Nine questions, about two minutes. You can't be in the field and in the office at the same time, so most home service businesses run on one number, revenue, and never find out which jobs actually made money or what the tax bill could have been. Answer the questions below and you'll get a personalized leak estimate plus a lever-by-lever scorecard covering bookkeeping, close cadence, job margin, labor burden, entity structure, owner pay, and equipment timing.
Eight levers decide how much of your revenue you actually keep. Each one below is a question the assessment asks, and what a gap there typically costs a home service business.
Who keeps your books right now?
The most expensive bookkeeping arrangement is the one where the owner is still the backstop. If you are cleaning up someone else's work, or doing the books at night after a full day of calls, you are paying twice: once in fees and once in the hours you could have spent selling or running crews. It also means the numbers arrive too late to change anything.
How current are your books?
Books closed and reconciled through last month let you act. Books caught up at tax time only let you report. A quarter of bad pricing or a subcontractor overcharging shows up in a monthly close within weeks, and in a year-end catch-up not until the money is long gone.
How much of your P&L is sitting in uncategorized or miscellaneous?
Every transaction parked in uncategorized is a deduction nobody has claimed and a cost nobody has assigned to a job. On a trades P&L these are usually materials runs, tool purchases, and fuel, which are exactly the costs that decide whether a job made money.
Do you know your margin by service line, installs versus service calls versus maintenance agreements?
Revenue by service line is common. Margin by service line is rare, and it is the number that matters. Most home service businesses have at least one line that looks busy and loses money, usually installs, where equipment cost hides the real margin, or maintenance agreements priced years ago and never revisited.
When you price a job, what labor number do you use?
Labor burden is the full hourly cost of putting a tech on a job: wage plus payroll taxes, workers comp, benefits, the truck, fuel, phone, and the non-billable hours between calls. It usually lands 40 to 70 percent above base wage. Pricing off wage plus a rough markup is the single most common way a busy trades business runs a thin or negative margin without knowing it.
How is the business structured for tax purposes?
Once profit is consistently past roughly $50,000 to $80,000, an S corporation election usually beats a plain LLC, because profit above a reasonable salary is not subject to self-employment tax. It is not automatic, it adds payroll and filing obligations, and the right answer depends on your profit, your payroll, and your state.
How was your own salary set?
If you run an S corporation, the IRS expects your salary to be reasonable compensation for the work you actually do, documented against comparable pay. Set it too low and you invite reclassification, penalties, and interest. Set it too high and you hand over payroll tax you did not owe. Most owners picked a number that felt right and have never revisited it.
Before you buy a truck or major equipment, does anyone plan the timing and the write-off with you?
A service truck bought in December and one bought in January can produce very different tax outcomes, and Section 179 and bonus depreciation each have limits and tradeoffs that depend on your profit that year. Telling your accountant after you signed means the decision was already made without the tax picture in it.
About two minutes. It is nine multiple-choice questions about how your books are kept, how you price labor, how the business is structured, and how you plan equipment purchases. You see a running estimate as you answer, and the full lever-by-lever scorecard after you enter your email.
Each of the eight levers carries a range based on what that gap typically costs a home service business, and the total is scaled to the revenue band you select. It is a directional estimate built from typical outcomes, not a review of your books. The point is to show you which levers are leaking and roughly how much is at stake, so you know what to look at first.
Labor burden is the fully loaded hourly cost of a technician: wage plus payroll taxes, workers compensation, benefits, vehicle and fuel, phone, and the non-billable time between calls. It commonly runs 40 to 70 percent above base wage. If you price jobs off wage plus a rough markup, every hour you sell can be less profitable than it looks, and the gap widens as you add techs.
Often yes once profit is consistently above roughly $50,000 to $80,000, because profit above a reasonable owner salary avoids self-employment tax. It is not free: you take on payroll, a separate return, and a defensible salary figure. Below that level the added cost and admin usually outweigh the savings. It is worth running the numbers on your actual profit rather than following a rule of thumb.
Any gap between what your business earned and what you kept that comes from how the numbers are handled rather than from the work itself. Underpriced labor, jobs nobody costed, deductions never claimed, an entity structure that no longer fits, and equipment bought without tax timing are the common ones in the trades.
No. The assessment is educational and gives an estimate based on typical outcomes at your revenue level. It is not tax, legal, or financial advice, and no one has looked at your books. To get the real number, book a Numbers Review and a CPA will walk your actual figures with you.
The scorecard tells you which levers are leaking. Fixing them is bookkeeping, tax planning, and fractional CFO work, and you can see what that costs on our pricing page. If you would rather talk it through, get in touch or book a Numbers Review and a CPA will walk your actual numbers with you. Own rental property as well as a business? The Profitability and Tax Savings Scorecard covers that side.
Batbridge Accounting Solutions is a CPA-led firm in Lehi, Utah, founded by Dallas Bean, CPA. We work with home service businesses in Utah, Texas, and across the United States.