Home Services
You know how to run crews and finish jobs. We track the costs so you know which ones actually made money.
The Industry
Most home service businesses start the same way. One truck, one person, and a cell phone. You do good work, people refer you, and suddenly you’re managing two crews and wondering where all the profit went. The shoebox of receipts that worked fine when you were solo turns into a bookkeeping backlog that keeps you up at night.
San Diego’s year-round outdoor season keeps demand steady, but it also means there’s no natural slow period to catch up on the business side. Solar installers are booking jobs while tracking panel costs and permit fees. Pool service companies run weekly routes while also bidding equipment replacements. Landscapers juggle monthly maintenance accounts with big installation projects. Each type of work has its own cash flow pattern, and most owners are mixing them all together in one messy set of books.
Who This Covers
Who This Covers
Solar installers, pool service and repair companies, landscape maintenance crews, irrigation specialists, hardscape contractors, outdoor lighting installers, and pressure washing operations. Any home service business in San Diego County running trucks, crews, and customer jobs.
What Makes It Complex
What Makes It Complex
Big installation projects with deposits and progress payments mixed with recurring monthly maintenance. Material costs that fluctuate with suppliers. Crew payroll with varying hours across multiple job sites. Trucks, trailers, and equipment that need tracking and depreciation. Subcontractors on some jobs, employees on others. Revenue that arrives in chunks while expenses show up daily.
What We Handle
Job costing is where this gets real. That landscape install you bid at $8,500 looked profitable on paper. But what did it actually cost? Labor, materials, equipment rental, the extra trip back when the irrigation wasn’t right. Without tracking costs by job, you have no idea if you made $2,000 or $200. We set up systems that capture costs at the project level so you can see what each job actually netted.
Crew payroll adds another layer. Guys working different hours, sometimes at different sites in the same day. Some weeks you bring on a subcontractor for a big job. Time tracking, pay rates, payroll taxes. We help you get this organized so payday isn’t a scramble and your labor costs flow into job costing properly. For monthly maintenance accounts, we track that recurring revenue separately so you can see the baseline income that covers overhead versus the project work that should generate real profit.
Job Costing
Job Costing
Labor hours, material costs, and overhead allocated by project. You see actual margin on completed jobs, not just what you billed. Solar installations, pool builds, landscape installs. Each project tracked from deposit to final payment so you know what you made.
Payroll and Recurring Revenue
Payroll and Recurring Revenue
Crew payroll processed correctly with labor costs tied to projects. Monthly maintenance contracts tracked as recurring revenue. You see the predictable income from service routes versus the variable income from installation work. Cleaner books and better visibility into what keeps the lights on.
What Goes Wrong
Underbidding is the silent killer. You look at a job, estimate materials, guess at hours, and throw in some margin. But you forgot to account for drive time, the permit fees, or the fact that your last three similar jobs ran 20% over on labor. Without real job cost data, you’re bidding based on feel. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you work all week and net less than your crew made.
The other trap is the cash flow illusion. You collected $15,000 in deposits this month and the bank account looks great. But that money isn’t profit. It’s committed to jobs you haven’t finished yet. Materials need to be ordered, crews need to be paid, and by the time the jobs wrap up, you’re wondering where the money went. Deposits and progress payments need to be tracked against the work they’re funding, not just dumped into revenue.
Bidding Blind
Bidding Blind
Guessing on bids instead of using actual cost data from past jobs. Winning work that keeps you busy but doesn’t generate real profit. Underbidding the complex jobs and overbidding the simple ones. Competitors who seem to price lower but somehow stay in business longer.
Deposit Confusion
Deposit Confusion
Customer deposits recorded as revenue before the work is done. Bank balance that looks healthy but is already spoken for. No clear picture of how much you’ve collected versus how much you’ve earned. End of year surprises when you realize the cash isn’t there to cover the tax bill.
What Changes
You start bidding with confidence. When you know that the last five pool equipment installs averaged $1,400 in labor and $3,200 in parts, you can price the next one accurately. You stop wondering if a job is worth taking and start knowing. The ones that don’t hit your margin target get passed to someone else.
Growth decisions get clearer too. Is it time to add a third crew? Buy another truck? Expand into a new service line? With clean books and real job cost data, you can model what adding capacity would actually mean for profit. You’re not just guessing that you’re ready. You can see it in the numbers. And at tax time, everything is already organized. Your CPA gets what they need without three weeks of panicked catch-up work.
Profitable Pricing
Profitable Pricing
Bids built on actual cost history, not rough estimates. You know your floor on labor and materials before you quote. Jobs that don’t hit your margin get declined without second-guessing. Profit stops being a surprise and starts being predictable.
Confident Growth
Confident Growth
Clear picture of overhead, cash flow, and profit by service type. When you’re ready to add crew, buy equipment, or expand territory, the numbers tell you. Growth becomes a calculated decision instead of a leap of faith. You build the business on data, not hope.
San Diego's Small Business Bookkeeper
The Next Step:
A Short Conversation
A quick call to tell us about your business. We'll listen, answer your questions, and give you a clear price quote.
