Can you track profitability per maintenance route?

Yes, provided crew hours are captured per route. We set up the job or class structure and work from whatever time tracking you already use.

Should we buy or rent that machine?

We give you the cost side of the answer: what your current equipment actually costs per hour of use versus rental rates. The decision stays yours, and the tax treatment question belongs with your tax preparer.

Do you work with excavation and other specialty trades?

Yes. Excavation, concrete, fencing, and similar specialty contractors share the same structure: job costing, equipment cost, crew labor, and subcontractor tracking.

Landscaping & Specialty Trades

Bookkeeping for Landscaping & Specialty Trades

Recurring maintenance and one-off installs behave nothing alike. Reported together, they hide each other.

Landscaping and excavation businesses usually run two engines: recurring maintenance that produces steady, thin margin, and installs or site work that produce lumpy, larger margin. Reported as one number, a strong install month can mask a maintenance route that no longer covers its crew.

We separate recurring and project revenue, allocate crew labor and equipment cost to each, and track the seasonal cash cycle so the off-season is planned rather than survived.

What goes wrong

Where landscaping margin usually leaks.

Maintenance routes that stopped covering their cost

Fuel, labor, and equipment allocated per route show which contracts need repricing before renewal season.

Equipment bought on impulse in a strong month

Tracking equipment cost per hour of use, including payment, fuel, and repair, makes buy-versus-rent an arithmetic question.

Prepaid seasonal contracts recognized too early

Annual contracts collected in spring are unearned until service is delivered. Spreading them keeps monthly margin honest.

Crew labor untracked by job

Without hours by job, an install that ran three days long looks identical to one that finished early.

What we track for you

Recurring maintenance revenue vs. install and project revenue
Crew labor hours by route and by job, with burden
Equipment cost per unit: payments, fuel, repairs, and rental
Deferred revenue on prepaid seasonal contracts
Material and plant cost per install job
Subcontractor payments and W-9 status for 1099-NEC

Your cost structure

Crew labor: Loaded hourly cost allocated between maintenance routes and project work, including drive time between sites.
Equipment: Each major machine carries its payment, fuel, maintenance, and repair cost so utilization can be judged against ownership cost.
Materials and plant stock: Plants, stone, mulch, and hardscape material coded per install, including shrink and replacements under warranty.
Seasonal overhead: Fixed cost that continues through the off-season, reported against in-season collected margin to set a reserve target.

What lands in your monthly report

Margin by maintenance route and by install job
Equipment cost summary per machine
Deferred seasonal contract balance
Collected margin against fixed overhead, with off-season runway
Company profit and loss and balance sheet

Landscaping questions

See the full monthly plans and pricing, or read how the onboarding process works.

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Most of what your tax preparer bills you for at year end is cleanup they should not have had to do. Here is the sequence to fix it yourself.

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