QuickBooks for Landscapers: A Job Costing Chart of Accounts

For a landscaping business, not all revenue is created equal. A large installation project has a completely different cost structure than a recurring weekly maintenance contract. If your QuickBooks is set up with a generic Chart of Accounts, you have no way of knowing which parts of your business are truly profitable. The key is to customize your setup to enable accurate job costing.

What is a Chart of Accounts?

Think of your Chart of Accounts as the set of filing cabinets for your business's finances. Every transaction—every dollar in and every dollar out—gets filed into a specific account. A generic setup might just have one big cabinet called "Job Costs." A strategic setup has separate, clearly labeled drawers for every type of cost, allowing you to see exactly where your money is going.

A Sample Chart of Accounts for Landscapers

To properly track job costs, you need to separate your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) into detailed sub-accounts. Here is a sample structure you can implement in QuickBooks:

Cost of Goods Sold (Main Account)

• Direct Labor (Sub-account)
  • Crew Wages
  • Labor Burden (Payroll Taxes, Workers' Comp)
• Materials (Sub-account)
  • Plants & Trees
  • Hardscape Materials (Pavers, Stone)
  • Soil & Mulch
• Subcontractors (Sub-account)
  • Irrigation Specialist
  • Electrician (for lighting)
• Equipment Costs (Sub-account)
  • Equipment Rental
  • Fuel

How to Use This for Job Costing

With this structure in place, you can use the "Projects" feature in QuickBooks. When you create an invoice for a client, you won't just use a generic "Landscaping Services" item. Instead, you'll use specific items that are mapped to these new COGS accounts. When you pay your crew, their wages get assigned to Direct Labor: Crew Wages. When you buy pavers from your supplier, that cost gets assigned to Materials: Hardscape Materials.

By tagging every single income and expense to a specific project, you can run a "Profit & Loss by Project" report at the end of the job. This report will show you, in black and white, exactly how much you made or lost on that specific project. It's the most powerful report a landscaper can have.

From Guesswork to Growth

This level of detail allows you to answer critical business questions: Are my maintenance contracts more profitable than my big installations? Am I charging enough to cover my true labor burden? Which types of projects should I focus on next year? This is how you move from simply working hard to strategically building a more profitable business.

Setting up your Chart of Accounts correctly is the single most important step to unlocking these insights. If you need help restructuring your QuickBooks for accurate job costing, schedule a call with us.