You Build Beautiful Properties.
We Build
Profitable Ones.
Landscape and lawn care companies work hard — but hard work doesn't always mean profitable work. Job costing, equipment costs, and seasonal cash flow are the three financial levers that determine whether your business thrives or just survives.
What's Keeping Your
Business From Being
More Profitable
Landscape companies are busy businesses — but busy doesn't always mean profitable. These are the financial problems we see most often, and fix.
Job Costing & Crew Profitability
You know your top-line revenue, but do you know which jobs, which crew leaders, or which service lines are actually profitable? Most landscape companies don’t track job cost — and they keep bidding and winning work that loses money.
Equipment Depreciation & Replacement
Mowers, trucks, trailers, and equipment are your biggest capital assets. Without proper depreciation tracking and a replacement reserve, you’re constantly surprised by equipment failures and unplanned purchases.
Seasonal Cash Flow
Montana landscape companies face extreme seasonality — peak revenue May through October, then near-zero in winter. Without proper cash flow planning and reserve building, the slow season is always a cash crisis.
Subcontractor vs. Employee Classification
Using 1099 subcontractors for crews is common — and risky. Misclassification exposes you to payroll tax liability, penalties, and worker’s comp claims. We help you understand the risk and structure your workforce correctly.
Materials & Supply Cost Tracking
Plants, mulch, rock, irrigation supplies, and chemicals are significant costs that need to be tracked per job. Without job-level materials tracking, your gross margin calculations are wrong.
Recurring Contract Revenue
Maintenance contracts and HOA agreements provide predictable revenue — but they need to be accounted for correctly (deferred revenue, contract terms, renewal tracking) to give you an accurate financial picture.
Workers' Comp & Insurance
Landscape work is physically demanding and injury-prone. Workers’ comp audits are common, and your payroll records need to be clean and properly classified to avoid audit surprises.
Bidding & Pricing Accuracy
Most landscape companies price based on gut feel and competitor rates. Without actual job cost data, you can’t know if your pricing is covering your true costs — labor burden, equipment cost, overhead, and profit.
What Are You Trying to Solve?
Not every landscape company has the same goal. We work with all of them.
Stop the Cash Crunch
Every November you're scrambling. Every spring you're borrowing to buy materials. We build the cash flow system that ends the seasonal squeeze.
Know Which Jobs Make Money
You're busy, but you're not sure you're profitable. Job costing shows you exactly which service lines, crew leaders, and client types are making money — and which ones aren't.
Build a Business You Can Sell
You've built something real. Whether you want to pass it to a family member or sell to a competitor, we build the financial systems that make your business transferable and valuable.
Not every landscape company wants to grow.Some of our best clients are owner-operators who want to stay at 3 crews — they just want to stop working 70-hour weeks, pay less in taxes, and know their numbers. That's a completely valid goal, and we're good at it.
What a Profitable Landscape
Company Looks Like
Most landscape companies are busy but not profitable — because they don't know their job costs, their overhead rate, or which crews are making money. Here's what it looks like when the financial infrastructure is built correctly.
“We thought our small residential jobs were the easiest money. Turns out our commercial maintenance contracts were twice as profitable per crew-hour. We shifted our mix and margins jumped.”
— Landscape Client, 4-Crew Operation
Job Costing by Crew & Service Line
Every job has a real cost: crew hours, materials, equipment time, and overhead allocation. You know which service lines are profitable and which ones are subsidized by the rest.
Overhead Rate Calculated
Your overhead is allocated to every job. When you bid, you know your true break-even. You're not guessing at markup — you're pricing from a number that actually means something.
Seasonal Cash Flow Planned
You know how much to hold in reserve during the busy season to cover November through March. No scrambling for payroll. No emergency equipment loans.
Owner Out of the Weeds
You're not doing the books on Sunday night. You're not chasing receipts from crew leaders. The financial systems run without you — and report to you monthly.
Services for Landscape Companies
We work in three layers: get the foundation right, then build job-level visibility, then optimize for growth or exit.
Need a one-time project? Our Advisory Services menu includes à la carte projects like job costing setup, overhead rate calculation, and equipment financing prep — priced transparently.
Clean books, correct chart of accounts, and job costing set up so every job has a real cost attached to it.
The insight layer. Which crews, service lines, and client types are profitable — and which ones are quietly costing you.
The strategy layer. Equipment financing, subcontractor compliance, and financial infrastructure for companies ready to scale or sell.
What Changes When We Work Together
We Know What Lenders Need to See for Equipment Loans
Landscape companies live and die by their equipment. When you need to finance a new truck, mower fleet, or trailer, our founder Carrie's commercial lending background is a real advantage. She's reviewed equipment loan applications from the lender's side and knows exactly what a bank needs to approve your request.
We prepare your financials the way a lender thinks — clean books, proper depreciation schedules, and a debt service coverage ratio that tells the right story.
Software We Work With
We integrate with your field management and accounting tools.
What We've Done for Landscape Companies
Real outcomes from real landscaping and lawn care businesses — not projections.
Landscape Company — $1.8M, Montana
Restructured from sole proprietor to S-corp, implemented job costing by crew and property type, and corrected equipment depreciation. Owner saved $16K in year one and cut unprofitable accounts.
Lawn Care & Snow — $2.4M, Idaho
Built a 12-month cash flow model that accounts for seasonal revenue swings, equipment financing, and crew ramp-up costs. Eliminated the annual spring cash crunch that had plagued the business for 5 years.
Commercial Landscaper — $4.1M, Colorado
Built lender-ready financials with job costing and equipment utilization analysis. Secured an $800K equipment line of credit to fund a fleet expansion into commercial snow removal.
What Landscape Companies Say
“I was running 14-hour days and barely breaking even. 406 showed me I had 4 accounts that were losing money. Cut them, raised prices on the rest, and made more money working fewer hours.”
“Every spring was a cash crisis. 406 built me a cash flow model that shows exactly when I need to draw on the line of credit and when I can pay it back. No more surprises.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Free Tool
Payroll Burden Rate Calculator
Know the true cost of every crew member on your payroll — FICA, FUTA, SUTA, workers comp, equipment, and benefits. Stop leaving margin on the table.
Ready to Run a More Profitable Operation?
Whether you're a solo operator or running multiple crews, we build the financial systems that turn your hard work into a profitable, well-run business.
Serving landscape and lawn care companies across Montana and the Mountain West.