Home service & trades

You Work Hard for Your Money—We Make Sure You Know Where It’s Going.

Stress-Free Bookkeeping for Contractors, Plumbers, Electricians, HVAC, & More

A dedicated bookkeeper you can call or message — the same person every month
Every account reconciled, transaction by transaction
Year-end financials ready to file from, and tax filing if you want it
Your books now vs. your books on Bench
Income
Sales
$612,400
Expenses
Materials
$248,900
Payroll
$196,000
Other expenses
$84,200
Net income
$83,300
Revenue
Service & repair
$214,600
Install & replacement
$362,800
Deposits — money you still owe work on
$35,000
Cost of work
Materials — service
$61,300
Materials — install
$187,600
Helpers & subcontractors
$52,400
Crew payroll & overtime
$196,000
Overhead
Vehicles, tools & equipment
$19,400
Insurance, licensing, permits
$12,400
Net income
$48,300
What you get
You can see where the money actually went.

Same year, broken out line by line: service versus install, materials versus helpers versus crew. That's the detail you need to price a job, drop a service, or decide whether you can afford more equipment.

Bench, in one screen

What Bench is, and what you actually get

What it is

A bookkeeping service — not software you have to run yourself

Who does the work

A dedicated bookkeeper. The same person every month

What you get

Monthly financials, plus year-end statements to file from

How your numbers are grouped

By the kind of work you sell, so you can compare what pays

Taxes

Available with your bookkeeping, or bring your own accountant

Price

100% tax-deductible

Built for home service and trade businesses — plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, remodeling, landscaping, cleaning and pest control.

How we help

How Bench can help your business specifically

The money's in the bank, but you don't know how much is yours

Customers pay up front, or in stages. A deposit for a job you start next month is sitting in your account right now, looking exactly like profit. Then a big material order goes out and it's gone.

What Bench does

Your bookkeeper separates money you've earned from money you're still holding, so the profit number in front of you is the real one.

You can't tell which work is actually worth doing

Materials, helpers and crew hours all land in the same few lines. A busy month of small repairs and a month of big installs look almost identical on paper, so you're pricing on instinct.

What Bench does

Income and costs get grouped by the type of work you sell, so you can compare them side by side and see what's carrying the business.

Paying helpers turns into a year-end scramble

You bring on extra hands for the busy stretch. In January you're digging through bank statements trying to work out who you paid, how much, and whose paperwork is missing.

What Bench does

Every payment is tracked against the person or company you paid, all year, so year-end is a list you already have instead of a weekend you lose.

Your Options

Three ways home service owners handle their books

All three work for somebody. Here's the honest difference, so you can tell which one you are.

Doing it yourself in software
Hiring a local bookkeeper
Bench
Who does the work
You, usually at night
Someone local, on their schedule
A dedicated bookkeeper, every month
What you do each month
Categorize everything yourself
Gather and hand over your paperwork
Connect your accounts once, then answer the occasional question
Who you ask when you're unsure
A help article, or a forum
Them, if they pick up
The same person every time, by phone or message
If you fall behind
It's on you to catch up
Usually billed by the hour
Catch-up is part of what we do, free on an annual plan
Taxes
Separate — find your own preparer
Usually separate
Available with your bookkeeping, or bring your own accountant
Best for
Owners who like the numbers and have the evenings
Owners who want someone in town they can sit down with
Owners who'd rather be on the tools, and still want to know where they stand

Bench is a bookkeeping service, not accounting software. If what you want is a tool you operate yourself, one of the first two columns will serve you better — and we'd rather tell you that now.

From owners like you

What home service owners say

★★★★★
Seven years with Bench

"I've been using Bench for about 7 years and really appreciate their services. It takes bookkeeping off my hands and is presented in an online portal that's easy to navigate. I've been satisfied with their service since signing on with them."

Krista Misuraca
✓ Verified Bench user
Read on Trustpilot →
★★★★★
The perfect partner for a solopreneur

"I'm a solopreneur and Bench has been my perfect partner. No more late nights in January and Feb cleaning up a mess. They do my books each month and my job is simple. Everything is automated and I just have to categorize a few items each month. Grateful!"

Sarah Seidelmann
✓ Verified Bench user
Read on Trustpilot →
Questions we actually get

Bookkeeping questions from home service owners

Can Bench tell me how much profit I made on a specific job?
Not job by job. Bench reports your profit by type of work — service versus install, project versus contract, however you group what you sell. Your bookkeeper sets those groups up with you at the start, using the words you already use.
If you need the profit on one specific invoice, that lives in your scheduling software. Bench works alongside it rather than replacing it.

What happens to deposits and payments I take before the work is done?
A deposit is money you're holding, not money you've earned. Your bookkeeper records it that way and moves it into your income as the work gets done — so a big January deposit doesn't show up as a big January profit, and doesn't surprise you at tax time.
I pay helpers and subcontractors. Does Bench handle that paperwork?
Bench tracks what you paid each person or company across the whole year, so at year-end you get a clear list of who you paid, how much, and whose details are missing — instead of rebuilding it from bank statements in January. Bench doesn't run your payroll; a payroll provider does that, and we reconcile it.
My income is all over the place season to season. Does monthly bookkeeping still help?
That's exactly when it helps most. A finished set of books in November tells you what your fixed costs will do to you in February, while you can still act on it. Your bookkeeper reads a slow season as a normal part of your business, not a warning sign.
Is Bench a good fit for a one-truck operation?
Yes. Bench works with owner-operators and with businesses running several crews. If you're under a certain revenue level there's a lower-priced plan — see pricing for the current tiers.
What if I'm two years behind?
Common, and fixable. Bench works backward through the years you're missing and delivers finished financials for each, then keeps you current. Catch-up bookkeeping is free when you sign up for an annual plan.
Plans start at $199/mo, billed monthly and 100% tax-deductible. See what's included