What landscaping shops need from accounting software
The hard part of landscaping books is the calendar. Most of your revenue lands between April and November, but insurance, truck payments and the owner's salary don't take the winter off. Good accounting software won't fix seasonality, but it should make it visible: a cash-flow view that shows January before January arrives, and enough history to know how much to hold back each August.
The second problem is mixed billing. A typical three-crew company runs weekly maintenance billed as a flat monthly amount, install jobs billed with a deposit and a final invoice, and maybe snow billed per push or per season. Each of those needs to land in its own income account or class, or your P&L turns into one big number that tells you nothing. If you can't tell whether installs made money this year, you can't decide whether to sell more of them.
Third is job costing. Labor is the biggest cost in landscaping, and the field app is where hours get recorded. The accounting system needs those hours and the materials (mulch by the yard, pavers by the pallet, plants by the flat) tied to the job. QuickBooks Online Plus and Xero Established can both show project profitability, but only if your field app sends clean data.
Equipment is the fourth. A zero-turn, a skid steer and two trucks with trailers can easily be the biggest numbers on your balance sheet, and most of them are financed. Your accounting system should carry those loans and the depreciation your CPA books at year end, so the monthly payments don't show up as an expense that makes June look like a loss. Field apps don't do this at all, which is one more reason the ledger has to be a real accounting product.
Finally, sales tax. Some states tax landscaping services, some tax only the materials, and some treat lawn maintenance differently from installation. The rules vary by state, so set up your items with your accountant before the first sync, because fixing tax codes on 800 synced invoices is miserable.
How the picks compare
The real decision is which pair you run, since no single tool does both jobs well. QuickBooks Online is the safer ledger because the integrations are deeper and more people know it. Xero is cheaper for a company with several office users, and it never charges per login, but you give up Housecall Pro as an option.
On the field side, the sync direction matters more than the feature lists. Jobber, Housecall Pro and Workiz all push invoices one way into your books. That works fine as long as everyone records payments in the field app. FieldPulse syncs both ways with Xero, so a check your bookkeeper deposits shows as paid in the field app too. If your office already fights over who marked what as paid, that's worth a sales call.
Say you run three crews: two on weekly maintenance, one on installs, and everyone plows in winter. On QuickBooks Online Plus with Jobber Grow, you'd set up maintenance, install and snow as separate products and services mapped to separate income accounts, bill the maintenance clients from recurring jobs on the last day of the month, and send install invoices as each job closes. At month end your bookkeeper reconciles the bank feed against payments that already came over from Jobber, instead of keying them in from a stack of check stubs. The same setup on Xero works too, minus Housecall Pro as a field option and with Jobber's tip-matching quirk to watch.
Landscaping specialists are worth a look if estimating and crew budgets are your bigger headache. LMN Starter ($297/mo with 1 office and 5 crew licenses, as of October 2026) syncs to QuickBooks Online only; Desktop support starts on the $648/mo Professional plan, along with real-time job costing. Service Autopilot lists its QuickBooks integration as a call-for-pricing add-on, so budget for it before you sign.
If you're comparing accounting setups outside landscaping, our roundup of accounting software for contractors covers the same tools across every trade.
What to look for before you sign
- Sync direction and objects. Ask exactly what syncs (clients, items, invoices, payments, tips, refunds) and which way. Jobber's Xero sync, for example, doesn't carry tips; those get matched by hand.
- Plan gates. Jobber's QuickBooks sync starts on Connect, Housecall Pro's on Essentials, and job costing on Jobber starts on Grow. Price the plan that actually has the sync.
- Class or division tracking. You need maintenance, install and snow on separate lines. That means QuickBooks Online Plus or Xero tracking categories, plus a field app that tags invoices.
- Invoice volume caps. Xero Early allows 20 invoices a month. A weekly route of 50 clients needs Growing or higher.
- Deposit handling. Install deposits should post as a liability or as a deposit against the final invoice, not as surprise income in March. Check how the field app sends deposits over.
- Sales tax setup. Confirm the field app can apply different tax codes to labor and materials before you import your price book.
- Payroll path. Decide now whether payroll runs in QuickBooks, Gusto or your field app's timesheets, so crew hours aren't entered twice.
What it costs
These are monthly totals for the ledger plus a field app that syncs to it, using published prices as of October 2026. Field apps price by user; crew members who only clock in may or may not need a full seat, so check before you count heads.
| Company size |
Setup |
Monthly cost |
| Solo owner-operator |
QuickBooks Simple Start ($38) + Jobber Connect, 1 user, annual ($99) |
About $137/mo |
| 5-person company |
QuickBooks Online Plus ($140) + Jobber Grow, 5 users, annual ($229) |
About $369/mo |
| 5-person, Xero route |
Xero Growing ($59) + Jobber Grow, 5 users, annual ($229) |
About $288/mo |
| 15-person company |
QuickBooks Online Plus ($140) + Jobber Grow, 15 users, annual ($399) |
About $539/mo |
| 15-person, specialist route |
QuickBooks Online Plus ($140) + LMN Professional ($648) |
About $788/mo plus an unpublished onboarding fee |
Two costs sit outside that table. Payroll is one; Xero's Gusto payroll alone is $36/mo plus $6 per person, so a 15-person crew adds about $126/mo. Card processing is the other. At Jobber's 2.9% + 30¢, a $3,500 install deposit paid by card costs about $102 in fees; the same deposit by ACH at 1% costs $35. Push big invoices toward ACH and let homeowners on $45 weekly cuts pay however they like.
