Bookkeeping for landscapers & lawn care
Bookkeeping for landscapers who need to know which jobs make money.
Being booked solid does not prove the jobs made money. See what each service line earned after crew labor, materials, equipment, delivery, and dump fees.
Books by the 10th · Seasonal pricing available · No long-term contracts
Real experience inside Orlando's Landscaping
Small Business Bookkeeping Co. founder Skylar Giron Sabillon didn't just study landscaping company finances. He worked the field and operations side of Orlando's Landscaping and handled bookkeeping cleanup, payroll setup, sales tax tracking, and reporting for a real field service operation.
That means when we say we understand landscaping bookkeeping, we mean it. We know what crew payroll looks like. We know how materials purchasing flows through the books. We know where most landscaping businesses accumulate errors, and how to fix them.
A landscaper's experience
“We did not really have books before. Skylar came in and saved us a lot of time. Now our books are always ready, and getting our business taxes done was easy.”
Booked solid does not mean profitable
A landscaping company needs more than a total for income and expenses. The reports should show whether a mulch job covered labor, whether an installation recovered its materials, whether payroll is eating the margin, and whether pricing leaves enough cash for overhead.
Revenue tells you how busy the crews were. Job and service-line numbers tell you what the work kept after labor, materials, payroll taxes, repairs, fuel, and equipment costs. That is the gap our bookkeeping and reporting work closes.
Common bookkeeping challenges in landscaping
Job Costing & Estimates
Knowing exactly what materials and labor cost on a per-job basis so your estimates actually result in profit.
Crew payroll complexity
Managing hourly crew members, overtime, and payroll taxes accurately inside QuickBooks, and keeping it reconciled monthly.
Materials & Equipment
Mulch, plants, seed, equipment supplies, and depreciation tracking to understand your real overhead.
Seasonal cash flow gaps
Landscaping revenue isn't always consistent month to month. Clean books help you plan for slow periods before they hit.
Mixed payment types
Cash, check, card, and ACH payments all need accurate reconciliation. This is a massive source of errors.
QuickBooks Cleanup
Many landscaping businesses are running on a messy bookkeeping file that was never properly set up. We fix that first.
See the work by service line
We build the books around your service lines so each kind of work shows its own revenue, cost, and margin instead of disappearing into one number.
| Service line | What we track |
|---|---|
| Mowing | Revenue, labor hours, fuel, equipment |
| Seasonal maintenance | Revenue, labor, materials, gross margin |
| Mulching | Revenue, mulch and delivery, labor, dump fees |
| Planting & landscape installs | Revenue, plants/materials, labor, subcontractors |
| Tree planting | Revenue, materials, equipment, labor |
| Cleanup work | Revenue, labor, dump fees, disposal |
| Hardscape or gravel work | Revenue, rock/gravel, equipment rental, labor |
Across every service line we can break out revenue, labor hours, direct materials, equipment rental, dump fees, subcontractors, gross profit, and gross margin.
What a $2,800 mulch job can hide
The job sold for $2,800. Revenue alone made it look healthy. But the sale price could not show what the work actually kept.
The rest of the job
Next came the costs: mulch, pre-emergent, delivery, disposal, crew hours, equipment, fuel, dump fees, and payment fees. Each cost belonged with the job, not buried in a general expense total.
Only the completed job report showed gross profit and margin. That report told us whether the $2,800 price worked or needed to change.
Want the full method? Read our guide to job costing for landscapers and contractors.
Want us to review the work with you? Start with a Profit Leak Review to find buried costs and underpriced jobs.
QuickBooks setup and cleanup for landscapers
Many landscaping files were never set up for how the business actually runs. Income is lumped together, materials and direct job costs are buried in overhead, customer deposits are posted as generic income, and credit card payments or transfers are duplicated in the bank feed.
We rebuild the chart of accounts around your service lines, clean up uncategorized transactions, match deposits and payments, reconcile month by month, and fix how deposits and owner activity are recorded, so the reports finally mean something.
The monthly reports behind better job decisions
Each month, the reports should help you decide what to price differently, which work to pursue, when to collect cash, and whether the business can support another crew or equipment payment.
- Total revenue and revenue by service line
- Gross profit and gross margin
- Labor cost and what payroll really costs you after taxes and comp
- Materials and direct job costs
- Overhead and unusual expenses to review
- Owner draws and contributions
- Cash position
- Accounts receivable and outstanding customer balances
Choose the support your numbers need
Monthly Bookkeeping for Landscaping Companies
Done for you categorization, reconciliation, and monthly reporting.
Catch Up Bookkeeping for Landscapers
Behind on the books? We clean up the backlog and get everything current.
Payroll Support for Landscaping Crews
Crew payroll administration for up to 15 employees, integrated with bookkeeping.
Sales Tax Support for Materials & Services
Stay compliant on taxable services and materials across state lines.
Profit Leak Review for Landscapers
A six-month review to find underpriced jobs, buried costs, and where margin is leaking.
QuickBooks Setup & Training
Setup and training for small business bookkeeping systems including QuickBooks Online.
Landscaping bookkeeping FAQs
Do you work with small landscaping companies?
Yes. Most of the businesses we help are owner-operated landscaping and lawn care companies, from solo operators to small crews. You do not need to be a large company to get clean books and useful job numbers.
Can you clean up my QuickBooks if it is already messy?
Yes. Catch-up and cleanup is one of the most common ways landscapers start with us. We review the file, fix uncategorized transactions, match deposits and payments, reconcile month by month, and get you to clean historical reports before moving into monthly bookkeeping.
Can you help separate mowing, mulch, planting, and installation income?
Yes. We set up income and cost categories by service line so you can see how mowing, maintenance, mulch, planting, and installation work each perform instead of looking at one lump revenue number.
Do you help with payroll?
We provide payroll administration support integrated with your bookkeeping for hourly crews, and we make sure payroll entries are recorded correctly. Business-specific tax, HR, and compliance decisions should be confirmed with the appropriate provider or agency.
Can you help me see which jobs are profitable?
Yes. With job costing set up, we track revenue and direct costs by job so you can see gross profit and margin, not just how busy you were. Where job-level data is available, we review it in the Profit Leak Review.
Do you only work in Kentucky?
We are based in Lexington, KY and know the local market, but bookkeeping is done remotely, so we work with landscaping and service businesses across the state and beyond.
If you cannot explain what the $2,800 mulch job kept after direct costs, the reporting system needs attention.
See what your landscaping numbers need next.
Request a free bookkeeping review. We'll look at the bookkeeping and reporting gaps, then tell you what needs cleanup, setup, or monthly support.