Landscape Business Software Quickbooks Landscaping is a niche business. However, it is also one of the fastest growing business categories in the U.S. You can make some serious money by starting your own landscaping business if you know what you’re doing. Here are some tips for you to help get on your way.
Good, reliable landscape business software matters. The right software can help you take your business to the next level and allow you to boost your profits and efficiency. That’s why we created Landscape Business Software Quickbooks.
The 3 Biggest Ways That QuickBooks is Failing You
1. It is Not an All-In-One Solution
As your business has grown, you’ve likely found that QuickBooks for landscape contractors is not an all-in-one solution. You’re now finding that you require other systems in order to meet all of your needs. On top of using QuickBooks, you might also be using an estimating system to price your jobs and maybe a scheduling system to set up your operations team.
While each of these systems meets your needs individually, none of them “speak” to one another and that’s leading to duplicate data entry. It’s also leaving you more open to making mistakes since you’re entering data in more than one location.
Plus, as you grow, you find that you want even more tools. You’d like CRM capabilities, an inventory tracking tool, and the ability to seamlessly move from one functionality to another (ie: taking an estimate right into the proposal phase and from there moving it on to production).
2. Job Costing is Cumbersome
Another big downside to using QuickBooks for your landscaping company is that job costing can be a very complicated process. If you’re working with another scheduling program or estimating system on top of QuickBooks, then you are going to have to re-enter the same sold work into QuickBooks as well as into the secondary program. After that, when the work is completed, the time will need to be entered correctly into QuickBooks for payroll and invoicing. After invoices are paid and payroll is completed, you’ll need to enter that information into a spreadsheet to compare the data from sold work in order to get an accurate job cost.
It’s a lot of steps and a lot of moving data around. You can see how the process can easily get bogged down. It’s very complicated to run numbers that way and frankly, it’s a lot of work, too. It shouldn’t be this hard.
3. You’re Not Receiving Real-Time Data
Using QuickBooks for your landscaping company will calculate some data for you, but it’s all after the fact. For instance, it would be difficult for you to determine if you were over the budgeted hours for a job in enough time to make an actual change. Instead, you’re typically reviewing the data after the job is completed and trying to make changes to the next job. In that way, it’s more of a historical analysis of your jobs than a real-time solution.
QuickBooks for a Landscaping Business
QuickBooks is available in several versions, and while there is no specific version of QuickBooks for a landscaping business, you can choose to use this powerful accounting tool as a PC version or via online access. The PC software requires a one-time purchase that is installed on your desktop computer or laptop, while the online version gives you access to your accounts via a mobile phone or tablet from anywhere you have an internet connection. This flexibility may be a good choice for a landscaping business that operates outdoors and over a wide regional area.
Once you’ve downloaded your software, you must set up your books, taking into account a wide variety of factors. It is a good idea to seek the advice of an accounting professional to be sure you have included all the important items.
What Does a Landscaper Do?
A landscaper creates and cares for outdoor green spaces, such as parks, corporate and personal lawns, golf courses, and other landscaped areas. A landscaper can work independently or can be employed by designers, contractors, golf courses, nurseries, property managers, and provincial and federal government bodies to build and maintain national parks and other public and private spaces.
Within these green spaces, landscapers can be responsible for any of the following jobs:
- Lawn maintenance such as mowing, fertilizing, aerating, and edging lawns
- Weeding and removing any unwanted plants or dead trees
- Pruning plants, trees, and hedges
- Watering and fertilizing plants, flowers, and gardens
- Mulching landscape beds
- Building and maintaining landscape architecture
The gardening and lawn care industry is huge in North America, from homeowners to corporate entities and government bodies, natural and manmade spaces are always in demand. Private and public spaces all need to be landscaped, groomed, and well cared for, allowing landscapers to choose what type of work they want to focus on within the industry.
How Much Do Landscapers Make?
Depending on the type of landscaping jobs you secure and where you work within the landscape industry- whether a skilled labourer, supervisor or business owner- you can make a range of salaries with commercial landscaping businesses. According to Payscale, in 2021, the average hourly landscaping pay in Canada is $17.61 for landscapers or general labourers. However, for a landscaping supervisor, this wage rises as you become more specialized.
For a landscaping business owner, the average take-home amount is generally 10% of the total sales made by their landscape business in a year. This means that for a Canadian landscape company that generates $400,000 in annual sales, the owner would net approximately $40,000.
In terms of what landscapers can charge on a job, this amount is measured by landscaping costs per square foot. Homeowners and those enlisting the services of a landscaper, on average, spend between $4 to $12 per square foot.
Starting a Landscaping Business in 7 Steps
Although there are some challenges to owning a landscaping business, like struggling with seasonality and securing contracts, following these steps will help you get your landscaping and gardening business up and running this season. So whether you choose to focus on residential or commercial properties for your new business, here is what you need to do to become a green industry professional.
1. Create a business plan
Before starting your business, you need a plan. A successful business plan accomplishes a few things. Perhaps most important, it defines your niche. This means deciding what services to offer customers, and also what clientele to target with your marketing. Maybe you want to go after homeowners in local neighbourhoods, or perhaps you’d rather focus on apartment communities and businesses.
2. Acquire funding for your new lawn care business
The good news about a landscaping business is it can be started on a shoestring budget. With a quality lawnmower, pruning shears, a weed eater, and gardening tools, you can be in business providing basic landscaping services. Then, as your business grows, you can purchase more equipment and expand your offerings.
3. Secure licencing and registration
Licencing requirements for landscape businesses in Canada depend on the specific services you’ll be offering. If, for example, you’re importing plants or handling chemicals, then, depending on your province, you may have to acquire special licences to perform these tasks.
4. Buy the necessary equipment
The equipment-buying process starts with developing your budget. A big part of budgeting involves determining the start-up costs available for buying your capital assets, like needed equipment and machinery, and how you want to allocate this money. The next step is to actually purchase the equipment.
5. Hire employees
If you’re starting small, you might be the only landscape professional your business needs. Plenty of landscapers make a great living as one-person shops working from their home office and vehicle. Starting your business this way removes the need for staff and office space, and makes it easier to meet expenses.
6. Market your landscaping services
How will your potential customers know to choose your services with so many landscaping and lawn care companies to choose from? A marketing plan will help you map out how you can take advantage of the various social media platforms and other marketing channels to reach your target market.
7. Manage your own landscaping business finances
Finally, you will need to consider how best to get paid by your customers and track revenue generation and business expenses. Using invoices, like a landscaping invoice template, can make it easy to tailor the billing process to each landscaping job you secure.
Conclusion
Landscape businesses can be better managed with some professional help using Quickbooks. If your start-up landscaping firm started with the basics, you may still be dealing with finances but also wondering if there are ways to improve your system. It’s time to upgrade your landscape business software versions to more advanced versions of Quickbooks.
Landscape business owners are always looking for the best business software to use to run their company. I recently switched my landscaping company to Quickbooks and it has saved me multiple hours every month that I would have previously wasted trying to keep up with things like invoicing, payments, time tracking, etc.