Mike Andes explains why lawn care owners need to review their P&L statements regularly. Most find forgotten subscriptions, duplicate charges, and misclassified expenses like equipment rentals marked as tools. He recommends setting up QuickBooks automation rules and staying hands-on with bookkeeping until the problems are fixed.
If you know the number's wrong, it is. Sure. Like there's almost never a time where I look at a P&L that I'm not managing at the end of the month and I'm like, that looks off. And I click on it and there's not something like, oh, like there's a subscription that we should not be having. There is someone doubled up on payments. Like we put 2 months in one instead of making sure it was every single month. Like it's always, always something. And it's a good way to have your pulse on the business. And you'll never be able to lose control of it if you just know all those things. And I think you do know because you're so still so involved. And this is the time before you start trying to step away to make sure all that's dialed in. Because your bookkeeper, a lot of times they just don't know. They just filed it because like they know you're not going to say anything. So like, they're like, oh, put it in like tools and equipment. And you're like, well, no, like actually that was a rental. That was a piece of rent. Like we rented that. And so there's little things like that that you can iron out and create rules with them in QuickBooks so that when you start stepping back, those things are accurate. So sometimes it's good to take like a year like you are, like not grow as much, systematize little things like that that you're kind of just have swept under the carpet. Sure. Then as you step back, it's being done right.
