For plumbers & plumbing companies
Busy trucks don't mean profitable jobs.
The short answer
Most plumbing shops run flat out and still can't say which work pays. Job costing splits drain calls, service work, and repipes into their own profit centers, prices in true labor cost, and ties tech commissions to actual margin — so you know which jobs to book more of. Fixed monthly pricing starting as low as $600, books closed by the 15th.
Founder, Accelerate Business Solutions · Published August 21, 2026 · Last updated September 19, 2026
Sound familiar?
The schedule is full. So why is the account empty?
Emergency premiums you never verified
After-hours calls are priced higher because they should be — but between overtime, dispatch, and the truck, nobody's checked whether the premium actually covers the cost.
Parts and fixtures in one bucket
Water heaters, fittings, and supply runs all land in the same materials account. Per-job material cost is a guess until the job's long closed.
Drain calls vs. repipes: no idea
Quick clears and multi-day repipes have wildly different margins, but they flow through the same accounts. The work you push hardest may pay the least.
Commissions paid on revenue, not profit
Techs get paid on the ticket size. If the job was underpriced, the commission still goes out — and the margin takes the hit twice.
Service agreements mixed with everything
Recurring agreement revenue and one-time work blur together, so you can't tell if the agreement program actually makes money or just makes work.
Fixtures out before the invoice
You buy the water heater this week and collect next month. Cash flow whiplash is constant when costs and collections live weeks apart.
Trusted by business owners who run on real numbers
How to do bookkeeping for a plumbing company
Plumbing bookkeeping follows the same six steps whether you run two trucks or twenty. Most shops get the first two right and lose the value at step three.
1. Split direct job costs from overhead
Labor, parts, fixtures, subcontractors, and fuel sit as direct job costs — separate from insurance, office costs, and your own draw. Without this split, per-job margin is fiction.
2. Create job types that match how you sell
Drain, service, repair, repipe, and new construction each become their own job type in QuickBooks Online. That field is what lets you compare margin per line of work instead of one blended number.
3. Code every part and permit to the job
Supply runs, fixtures, permits, and dump fees get tagged to the job that consumed them. This is the discipline step — most plumbing books fail here, and nothing downstream works without it.
4. Tie tech pay to job profit
Payroll hours and commissions land on the job they came from. A job only looks profitable until commission hits — margin should be measured after everyone's paid.
5. Measure the service agreement program
Agreement revenue gets separated from the labor and parts it takes to service the base. Only then can you tell whether the program is a profit center or a discount plan.
6. Close the month with a per-job-type P&L
Drain, service, and install each get their own profit line, plus margin per truck. That report is what tells you which work to push — and which prices to fix.
The bookkeeping mistakes that cost plumbing shops the most
- Commissions paid on revenue, regardless of what the job actually made
- All parts and fixtures in one materials bucket, no per-job coding
- After-hours premiums never verified against true overtime and truck cost
- Service agreement revenue lumped in with one-time work
- Truck payments, fuel, and insurance sitting in overhead
Should you outsource your plumbing bookkeeping?
A full-time in-house bookkeeper runs roughly $55,000–$75,000 a year once benefits and payroll taxes are counted, and most shops under $5M in revenue don't have forty hours a week of bookkeeping work to hand them. Outsourced bookkeeping gives you per-job-type reporting at a fixed monthly fee, from someone who already knows cost codes, commission true-ups, and materials tracking. Keep it in-house when daily transaction volume is high and your people already code jobs cleanly.
What you get every month
Bookkeeping plumbed for how your shop runs.
A generalist bookkeeper categorizes what hits the bank. We run your books the way a plumbing company needs them run — every job type separated, every cost tied to a job, every month closed on schedule.
Per-job profit & loss
Drain, service, and repipe work each carry their own P&L. See which job types make money — and which ones quietly don't.
True labor cost per tech
Wages, burden, drive time, and callbacks rolled into a real hourly cost — so your rates are checked against reality, not memory.
Commission vs. margin tracking
Tech pay tied to the job it came from, so you see what a job actually made after everyone's paid.
Materials per job
Every supply run coded to the job it belongs to. Your fixture markup strategy shows up in the numbers instead of evaporating.
Books closed by the 15th
Every transaction categorized, every account reconciled, reports in your hands on a set date — every single month.
A/R, A/P, 1099s & sales tax
Who owes you, who you owe, subcontractor 1099s, and filings handled — no January archaeology project.
Signs your shop needs job costing
- You can't name the margin on a water heater install vs. a drain call
- Commissions go out on revenue, regardless of what the job made
- Parts and fixtures all live in one expense account
- The busiest month of the year ended with the least cash
- You find out a job lost money weeks after it's done
Who this fits
- Residential service and commercial plumbing shops
- Owner-led crews, roughly $250k–$5M in revenue
- Shops running drain, service, and install work side by side
- Anyone paying commissions without seeing job-level margin
- Plumbers tired of Sunday-night bookkeeping
Fixed monthly pricing starting as low as $600, based on transaction volume and active jobs. You'll get an exact number on the first call — not a range that grows later.
Questions plumbers actually ask
Can you split out drain work, service, and repipes?
Yes — we set up your job types in QuickBooks so each line of work carries its own profit and loss. Most plumbers are surprised by the result: the work they assumed was their bread and butter often isn't the work that pays.
We pay techs commission. Can you track that against job profit?
Yes. When commissions are paid on revenue instead of profit, a busy month can still lose money. We tie commission and labor cost to the job so you see true margin after everyone gets paid.
What are the biggest plumbing business expenses?
For most plumbing shops, in order: labor — wages, payroll taxes, and burden usually run 25–40% of revenue; materials and fixtures; vehicles — payments, fuel, insurance, maintenance; general liability and workers' comp insurance; and software like dispatch and field-service tools. The bookkeeping question isn't just what you spend — it's whether each of those costs is coded to the job that consumed it, so the profit per job type is real.
How do you do bookkeeping for a plumbing company?
Six steps, in order: (1) split direct job costs — labor, parts, fixtures, subcontractors, fuel — from overhead like insurance and office costs; (2) create job types in QuickBooks Online for drain, service, repair, repipe, and new-install work; (3) code every part, permit, and supply run to the job it belonged to; (4) tie tech payroll and commissions to the job so margin is measured after everyone's paid; (5) reconcile bank, credit card, and supply accounts monthly; (6) close the month with a per-job-type P&L. Step 3 is where most plumbing books break down.
What does a bookkeeper do for a plumbing company?
A plumbing bookkeeper codes parts and labor hours to jobs, separates drain work from service from repipes, ties tech commissions to actual job margin, tracks materials and markup per job, handles A/R and A/P, files subcontractor 1099s, and closes the month with a per-job-type P&L. A generalist bookkeeper does only the reconciling — which is why the job-level numbers stay invisible.
Should I outsource my plumbing company's bookkeeping?
Outsource when the job-level numbers matter more than the hours cost. A full-time in-house bookkeeper runs roughly $55,000–$75,000 a year with benefits and payroll taxes, and most shops under $5M don't have 40 hours a week of bookkeeping work. An outsourced specialist gives you per-job-type reporting at a fixed monthly fee, with job costing experience you'd otherwise have to train for. Keep it in-house if daily volume is high and your people already code jobs cleanly.
My books are months behind. Can you catch me up?
Yes. Catch-up and cleanup is routine work here, quoted as a one-time fixed project after we look at one month of your books — not an hourly meter. Then monthly service keeps you current from there.
What does it cost?
Fixed monthly pricing starting as low as $600, depending on transaction volume and how many active jobs we're tracking. No hourly billing. Most shops find the first repriced job type pays for the year.
Keep reading:
- Construction bookkeeping services — job costing, WIP schedules, and retainage for GCs and home builders.
- Bookkeeping & job costing for contractors — the full picture for the trades, all in one place.
- Job costing in QuickBooks: a contractor's guide — the five-step setup that shows which jobs actually make money.
- How much does bookkeeping cost in 2026? — DIY vs. full-time hire vs. fractional, with real numbers.
Client results
What owners say after the books are handled
Shannon got our books cleaned up and finally showed us which jobs were actually making money. We stopped guessing on bids and our margins went up because of it.
Having Shannon handle the bookkeeping took a huge weight off. Everything is closed on time, the numbers make sense, and I get my evenings back instead of fighting QuickBooks.
Shannon helped me clean up a year of QuickBooks financials and get me on the right track to be able to see clean financials after going through a few other bookkeeping companies. Finally found one that does what they say they will, and their end of month reporting analysis is better than any of the others I've used.
Find out which jobs are really paying you.
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