The storm week cannot outrun the paperwork
A serious windstorm or ice event can hand a tree company a quarter's worth of work in ten days. The phone does not stop, quotes are verbal, half the jobs are paid by e-transfer before the chipper is unloaded, and two extra ground crew are hired by Thursday. Nothing about that week is wrong. What goes wrong is the record of it: revenue that never became an invoice, new hires paid before a TD1 was signed, and a pile of fuel and dump receipts with no jobs attached.
Our End-to-End Accounting engagement is built so the surge lands in the books, not around them. Every storm job gets an invoice even when the payment arrived first. Scramble hires go onto payroll properly, with WSIB coverage from their first hour and statutory entitlements accruing from day one, because tree work is not a trade where anyone can afford an uncovered worker. A day-rate climber who brings their own saws and works for three other companies is a different payroll answer than a groundman in your truck, and we paper that difference before the season that tests it.
Insurance jobs are documentation jobs
When a tree is on a house, the insurer is paying, and the insurer pays from the file. Policies typically cover getting the tree off the structure and a capped amount of debris removal, while the stump and the rest of the yard are the homeowner's own cost. An invoice that separates the two gets approved faster and keeps the homeowner's share honest.
So we build the paper trail into the bookkeeping: before-and-after photos attached to the job, crane hours billed as their own line, disposal documented, and the receivable tracked by who actually owes it, whether that is the adjuster, a restoration contractor or the homeowner's deductible. Insurance work pays well and pays slowly, and a receivable listing aged by payer is the difference between following up and finding out.
| Revenue shape | When the cash lands | What the books must hold |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency storm call | Often same day, card or e-transfer | An invoice behind every payment, premium rate noted |
| Insurance-funded removal | Weeks later, from insurer or restoration GC | Photos, scope split, crane hours, deductible billed separately |
| Quoted removals and pruning | On completion, sometimes deposit first | Deposits held as a liability until the work is done |
| Municipal contract work | 30 to 60 days on invoice terms | Unit pricing matched to the contract, certificates current |
| Log and firewood sales | Cash and e-transfer at the yard | Its own income line, recorded sale by sale |
The last row deserves its own sentence. Logs sold to a mill or a sawyer and firewood sold off the pile are real revenue with almost no matching cost, and they belong on their own line so you can see what the byproduct actually earns. The HST side of firewood has its own wrinkles, and our tree service tax page covers them.
Machines and crews carry the cost side
A tree company's cost structure is a short list of expensive habits: fuel, chipper knives, bar oil, saw chains, rigging rope retired on schedule, and repairs that arrive without an appointment. We code costs by machine, so the bucket truck, the chipper and the stump grinder each show their true running cost, and the argument for replacing one is sitting in the file before the breakdown makes it for you.
Field software does the remembering. SingleOps and Arborgold were built for tree work, and either maps cleanly into QuickBooks Online, with Dext catching receipts from the truck. Payroll runs inside the same engagement, so WSIB premiums at tree-service rates are reported on their cycle and labour cost lands against the jobs that used it. Books close monthly, and the storm month closes like any other.
Right-sized for a two-climber company
A small crew doing removals and pruning across the GTA may not need a monthly close yet. It needs a straight answer when a CRA letter arrives or an insurer disputes an invoice, which is exactly what CPA Quick Support at $99 a month covers. When the second truck and the first municipal contract arrive, the full engagement is quoted in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call, so the price is settled before the work begins.
