call, and a financing decision is one for you and your bank.
We pay several crew members seasonally. Does that complicate payroll?
It adds movement rather than complexity. Seasonal staff come on and off payroll, and the records need to keep up. We coordinate with your payroll provider so the wages, taxes and any seasonal variations land correctly in the books.
Start with a conversation
Let's look at your books together
Tell us about your church or business and where your bookkeeping stands. Carey will follow up to arrange a consultation, and you'll receive a written scope before any work begins.