Billed is not earned
Every common landscaping billing pattern breaks the link between the invoice and the work. A maintenance agreement collects eight or twelve equal payments while the mowing happens between April and November. A seasonal snow contract bills the same amount in a green December as in a February with six storms. A spring cleanup packs three weeks of labour and tipping fees into one month, often invoiced in the next.
We keep the two numbers apart. Cash collected ahead of the work sits as deferred revenue, a liability, until the visits that earn it happen. Work completed but not yet invoiced is accrued, so the month that did the labour shows the income. Done consistently, the margin you see in July is real, and year-end stops being archaeology.
| Contract type | How it bills | What the books must do |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly maintenance | Equal monthly payments over the season | Recognize revenue as visits are completed, not as invoices go out |
| Seasonal snow contract | Fixed amount, November to April | Spread revenue over the service months, whatever the weather |
| Spring or fall cleanup | One invoice after the work | Accrue labour and disposal costs into the same month as the revenue |
| Design-build install | Deposit up front, balance on completion | Hold deposits as a liability until the job earns them |
The split matters beyond clean reporting. When a snow contract straddles the fiscal year-end, the deferred balance is the starting point for how much income is taxed now and how much waits. That mechanism lives on our landscaper tax services page, but it only works when the books beneath it are right.
Field software first, books second
Jobber and LMN already know what happened on every property; the books just have to listen. We map service items to income accounts by line of business, so maintenance, snow removal and design-build each report their own revenue and costs instead of blending into one number. Visit records support the revenue we recognize, timesheets feed payroll, and QuickBooks Online carries a chart of accounts built for a two-season company.
Receipts stop living in glove boxes. Dext captures fuel, dump fees and parts from a phone photo, and Plooto pays suppliers on schedule. That is the operating layer of our End-to-End Accounting service: bookkeeping, payroll, financial reporting and tax filing in one engagement, closed monthly.
The costs that decide the margin
Landscaping margins are lost in small amounts bought often: fuel, mulch, salt, blades, trimmer line, tipping fees at the transfer station. We code them by service line, and for installs by job, because a patio project that looks profitable before disposal fees and equipment hours can look very different after them.
- Fuel and repairs by vehicle, so an aging truck's true cost is on record before the next repair bill makes the argument for you.
- Bulk salt bought in October is inventory until it is spread; expensing it on purchase overstates fall costs and flatters January.
- Hired equipment and subcontracted work, such as a tandem brought in for a grading day, coded to the job it served.
Monthly reporting then shows each line standing on its own: what maintenance earned, what snow earned, and which one quietly paid for the other. Most owners have a hunch; the books settle it.
Payroll that doubles in May
Seasonal hiring means onboarding paperwork in bursts, statutory holiday pay for people who started six weeks ago, and WSIB premiums reported on their own cycle. Because payroll runs inside the same engagement as the books, labour cost lands in the right service line and the records behind winter ROEs are complete before anyone asks for them. The layoff cycle itself, and who should be a contractor rather than an employee, gets full treatment on our landscaper CFO page.
Right-sized for a one-truck operation
A solo operator with a mower, a plow and forty clients does not need a monthly close; they need fast answers when a CRA letter arrives or a contract looks odd. CPA Quick Support at $99 a month covers exactly that. For companies running crews across Mississauga and the GTA, the full monthly engagement is quoted in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call, so the price is agreed before the work starts.
