When something breaks down around the home or office, there is nothing like a solid, reliable repair company. If you are one of the great maintenance companies out there who helps keep the world running smoothly, we salute you. We also offer you this advice for setting up a chart of accounts in QuickBooks that will keep your books running as smoothly as the machines you fix.

Repairs and maintenance companies should have two income accounts: one for services income and another for parts and goods sold. If your company does not sell parts and goods aside from those are used during repairs, then you do not need the parts and good sold account.  If you would like to track how much money you are earning from each job, you can create a new item in QuickBooks for each job that you would like to track.

Since repairing a machine usually means ordering a new part, you should have a cost of goods sold account for any parts that you use during maintenance. As far as expenses go, you should have accounts for any tools that you purchase, along with any large machinery you have to buy or rent.  You can also create expense accounts for meals, office supplies and insurance, as these are common expenses to repair companies.

Where Can I Find More QuickBooks Help?

If you are new to QuickBooks, read our blogs about changing preferences, adding new items, and generating reports.

If you need a QuickBooks refresher, read about how to create a new company, and how to edit your chart of accounts.

To learn about a chart of accounts for another industry, try our post on industry specific charts of accounts.

Download a free PDF on how to customize your QuickBooks file and accounts, please enter your name and e-mail below.