INDUSTRIES / HOME SERVICES / PLUMBING
PlumbingPlumbing bookkeeping.
Know which calls are worth the truck roll.
You know what came in this month. What most plumbing owners can't say is whether last week's water heater install actually made money once you count the unit, the two hours on site and the labor — or whether the drain cleaning calls are what's quietly paying for it.
Repair, install and
emergency aren't one job
Plumbing businesses run at least three different jobs under one rate card. A scheduled repair is mostly labor against a small parts ticket. An install — a water heater, a repipe, a fixture — is equipment-heavy and priced accordingly. An emergency or after-hours call carries a premium rate that's supposed to cover the disruption, but only if it's actually coded as premium work rather than blended into ordinary revenue. Treat all three as one number and you can't tell which is carrying the business.
COGS versus overhead is the next failure. A water heater, a length of pipe, a case of fittings — that's cost of goods sold, tied to a job. A truck payment, a warehouse lease, an office manager's salary — that's overhead, and it belongs to the business as a whole. Mixed together under one "job cost" line, gross margin stops telling you anything about the jobs themselves.
Technician pay is the third layer. Spiffs for upselling a water heater replacement instead of a repair, commission on install sales, emergency-rate overtime — all real, job-specific costs that almost never get coded back to the job that generated them.
And call volume moves with the weather more than most plumbers admit. A cold snap means burst pipes and a backlog; a mild month means service calls carry everything. Cash planning that assumes a flat month misses both the spike and the trough.
What usually goes wrong
- Repair, install and emergency work lumped into one revenue line
- Water heaters, pipe and fittings coded the same as truck and shop costs
- Spiffs and commissions never costed back to the job that earned them
- Emergency-rate labor blended into ordinary payroll cost
- Dispatch software and QuickBooks telling two different stories
- No plan for a cold-snap spike or a slow-month trough
Bookkeeping from $299/month · Cleanup from $200 per month behind
QuickBooks, set up
the way a plumber actually works
Repair, install and emergency work costed separately, in a chart of accounts built for plumbing, not adapted from one.
Job costing by type
Repair, install and emergency-rate work tracked and costed separately, so each one can be judged on its own margin.
COGS vs overhead
Water heaters, pipe, fittings and job materials kept out of overhead, so gross margin reflects the job, not the truck lease.
Technician payroll & spiffs
Commission, spiffs and emergency-rate overtime processed correctly, then costed back to the jobs that earned them.
QuickBooks built for plumbers
Chart of accounts structured around how a plumbing business actually runs, not a generic services template with the word "plumbing" swapped in.
Dispatch software reconciliation
ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber reconciled to QuickBooks Online monthly, so both systems agree.
Call volume cash planning
Forecasting that accounts for weather-driven spikes and the slower months in between, not a flat monthly average.
You'll recognise this if...
None of this means anything is broken. It means the books were built for a tax return, not for deciding which jobs to chase.
Emergency rate, ordinary numbers
After-hours premium work gets billed at a premium but shows up in the books like everything else.
One number for three jobs
Repair, install and emergency revenue all land in the same bucket.
Two systems, two totals
Your dispatch software and QuickBooks don't agree, and nobody's reconciled them this year.
QuickBooks fights you
The chart of accounts was set up once, generically, and every job gets forced into whichever bucket is closest.
What you'll know
that you don't today
Within two months you'll know whether repair, install or emergency work is actually your most profitable line — and it's rarely the one that feels busiest.
You'll see technician profitability, not just technician revenue. The plumber who upsells a water heater instead of patching it is often worth more than the one who just runs more calls.
Emergency-rate work will show its real margin once the premium labor is coded correctly instead of blended into ordinary payroll.
And QuickBooks will finally answer questions instead of fighting you every time you try to categorise a job.
BOOK A FREE CALLEvery client gets
- Replies within 48 hours, guaranteed
- Books closed by the 15th, every month
- Flat monthly pricing, no hourly billing
- A plain-English summary with every report
- The same team every single month
- Cancel any time, files handed over cleanly
Plumbing bookkeeping questions
Yes. The chart of accounts is built around repair, install and emergency work as separate lines, not a generic services template with "plumbing" written on top.
Monthly, against QuickBooks Online. The two rarely agree on day one, and reconciling them is usually where the first real errors turn up.
Coded as premium work separate from ordinary service calls, so you can see whether the after-hours rate actually covers the disruption it's meant to cover.
Run through payroll correctly, then costed back to the specific job or sale that earned them, so technician profitability reflects what they actually closed.
Yes. We price on your annual average transaction volume, not your busiest week, so a cold snap doesn't push you into a different plan for one month.
Yes, if that's more useful than individual technician margin — common with two-person install crews. We'll set it up around the decision you actually need to make.
Find out which jobs
are actually worth it
Thirty minutes, no pitch. We'll look at your books, show you what job-type costing would reveal, and quote you a flat monthly price.
BOOK YOUR FREE CALL