Plumbing bookkeeping services

Service work and project work keep different books

Bookkeeping for plumbers starts by separating two kinds of work that live on the same trucks. Service work (repairs, drain cleaning, water heater swaps, fixture replacements) is priced per call, usually from a flat-rate book, and paid on the spot. Project work (remodels and new construction rough-in, top-out and trim) is priced per job, billed in stages, and paid weeks later, sometimes with retainage held back.

Give each its own revenue account: Service & Repair, Drain & Sewer, Water Heaters if they are a big share, and Remodel & New Construction. Project work follows the job costing, progress billing and retainage pattern in our page on construction bookkeeping. The rest of this page is about the parts of a plumbing file that are specific to plumbing.

Truck stock is inventory

A plumbing service van carries fittings, valves, cartridges, supply lines, flappers, wax rings, PEX and copper worth thousands of dollars, and a shop restocks it from the supply house every week. Expense each restock when it is paid and cost of goods tracks the purchasing calendar instead of the work done. A month the trucks were topped up looks like a bad month; the next looks better than it was.

Carry truck and shop stock as inventory instead. Purchases for stock go to the Truck & Shop Inventory account; parts bought for a specific job go to that job’s materials cost. Then count. Most shops count each truck monthly or quarterly against a standard stock list, value it at cost, and adjust the books to the count:

Truck	Books	Count	Difference
Truck 1	$4,800	$4,450	$350
Truck 2	$4,600	$4,320	$280
Truck 3	$4,700	$4,180	$520
Shop shelves	$4,300	$4,000	$300
Total	$18,400	$16,950	$1,450

Date	Account	Debit	Credit
Sep 30	Parts & Materials Used	1,450.00
Sep 30	Truck & Shop Inventory		1,450.00

Some of the difference is parts used and not charged to an invoice, and some is shrink. The count does not tell you which, but a truck that is short every quarter by more than the others is a question for that technician, and that conversation can only happen if each truck is counted on its own. The underlying entry is the periodic method in the journal entry for inventory.

Supply house statements

Most plumbing companies buy on account from one or two supply houses and receive a monthly statement listing every invoice, credit memo and payment. That statement is the easiest control in the file, and it is often skipped. Each month, compare it to the supply house’s balance in Accounts Payable:

• An invoice on the statement and not in QuickBooks is a bill nobody entered, usually a counter purchase by a technician.
• A credit memo on the statement and not in QuickBooks is a return that was never applied, which means the company paid for parts it gave back.
• A payment recorded in QuickBooks and not on the statement is probably still in transit, or was applied to the wrong account.

Enter each supply house invoice as a bill coded to the job or to inventory, with the job number from the counter ticket. Paying from the statement total without entering bills puts every part into one expense line and leaves no record of what each job cost.

Water heaters, warranties and callbacks

Water heaters are often the largest single sale on the service side, and they come with a manufacturer warranty. When a tank fails under warranty, the replacement and any credit from the supply house follow the same receivable pattern as an HVAC warranty part, covered in our page on HVAC bookkeeping.

A callback on the company’s own work is different. The return trip to fix a leaking joint is a cost of the original job, not a new job with no revenue. Charge the technician’s time and parts to the original job, or to a Warranty & Callback expense account, so the original job’s margin reflects what it actually cost and the owner can see how much callbacks cost each year.

Plumbing business expenses

The costs below make up most of a plumbing company’s profit and loss. Grouping them this way keeps cost of goods (what a job directly uses) separate from overhead (what the business costs to run regardless of jobs).

Expense	Where it goes	What to watch
Parts and materials used	Cost of goods sold	Truck stock adjusted to count, job materials by job
Technician wages and burden	Cost of goods sold	Payroll taxes and workers’ comp included, not left in overhead
Subcontractors	Cost of goods sold	W-9 before the first payment, 1099-NEC at $2,000 for payments after December 31, 2025
Permits and inspection fees	Cost of goods sold	Billed to the customer where the contract allows
Equipment rental	Cost of goods sold	Excavators, trenchers for specific jobs
Vans: fuel, repairs, insurance	Overhead	Fuel cards split by truck
Tools and equipment	Overhead or fixed assets	Jetters and camera systems capitalized; small tools expensed
Licensing and continuing education	Overhead	State and city license renewals
Liability insurance and bonds	Overhead	Certificates for general contractors
Field service software	Overhead	Subscription per user
Marketing and lead services	Overhead	Separated by source
Office, phone and dispatch	Overhead	Including office staff wages

A hydro jetter, a sewer camera and a service van last for years and go on the balance sheet, depreciated monthly. Small tools costing $2,500 or less per item or invoice can be expensed under the de minimis safe harbor if the company makes the election on its return.

What accounting software do plumbers use?

Most plumbing companies run a field service platform (ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro and Jobber are common) for dispatch, pricing and invoicing, with QuickBooks Online as the ledger (what Jobber, Housecall Pro and ServiceTitan sync). The sync works when invoices land in the right revenue account by line of work, card payments post gross, and parts used on invoices do not double-count truck stock already carried as inventory. That last point is a common failure: the field software records a part as sold, and the supply house bill for the same part is expensed again.

How much does plumbing bookkeeping cost?

Fixing a plumbing file usually means entering a year of supply house bills against jobs and inventory, applying the credits that were missed, taking an opening count of each truck, and splitting revenue by line of work. That is a cleanup engagement, scoped to the number of months affected.

$99per month of backlog20% off 6+ months

Once the file is clean, a monthly close ties every supply house statement, adjusts inventory to the count and reconciles every account, closed by the 5th business day. That is $99 a month (up to 3 accounts, up to 200 transactions a month), and $199 past either limit or with class tracking per truck. Owners can read how an engagement starts on the outsourced bookkeeping page. Other trades are on the industries page, and full pricing is on the pricing page.

Or send your file for a free review, with a written answer within 48 hours.