Bookkeeper for Moving Companies

What should your books show you?

The books should tell you which moves made money, which ones lost it, and what your business is worth. That means the P&L needs to separate the direct cost of running a job from the overhead that keeps the business open. A bookkeeping system that simply tallies your income and expenses will leave you in the dark.

Think of your books as the operating system for your business. They should let you see the cost of a job at a glance, know how much you've already billed, and understand what's left in the bank. When they don't, the books are just a tax chore. Good bookkeeping takes care of the tax chore and gives you the answers you need to run your business.

What does COGS look like for a mover?

For a moving company, the cost of goods sold (COGS) is the cost of delivering the move. This is not the same as overhead. COGS is the crew labor, the fuel for the truck on that specific move, the packing materials you used, and the cargo insurance you paid. These costs you have to track to know the gross profit of each job.

Overhead, on the other hand, is the administration and sales cost of being in business. This is the office rent, dispatch, marketing, the office manager's salary, and the accountants. These costs support the business as a whole, and they don't vary with a single move. A P&L that mixes in these two makes it almost impossible to see which jobs are actually profitable.

Why track job costs separately?

Because it is the difference between knowing your profit per job and just guessing. The research shows that over half of moving company owners (54%) do not track profit per job, according to the moving software vendor SmartMoving. If you're in that group, you're flying blind on the numbers that matter.

Tracking job costs means you set up your accounting so each job's revenue and job costs are captured together. That way, a local move in Wichita clears 40% gross margin, while a long haul you did last month only cleared 12% because the crew had to drive back empty. When your software can't put that together, you end up with a report that shows the total but not the reason.

Is moving and storage the same business?

It is closer to two businesses sharing one set of books. Moving is job-based and seasonal, one-off jobs that bring in a check. Storage is monthly recurring revenue that shows up automatically. They have different profit profiles, different cost structures, and behave differently over the year.

A good set of books breaks this out separately. For a moving operation, you'd want to see moving jobs in one line and storage rents in another. When they are combined, the seasonal dips of the moving business can be hidden by the reliable storage money, and you can't tell which line of your business is actually carrying the other.

• Moving revenue: local moves, long-distance moves, packing services, special items, corporate relocation.
• Storage revenue: monthly storage fees, access fees, administration surcharges.
• Job costs: crew labor, fuel, truck maintenance, packing materials, per-job insurance.

Once the books separate these, you can see what your real capacity is and whether to reprice each discount. You could also spot that the storage side is subsidizing a move side that is not actually profitable after full cost, which is a decision you can't make unless you know the numbers.

What happens with deposits and claims?

Deposits are money you received before you actually earned it. If a customer puts down a deposit to book a move, that is not revenue yet. It is an unearned liability because you owe the job. The books should log it as a deposit, and then move it into revenue on the day the move is completed.

Claims are the opposite. If you pay a claim as damage, you are incurring a job cost. The accounting question is whether to recognize that cost in the current month or to accrue for it later. A good practice is to set up a fund so the cost of a claim is recognized in the same period as the job that created the risk, not later when it's actually paid.

Which reports matter, and what do they tell you?

The P&L is the report that shows you whether you made money. To manage your business, look at the P&L through three ratios: gross margin, operating margin, and net margin. That's exactly the way the moving software vendor Supermove suggests framing it.

The industry is thin. A 4.3% net margin means you have $4,300 of profit from $100,000 of revenue, which is the industry average net margin reported by IBISWorld, the market research firm. If you can raise your net margin from 4% to 8% on that same revenue, you've more than doubled your profit.

When you don't track your KPIs, 41% of moving company owners don't track them, you're making decisions on guesses. The books are where you get the fact.

What decisions should the books support?

When the books are in shape, they should inform your decisions: how to price your moves, when to hire, whether to buy another truck, and whether to keep running the same jobs you did last month.

• Pricing: Should you charge more for a move of a given size? Look at the job cost data.
• Hiring: Know your crew cost is under control and your admin is still lean, so you can add a salesperson.
• Equipment: Not a new truck before you know how much fuel and repairs the current fleet is eating.
• Service mix: Which lines are worth growing because they cover their costs?

The books should also support an exit. When you sell a moving or storage company, the sale value is based on owner earnings, not revenue, and the market trades at a multiple of those earnings. A messy set of books makes it hard for a buyer to verify your numbers, and that often pushes the price down.

Every dollar that tracks to the right job is not a waste. It is a step toward knowing your real number, and that number is the only one that tells you whether you are growing a business or just running a job.