You make the year in two seasons.
Texas HVAC lives and dies by the thermometer: July can't hire techs fast enough, and October can't cover payroll. We're the CPA firm that flattens that curve.
- Seasonal cash-flow planning
- Maintenance-agreement revenue done right
- §179 fleet & equipment timing
- Job costing: install vs. service vs. agreement
Plan in the peak. Survive the shoulder.
Every HVAC owner knows this shape by feel. We build it into a rolling forecast from your own history, so the spring and fall dips are funded before they arrive.
Bank the summer deliberately
A set-aside target funds shoulder-season payroll and the next quarterly estimate while cash is strongest. It is a number you can plan against.
Flatten the curve with agreements
Maintenance agreements turn one-time customers into recurring revenue that keeps techs busy in March and October. We track the count, the renewal rate, and the unearned balance.
Where the money goes missing.
Four things we most often find in a new HVAC client’s books:
Agreement cash booked as instant income
A year of maintenance visits sold in one check looks like a great month, until the visits come due with no revenue left against them. Booked wrong, agreements distort every month's P&L and can distort the tax bill too.
One segment subsidizing another
Install, service, and agreement work carry very different margins. When the books lump them together, an unprofitable segment can hide inside a busy one for years.
Trucks depreciated by default
Vans and service trucks are usually an HVAC company’s biggest deduction, and the most often mistimed. Deducted in the wrong year, the same truck saves a fraction of the tax.
Quarterly estimates set to last year
Flat quarterly estimates against seasonal income overpay in the dip and underpay in the peak. We recalculate from actuals each quarter.
What we handle for HVAC companies.
Tax Preparation
Business and owner returns prepared together, with agreement revenue and asset schedules handled correctly.
Tax Preparation →Bookkeeping & Job Costing
Monthly closes reconciled to the bank, with install, service, and agreement work tracked as the separate businesses they are.
Bookkeeping →Tax Planning & Equipment Timing
§179 and bonus depreciation on fleet and equipment, timed to your income, plus quarterly estimates that follow your seasonal curve.
Tax Planning →Forecasting & Owner Dashboards
A rolling cash forecast built on your seasonality, agreement metrics, and segment margins, updated monthly.
Analysis & Forecasting →Entity & S-Corp Analysis
Modeled on your actual profit and seasonal swing, including reasonable owner pay in a cyclical business.
Entity & S-Corp Analysis →Tech Payroll & Compliance
Seasonal hires, apprentices, overtime through the summer surge, and subcontractor 1099s, plus Texas franchise and sales tax filings.
Payroll →Your license is an asset. Your books should treat it like one.
Air conditioning and refrigeration work in Texas is licensed by TDLR, and the company works under a licensed contractor. Every competitor has to clear that bar, and it carries accounting consequences most owners never separate out.
What the license holder is paid
When the licensed contractor is also the owner, one number is doing two jobs: reasonable compensation for an S-corp, and the cost of holding the credential the company operates under. Those belong in one analysis run on your numbers.
Renewal, education, insurance
Licensing fees, continuing education, and required coverage are recurring and predictable. Broken out of general expense, they become part of what an hour actually costs.
Licensed hours and helper hours
A licensed hour and a helper hour do not cost the same. A job that looks profitable at a blended rate can stop looking that way once the mix is split.
When it changes hands
The license is held by a person, not the business. When a partner comes in or the company sells, that is one of the first questions asked, and books that show what the licensed work earns answer it. See business valuation.
If you’re the one who keeps the books.
In a lot of shops the books live with the office manager, a spouse, or a partner.
What stays with you
- Closing out service tickets so every finished job gets invoiced
- Keeping maintenance agreement signups and renewals current
- Approving parts orders and supplier bills
We reconcile every account and close the month. How the monthly close works.
Setting up for the first close? Build My Document List.
What HVAC owners ask us.
How do I survive the shoulder seasons without a line-of-credit panic?
By planning in the peak. We build a rolling cash-flow forecast off your own seasonal history. A summer set-aside target funds spring and fall payroll before the slowdown arrives. Tax payments and equipment purchases get timed around the curve instead of against it. Maintenance agreements are the other half of the answer: recurring revenue that flattens the trough.
How should maintenance agreements be handled in my books and on my taxes?
A service agreement is cash collected now for work performed over the coming year. Booking it all as income the day the check clears overstates this month and understates the months you actually run the tune-ups. We set up your books so agreement revenue is recognized as it's earned, track the unearned balance as the liability it really is, and address the tax treatment of the advance payments deliberately. You also get a number most HVAC owners never see: agreement count and renewal rate, month by month.
Can I write off my service trucks and equipment?
Generally yes. Work vans, service trucks, recovery machines, and shop equipment are depreciable business assets. Section 179 and bonus depreciation can accelerate the deduction significantly, and many trucks and vans above the 6,000-pound loaded weight class get more generous limits. The real question is timing. A fleet addition deducted in a strong year is worth far more than the same deduction wasted in a soft one. We plan purchases before year-end, when the timing can still be chosen.
Should my HVAC company be an S-corp?
Once net profit clears a threshold, an S-corp election often reduces self-employment tax meaningfully for an HVAC owner. The right answer depends on your profit level, how much of it is owner labor versus crew and equipment, and the payroll compliance you're taking on. We run the analysis with your actual numbers, including your seasonal income swing, before recommending an election.
Installs feel busy but the bank account doesn't grow. Where's the money going?
Usually into jobs that were never priced to make money, and without job costing you can't see which ones. We split your books so install, service, and agreement work each show their own margin, then break it down by crew and truck. Most owners discover that one segment is quietly subsidizing another. Once you can see it, you can reprice it, staff it differently, or stop selling it.
My books are months behind and the bank wants financials. Can you fix it?
Yes. Clean-ups and catch-ups are core work for us, on QuickBooks Desktop and Online. We reconcile every account to the bank, correct miscoded transactions, separate materials from subcontractors from equipment, and hand back statements formatted the way a lender reads them. Then we keep the books closed monthly so busy season never buries them again.