Income accounts
- Maintenance Contract Revenue, recurring mowing/bed/route work, billed monthly or seasonally
- Enhancement Revenue, the add-ons sold into maintenance accounts (mulch, seasonal color, cleanups): highest margin in the company, worth its own line so you see attach rate
- Install & Hardscape Revenue, design/build projects, patios, plantings
- Irrigation Revenue, installs and service/startup/winterization if you run it
- Snow & Ice Revenue, seasonal contracts vs per-push billed separately if volume justifies
COGS, matched
- Crew Labor + its burden (taxes, comp), split Maintenance vs Install via payroll mapping or classes; comp rates in this trade make burden non-optional
- Materials. Install (plants, pavers, base) distinct from Materials. Maintenance (fertilizer, mulch)
- Equipment Fuel & Repairs, mowers/trucks consumed in production; the volatile line worth watching monthly
- Subcontractors (irrigation subs, excavation) and Dump/Disposal Fees to their jobs
- Snow: salt/materials and plow-damage costs to the snow class, so winter's real margin emerges
The equipment problem, solved in the accounts
Landscaping is equipment-heavy at margins that don't forgive pretending otherwise. Machines above your capitalization threshold become fixed assets with monthly depreciation; the useful move is booking depreciation into a COGS-adjacent 'Equipment Cost' line (or at least reviewing it against the maintenance/install split) so route pricing carries the mowers' true consumption. Companies that price routes on labor + fuel alone discover at replacement time that the routes never actually paid for the fleet. A replacement-reserve habit, even informal, belongs in the monthly review.
Classes and the seasonal report
Classes: Maintenance / Install / Snow (add crews as sub-classes when you're ready). The monthly P&L by class is the operating report; the second essential view is seasonal cash: maintenance billed evenly but worked April-heavy, install revenue lumping through summer, snow revenue either feast or absence. Twelve-month trailing views per class turn 'we're always broke in March' from mystery to plan. ( Landscaping , and for per-project install costing, Job Costing in QuickBooks Online: The Contractor Setup That Actually Works .)
Frequently asked questions
Prepaid seasonal contracts, where do they sit?
Money collected ahead of the season is deferred revenue (liability) recognized across the service months, same mechanics as any prepaid contract: Prepaid Service Contracts in QuickBooks: Deferred Revenue Made Simple
H-2B and seasonal payroll, any account implications?
Program fees and visa costs deserve their own hiring-cost line (they're real and budgetable), and the seasonal labor itself flows through the same burdened-labor structure, the chart doesn't change; the planning around it does.