If You’re Still Doing Your Own Bookkeeping at 9PM… Read This
If You’re Still Doing Your Own Bookkeeping at 9PM… Read This
The house is finally quiet.
Your boots are kicked off by the door. There’s a half-finished plate of something on the counter. You sink into your chair, open the laptop, and QuickBooks glares back at you like a judgmental accountant. It’s 9:07 PM.
And instead of relaxing — or spending time with your family — you’re reconciling transactions in QuickBooks, trying to remember what that $482 charge at Bob’s Supply Depot was for. This isn’t what owning a business was supposed to feel like.
If that hit a little too close to home, good. Because this post is for you.
The Real Cost of Doing Your Own Books
“The average contractor spends over 300 hours a year doing their own bookkeeping.”
Here’s the thing: when you’re a service-based business especially in the trades, remodeling, or contracting - your time is already maxed out. You spend your days in the field, solving problems, managing clients, putting out fires, making it all happen.
And then you come home… and your second job starts.
Bookkeeping isn’t just “data entry.” It’s decision-critical financial management. But for most business owners I talk to, it ends up happening after dinner, after the kids go to bed, after the phone stops buzzing. It happens when your brain is fried.
That’s when mistakes happen. That’s when you let things slide “until later.” That’s when stress builds quietly in the background.
🕰️Time is your most valuable asset and bookkeeping is stealing it from you.
Why This Happens to Service Businesses
If you’re a solo owner-operator or just starting to scale (0–1 employees), this might sound familiar:
You wear all the hats — project manager, sales, admin, marketing, and janitor.
You tell yourself doing the books is “just temporary.”
You think you’re saving money.
You believe no one else will care about your numbers like you do.
You think if someone else has access, they will steal from you
All understandable. But here’s the truth: what got you here won’t get you there.
As your remodeling or service business grows in Edmonds or the surrounding areas like Woodway, Mill Creek, Downtown Snohomish - your bookkeeping needs grow exponentially, too. More clients. More invoices. More transactions. More complexity.
And if you don’t upgrade the way you handle your books, they’ll become the single biggest bottleneck in your business.
🕒 The Time Drain Is Real
Let’s do a little math.
Say you spend 5–7 hours a week doing your books at night. Multiply that by 52 weeks. That’s roughly 350 hours a year.
That’s nearly nine full workweeks spent hunched over your laptop doing something you probably don’t even enjoy.
Imagine what you could do with that time:
✅ Sell more jobs.
✅ Work on your business, not just in it.
✅ Train your team.
✅ Spend time with your family.
✅ Or simply have your evenings back.
And it’s not just time. It’s mental bandwidth. Bookkeeping is rarely a flow-state activity. It’s stop-start, second-guessing, Google-searching, error-fixing, “wait-what-did-I-just-do” kind of work. It eats energy.
This Is Especially True for Contractors
Contractors and remodelers have unique bookkeeping challenges:
Multiple jobs running at once
Progress billing and retainage
Vendor deposits, change orders, and credit card chaos
Equipment loans, vehicle financing, and job costing headaches
Seasonal swings and cash flow surprises
Bookkeeping for contractors isn’t generic, it’s specialized. Which is why “just using QuickBooks” after hours eventually stops working.
Why Edmonds Bookkeeping Needs a Local Touch 🌲
If your business operates in Edmonds, WA, or nearby communities like Woodway, Mill Creek, or Downtown Snohomish, you know the landscape is different here. Local permitting, tax nuances, subcontractor structures they all play into how your books should be set up.
Working with a local bookkeeping partner who understands service-based businesses means you’re not just handing off busywork. You’re gaining a strategic partner who knows your world.
What Working With Us Looks Like
At Plumb Financial, we specialize in bookkeeping for contractors, remodelers, and service businesses. We’re not some faceless national firm. We’re right here in Edmonds, working with businesses like yours every day.
Here’s what happens when we take bookkeeping off your plate:
📊 Your books are accurate and up to date, every month.
💬 You get real conversations, not canned reports.
🧠 You make better decisions because you actually trust your numbers.
🕰️ And best of all — you reclaim your time.
Imagine closing the laptop at 5:00 PM, not 9:00 PM. Imagine looking at your books without dread. Imagine not guessing where your cash went. Imagine not needing to open the laptop when you get home!
That’s what clarity and confidence feel like.
👉 Schedule a Free Consultation to see how we can give you back your nights.
The Hidden Costs of Doing It Yourself
The truth is, doing your own books doesn’t save money, it just hides the cost in stress, mistakes, and lost opportunities. Most business owners focus on what they’re “saving” by doing their own books. But here’s what’s usually happening:
Late invoices and slow collections
Missed tax deductions
Disorganized records that make year-end a nightmare
No real insight into job profitability
Expensive “fixes” later when a pro has to clean up your books
I’ve seen contractors spend weeks doing cleanup work before tax season - time they could’ve spent landing their next big job.
A Partnership, Not a Vendor
“Before working with Plumb Financial, I was staying up until midnight every week. Now I know exactly where my cash is and I haven’t touched QuickBooks in months.”
When you work with us, we don’t just “do your books.” We become part of your team. We help you understand the financial story of your business so you can make smarter moves, avoid surprises, and scale sustainably.
We use flat-rate pricing because bookkeeping shouldn’t feel like getting nickeled and dimed. You’ll always know exactly what to expect.
📅 Book a Quick Call today. No pressure. Just a conversation about where you are and where you want to go.
For bookkeeping services in Edmonds, WA, Woodway, Mill Creek, or Downtown Snohomish, finding a bookkeeper who actually gets contractors can feel impossible. That’s why we built Plumb Financial, a bookkeeping service designed for local service businesses who are ready to stop losing time and start building momentum.
Whether you’re a one-person show or starting to build your crew, your books deserve the same level of professionalism you bring to your work every day.
One day, not too far from now, you could close up the job site, head home, and actually relax. No late-night QuickBooks. No guilt. No scrambling.
You could trust that your books are handled. You could make business decisions confidently. You could spend your evenings doing literally anything else.
The first step? One simple conversation.
👉 Schedule Your Free Consultation and let’s reclaim your time.