HVAC Accounting Best Practices

One of the greatest challenges of running a small business is handling aspects of that business that fall entirely outside your area of expertise. You may know everything about HVAC technology and how best to apply it, but that knowledge won’t do you a lick of good when it comes to balancing your company’s books. Furthermore, the contracting nature of your business adds several wrinkles to the already-complicated process of keeping taxes, wages, and costs in order. Luckily, you can take several steps and use special tools to simplify the process and ensure that your money goes where it should. By following these tips, you can spend less time pencil pushing and more time using your HVAC expertise to grow your business:

• Track expenses accurately and regularly.
• Use QuickBooks to manage your books.
• Use HVAC Software to manage work orders and generate invoices.
• Monitor credit card statements for discrepancies.
• Track company equipment and inventory.
• Hire an outside CPA firm if you cannot manage your books internally.
• Do not delay in processing receipts, invoices, rebates, or bills.

Trust: Hard to Gain, Easy to Lose

The unfortunate reality of any employee-based business is that owners can inadvertently open themselves up to theft by entrusting their company’s assets to seemingly trustworthy associates. HVAC contracting businesses stand doubly at risk thanks to the nature of the industry. Every day, you send your technicians out into the field in specialized vehicles loaded with expensive equipment, simply trusting that all those expensive assets will return intact. If you give your technicians credit cards to purchase fuel while they work out in the field, you could be writing a blank check for them to cash in at their leisure. Accounting mistakes, oversights, or abuses can harm your business in many ways. Improper bookkeeping can lead to audits, unchecked rebates can lead to lost profits, and unwatched expenses can destroy your bottom line.

None of this is to say that you should be distrustful of your employees or associates. However, you should always keep a close eye on your assets and hire skilled professionals to handle your books. You can avoid some mistakes by simply keeping a closer eye on expense statements, catching discrepancies as they happen. For more complicated situations, hiring a professional CPA firm to handle books represents a viable solution. You know that ordering cut-rate materials or equipment will only damage your business down the line, so why would you take a chance with cut-rate financial oversight and management?

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Incidentally, there are benefits to hiring a professional CPA beyond that of lessening the risk of an audit. When it comes time to handle the year’s taxes, you’re going to want to make sure that you receive every break that you can possibly get. With the archaic and complicated nature of the tax code, those breaks can remain hidden from all but the most experienced accounting professionals. A respected and established CPA may represent a significant cost to your business. The savings that a CPA brings in terms of finding breaks that less-experienced accountants may miss may make up the difference.

QuickBooks & HVAC Software

That said, there are a number of reasons why you might not want to bring in an outside party to handle your finances. Perhaps your business isn’t yet big enough to justify that investment. Perhaps you feel confident enough in your accounting abilities to balance the company’s books on your own. In these cases, making use of an accounting software solution like QuickBooks to help organize your finances and streamline your operations makes a lot of sense. Far from simple ledger software, QuickBooks can—among other things—track income and expenses, maximize tax deductions, invoice and accept payments, and manage your bills. The program also allows for easy sharing of your books, which allows for seamless collaboration between you and your accountant should you decide to hire one in the future.

One of the most exciting aspects of QuickBooks? The number of HVAC software programs that can pair with it. As an HVAC software for QuickBooks, Smart Service allows you to take control of your HVAC business in ways that you might not have thought possible. Time-consuming tasks prone to error—like scheduling, routing, and dispatching—are made worlds more efficient and accurate by this comprehensive and easy-to-use software solution. Billing mistakes that can haunt your business get eliminated with the integration of digital work orders that create invoices within QuickBooks. These represent but a few of the ways HVAC business software can streamline and simplify your operations. Many more HVAC software features have made it an indispensable tool for HVAC business owners everywhere.

Protect your HVAC Business With Better Accounting Practices

The thought of balancing your books can become an intimidating one, especially when doing so means taking into account all the factors that can affect the finances of your HVAC business. The risk of letting that responsibility fall by the wayside, however, is well-established. At best, you could lose out on deductions and on opportunities to make your business more efficient; at worst, accounting mistakes could cost you your livelihood. Avoid that risk by taking hold of your finances today!