Landscaping is field-service economics at its purest: recurring routes, project installs, seasonal crews, and a trailer full of depreciating equipment — all riding a season that ends whether you’re ready or not. We keep the books that tell you which crews, routes, and jobs actually earn.
Fuel, labor, and drive time change; route prices often don’t. Without margin tracked per route and crew, one overgrown, underpriced route can ride along for seasons — subsidized by your tightest ones.
Lawn care and landscaping are generally taxable services in Texas, with narrow carve-outs such as work performed as part of new construction. Crews that never set up collection learn this from an audit — with years of uncollected tax owed out of pocket. We sort your job types into the right buckets and keep the filings on schedule.
Crew leaders on 1099 who work your schedule with your equipment, seasonal hires paid off the books in the rush, and guest-worker (H-2B) payroll with its own documentation load — labor is where landscaping companies carry the most quiet risk.
Mowing revenue stops; payments on trucks, trailers, and mowers don’t. Without a set-aside plan built in the growing season, every winter becomes a line-of-credit season.
A landscaping company doesn’t really sell landscaping — it sells crew-days. The question that decides your year is what each one earns after it’s loaded, fueled, and paid.
We set up your books so margin per crew per day falls out automatically every month — route work and install work tracked separately, since a maintenance route and a design-build project are different businesses sharing a trailer. Add route-level pricing reviews and a winter set-aside target sized from your own history, and the slow season stops being a surprise.
More on analysis & forecasting →Business and owner returns prepared together and signed by our principal CPA — with Texas sales tax and equipment schedules handled correctly.
Tax Preparation →Monthly closes reconciled to the bank, with maintenance routes and install projects tracked as the separate businesses they are.
Bookkeeping →Mowers, trailers, and trucks timed against your income with §179 and bonus depreciation — and quarterly estimates that follow the mowing season, not the calendar.
Tax Planning →A rolling cash forecast built on your own seasonality, with a growing-season set-aside target that funds the winter before it arrives.
Analysis & Forecasting →Modeled on landscaping economics: seasonal income, heavy equipment, and crews — run on your actual numbers before any election.
Entity & S-Corp Analysis →Seasonal hires, crew leaders, overtime through the growing season, and guest-worker payrolls handled with the documentation that survives an audit.
Payroll →Generally, yes — lawn care and landscaping are taxable real property services in Texas, and that surprises a lot of crews who started with a mower and a truck. There are narrow carve-outs, most notably landscaping performed as part of new construction, and the rules differ from the repair-and-remodel logic other trades follow. We classify your typical job types once, set up collection and filing correctly, and if you’ve been operating without collecting, we’ll help you get right before the state raises the question.
With a number, set during the season that has money in it. We build a set-aside target from your own history — enough to cover winter payroll, equipment payments, and the January estimated-tax hit — and track it monthly through the mowing season so the cushion exists before the cliff. Pair that with pushing year-round work (irrigation checks, cleanups, hardscape installs) into the shoulder months, and winter becomes a slow quarter instead of a crisis.
It depends on facts, not preference: who sets the schedule, whose customers they serve, whose equipment does the heavy work, and whether they carry their own insurance. A crew leader running your routes on your calendar usually looks like an employee to Texas and the IRS regardless of the truck — and reclassification comes with back payroll taxes attached. Bring us the actual arrangement and we’ll price both structures honestly, including what going W-2 really costs.
Margin per crew per day. Revenue alone rewards being busy; margin per crew-day tells you whether the busyness earns anything after labor, fuel, materials, and the equipment reserve. Watch it by route and it exposes underpriced accounts; watch it by crew and it shows who needs a route change versus a raise. It’s the landscaping equivalent of a trucker’s cost per mile — and your books can produce it automatically.
Every tax return prepared and signed by a licensed CPA or IRS Enrolled Agent. Everything runs through the secure portal and e-signature.
Fifteen minutes with Kevin Hemingway, CPA. We discuss your tax or accounting needs, determine whether our firm is a good fit, and you leave with an estimated fee range and next steps. This consultation is for engagement evaluation and does not include tax advice, tax planning, or detailed analysis of specific tax situations.
Book a Free ConsultA paid, flat-fee review of your prior return and current books, ending in a prioritized action list you keep either way.
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