Cleaning Services
Labor is 60% of your revenue. If you don't know your true cost per hour, you're guessing on every bid.
Labor Is the Whole Business
You sell hours. That’s what cleaning is. Whether it’s a nightly janitorial contract or a one-time deep clean, the product is people showing up and doing the work. Labor is your single biggest cost, usually somewhere between 50 and 60 percent of revenue. Everything else matters, but nothing matters as much as knowing what each hour of labor actually costs you.
Most cleaning business owners know their hourly pay rate. But that’s not the full picture. Payroll taxes, workers’ comp premiums, paid sick leave, drive time between jobs, training hours. These costs stack up and push your real labor cost well beyond what you’re paying per hour. If you’re pricing jobs based on the wage alone, you’re probably undercharging.
We track labor costs in full so you see the real number. Not just what hits the payroll account, but the total burden per hour. That’s the number you need when you’re bidding work.
California Makes It Harder
Running a cleaning business in California comes with a long list of employment rules. AB5 made it very difficult to classify cleaners as independent contractors. Overtime kicks in after eight hours in a single day, not just forty in a week. Paid sick leave is mandatory. The state does not give you much room for error.
A lot of cleaning businesses get this wrong. They pay workers in cash or issue 1099s to avoid the hassle. It works until the EDD sends a letter. The back taxes, penalties, and interest from a misclassification audit can be enough to shut a small operation down. Getting payroll right from the start is far cheaper than cleaning up the mess later.
Worker Classification
Worker Classification
We help you understand where the line is and make sure your payroll is set up correctly. If your workers are employees under California law, they need to be on the books as employees. No shortcuts.
Workers' Comp and Insurance Audits
Workers' Comp and Insurance Audits
Your workers’ comp premium is based on payroll. When the insurance company audits your books at year end, the records need to match. Clean payroll data means no surprise premium adjustments.
Which Contracts Actually Pay
You have twenty recurring clients. Some are great. Some are a headache. But do you actually know which ones are profitable? That office building downtown might be your biggest contract by revenue, but if the crew spends an extra hour in traffic getting there and the supply costs run higher than average, the margin might be worse than your smallest residential account.
Without tracking costs by job or contract, everything blends together. Revenue looks fine in the bank account, but you can’t tell where the profit comes from. You end up keeping clients that lose you money and underpricing the ones you should be charging more for.
Contract Profitability
Contract Profitability
We track income and expenses by client or job. Labor hours, supplies, drive time. You see the actual margin on each contract instead of a blended average across the whole business.
Bidding with Real Numbers
Bidding with Real Numbers
When you know what it truly costs to clean a 10,000 square foot office, you stop pulling numbers out of thin air. Your bids are based on real data from past work. You win jobs at prices that actually make you money.
Clean Books, Real Answers
Most cleaning business owners come to us in one of two situations. Either they have a pile of unsorted transactions and tax season is approaching fast, or they want to grow and realize they can’t make smart decisions without accurate numbers. We handle both.
If your books are behind, we catch them up. Going forward, we keep everything current so you actually know where your business stands. When you’re thinking about buying a new van, hiring another crew, or figuring out whether that big commercial contract is worth chasing, the answer is in the numbers. We make sure those numbers are there when you need them.
Tax Savings You're Missing
Tax Savings You're Missing
Clean books mean every deduction gets claimed. Equipment, vehicle expenses, supplies, phone bills. We handle tax prep too, so nothing falls through the cracks between your bookkeeping and your return.
Someone in Your Corner
Someone in Your Corner
This isn’t a transactional thing where we send a report and disappear. You have questions about buying equipment, hiring, or whether you can afford to drop a bad client. We’re a phone call away.
Long Beach's CPA for Contractors and Trades
The Next Step:
A Quick Conversation
Tell us about your business and where you need help. We'll ask a few questions, let you know what we can do, and give you a quick quote.